The most serious rail accident in recent Canadian history…The Foisy Commission which investigated the accident concluded that the freight train crew was largely responsible along with CN’s culture at the time. But to my knowledge the VIA train crew was never implicated in the accident although I’ve read the VIA crew apparently never applied the brakes even when passengers on board could clearly see that a collision was imminent. Had the VIA train applied its emergency braking then perhaps at the very least the collision would have been less forceful and lives could have been saved. Yet none of the reports I’ve read discuss the VIA crew’s actions while all three members of the freight were found at fault. Maybe they too were asleep or somehow incapacitated.
While this may be of special interest to you, most of the rest of us have no knowledge of this incident. Further factual details would be appreciated, perhaps a link to a official accident report concerning the incident.
The attached is the wikipedia article on it… lots of other info available on the web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinton_train_collision
Alot changed as a result of this accident …the worst in recent Canadian history I believe.
Balt:
Here is a ‘Wiki’ linked article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinton_train_collision
“… As an intro from that site: The Hinton train collision was a railway accident that occurred on February 8, 1986. Twenty-three people were killed in a collision between a Canadian National Railway freight train and a Via Rail passenger train. It was the most lethal Canadian rail disaster since the Dugald accident of 1947. It was surmised that the accident was a result of the crew of the freight train becoming incapacitated, and the resulting investigations revealed serious flaws in CN’s employee practices…”
And reaching back somewhat to a Post by Cliqueofone on October 24,2004 (as cut and pasted) some more insight on the collision of the VIA’s SuperContinental, and a CNR Freight :
"…Here is another switch story that happened at Hinton, Alberta, Canada on February 8, 1986. A westbound freight went past a red signal, through a switch and onto single track where it had a [Head-on] cornfield meet with an eastbound passenger. Many lives were lost and the outcome from the investigation forever cha
This one is also interesting…
http://www.railways.incanada.net/Articles/Article2005_7.html
One of the biggest changes resulting from the inquiry into the Hinton accident was in the replacement of the deadman pedal with the Safety Reset Device. VIA Rail lagged CN and CP in its implementation.
Could such an accident happen today?
BNSF Godell, OK this Spring
It happened in Canadaland (that’s the one to the North)
National Geographic channel had a program called Air Crash investigations/Mayday with an episode called Impact on the Rails that delt with this accident. I tried linking to it on youtube, but couldn’t get the link to work. It’s there for anyone who wants to see it, or check NatGeo on cable. They rerun it time to time.
Jeff
Isn’t that Canuckistan?
Well you got Oklahoma right. It was the UP in Goodwell, OK.
According to this TV show, the Engineer died of a heart attack in the toilet and the Fireman was asleep. The Conductor was in the caboose and survived. He was interviewed but had no memory of the crash.
According to NatGeo, the Engineer had a bad heart, was diabetic and was an alcoholic. They said any one of these conditions should have disqualified from being an engineer.
That’s their version. I have no idea if it’s accurate or not.
That program also has an episode dealing with the wreck at Dugald, MB that is linked to in Sam’s post above. That is a very good episode that would definitely be of interest to the type of folks who post on these forums. It is out of necessity more technically oriented than the more layman oriented episode on the Hinton, AB crash.
To set the scene I will copy one paragraph from the Wikipedia article Sam linked to:
Extra 6001 was composed of U-1-a class locomotive 6001, two steel baggage cars, nine wooden gas-illuminated coaches, and two steel parlor cars. After the collision, the wooden carriages of the vacation train caught fire. Strict rationing of steel during World War II had resulted in old wooden cars being kept in service until newer cars could be purchased. The collision began a series of events that caused fires fueled by compressed gas from broken lines and tanks on the wood coaches that gutted the wooden cars and set fire to oil tanks near the tracks. With the exception of the engineer and fireman of Extra 6001, who were killed by the initial collision, the fatalities of this incident were caused by the fire. No fatalities occurred in the vacation train’s two rear cars or on the Continen
After I made the above post I realized the show on the Dugald, MB wreck of 1947 was on a different program called “Disasters Of The Century” (here in Canada) on our History Channel, which seems to be a combination of the US History Network, and A&E. When you see “Mayday” (on our Discovery Channel) or “Disasters Of The Century” you find it hard to believe they are not made by the same people.
Bruce