Almonte Ontario - The first telegram sent to the Board of Transport Commission arrived at 02:45, some six hours after a troop train had slammed into the back of a passenger train in the town of Almonte.
 
The message indicated that five people had been killed and 15 injured in the crash, but by the time the sun came up, the news was much worse.
 
Colonel C.C. Sibbard, a veteran railway man had received the original telegram.
 
Sibbard was the director of operations for the Commission, the governing body that regulated rail traffic in Canada, and investigated railway accidents.
 
By mid-morning he had yet to receive an update, but newspaper reports were indicating 32 people had been killed and dozens injured.
 
By 10:45 an agitated Sibbard had sent back a telegram to the general manager of Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), Edward Cotterell, asking that he "please rush reply and give correct figures," so he could ascertain the human toll of what was emerging as a major catastrophe.
 
When word came that the crash had left 36 people dead and more than 150 injured, the Almonte train wreck of 27 Dec 1942 would become one of the worst train disasters in Canadian history.
 
Three more people would die in the days following the crash, while many of the most seriously injured would spend months in hospital, some never recovering from the physical injuries they had suffered in the collision.
 
The crash had occurred at 20:38 just as the Pembroke Local, train number 550, was about to depart from Almonte.
 
The Pembroke Local offered daily passenger service between Petawawa and Ottawa, and on this night it was hauling ten wooden coaches, twice the amount of cars it usually pulled.
 
Two additional crew members had been added because of the heavy holiday traffic, and not surprisingly, the train was struggling to stay on schedule.
 
It didn't help that the locomotive was 34-years-old and had a reputation among the crew, who often referred to it as a "cantankerous old hog."
 
As the old engine chugged along the 210 kilometre stretch of track that weaved its way through the Ottawa Valley, it tripped and sputtered on the slippery tracks, particularly when going uphill.
 
As it lost time, its crew had no idea that a much heavier, and faster engine, one that was pulling 12 steel cars loaded with Canadian soldiers, was closing the gap behind them.
 
Since the Second World War had started, the railways were busy moving soldiers and supplies across the country as part of Canada's war effort.
 
Troop trains had a special designation that kept their whereabouts unknown to other trains that were using the tracks.
 
Engineers and conductors of military trains were told to stay 20 minutes back of any passenger trains that they were trailing.
 
The day after Boxing Day had been dreary.
 
As evening fell there was a mix of snow and freezing rain falling.
 
The sleet made it more difficult for the crews to see what was ahead of them.
 
By the time the Local arrived in Almonte, the weather had turned nastier, and the passenger train was running 40 minutes behind schedule.
 
As the train loaded with soldiers made the turn into Almonte, the Pembroke Local was just about to leave the Almonte station.
 
The engineer of the troop train, Lorne Richardson, had slowed his train down, but had now released his brakes, after seeing the green signal light ahead at the station, but Richardson didn't see the red tail lights of the stopped train in front of him.
 
Four days later as the crew members from both trains met with investigators in Smiths Falls, Richardson stated that by the time he saw the reflection of his locomotive's light on the glass door of the last coach on the passenger train, it was too late.
 
Richardson estimated that his train was travelling about 25 miles per hour when he applied the emergency brakes.
 
The brakes took hold but there wasn't enough time to stop.
 
The heavy engine barrelled through the last three cars, ripping the wooden frames to pieces, killing many passengers instantly.
 
Others who survived the crash were violently thrown from the train, left bleeding and broken on the side of the railway bed, or covered under debris.
 
That's what happened to 27-year-old Jean O'Brien.
 
Knocked unconscious when she was ejected from the train, O'Brien awakened lying on her back with a piece of iron grate from a luggage rack on top of her.
 
She was able to move it and walk to a nearby store where she tried to call her father, Charlie Giesebrecht, in Petawawa.
 
Unable to get through and badly injured, she was taken to Almonte's Rosamund Hospital where she would remain for several hours before being transferred to Ottawa.
 
O'Brien and her husband, Harold and the couple's two-year old son Jack, plus Jean's sister, Hilda Raby, had boarded the train in Petawawa after spending the Christmas holiday with their extended family.
 
The two women were part of the Giesebrecht family, a large clan of six boys and seven girls, all of whom had been home for the holidays at their parent's Petawawa house.
 
The O'Brien's had three older children, and had left them with their grandparents, intending to return to Petawawa over the New Year holiday.
 
They said their good byes to the rest of the family and headed off to catch the train.
 
Within a few hours their lives would be shattered.
 
Jean's sister, Hilda, had also survived the crash, but her injuries were much more severe.
 
The two sisters were among dozens of passengers who were taken by a special hospital train to Ottawa where newspaper reporters had ascended to gather eye witness accounts from the injured before they were transported by ambulance to the Ottawa Civic Hospital.
 
Desperate to find her husband and son, Jean asked the reporters if they knew of their whereabouts.
 
Sadly, her husband and little boy had perished in the crash.
 
Part 2: The tragedy makes international headlines and the inquiry begins.
 
Jamie Bramburger.