March 12, 2007 - 32 cars of a 142-car freight train went off the tracks near Kingston, Ont., disrupting service in the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa corridor.
"A mere thousand feet was the difference between a big mess and what could have been a tragedy as a CN train went off the rails in Ontario for the second time this month.
"It's amazing it didn't hit the train station," said Kingston police Const. Mike Menor, describing the 32-car train derailment that occurred yesterday at about 6:30 a.m. The 142-car CN freight train pulled by four locomotives jumped the tracks just after passing the Kingston VIA Rail passenger station at John Counter Blvd., northwest of Kingston's city core.
"We can count our blessings," Menor said yesterday over the phone in the late afternoon, while at the scene.
"I've never seen anything like this. It's like a war zone."
Menor said more than 200 people were working on a cleanup involving plywood, recycled wastepaper and molasses, as well as a light petroleum product used for cutting metal, which threatened to leak into nearby Cataraqui Creek. It was not diesel, as was reported earlier, Menor said.
"It didn't get too far before they were able to vacuum it up."
Most of the 32 cars lost parts or all of their cargo.
VIA Rail had to order a shutdown of passenger trips in both directions between Toronto and Ottawa, and Toronto and Montreal, expected to last into this morning.
Four of the 22 trains slated to travel those routes left as scheduled yesterday but had to stop in Belleville or Brockville so passengers could disembark and be taken the rest of the way by chartered bus. The other 18 trains yesterday were replaced by charter bus service, delaying passengers by up to three hours, said a VIA spokesperson.
All train service will resume this morning except for the first morning trains leaving Ottawa and Kingston. Passengers for those trains will be served by bus. The first train from Kingston departs at 5:25 a.m. and the first train from Ottawa leaves at 6 a.m.
CN spokeswoman Julie Senécal said she could not comment on whether the cause of either yesterday's accident or one near Pickering on March 1 was related to bad weather or the strike by the company's union members.
"The Pickering derailment as well as the one (yesterday) are both under the investigation of transportation safety board," she said. "So it is too soon to speculate on the cause of those two accidents."
On March 1, a CN train ran off the tracks near the Pickering junction around 11 a.m., starting commuter headaches early on a day when a nasty winter storm paralyzed much of the city.
The 105-car freight train, which was carrying two cars loaded with batteries, hydrochloric acid and phosphoric acid, derailed between Brock and Westney Rds.
That stopped all eastbound railway traffic between Pickering and Oshawa and GO commuters were rerouted to buses." (
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