Tragic derailment of corridor train

That look like an F-40. Is it typical to have 4 employees in the cab on VIA?

ThirdRail7 wrote:That look like an F-40. Is it typical to have 4 employees in the cab on VIA?

The cbc article linked above stated that one of the employees was a trainee, thus the reason it had 4.

Fellas, thanks for some good discussion but we probably should send this over to the Via forum now that we've established it wasn't anything to do with the Leaf.

ARBKAL wrote:

ThirdRail7 wrote:That look like an F-40. Is it typical to have 4 employees in the cab on VIA?

The cbc article linked above stated that one of the employees was a trainee, thus the reason it had 4.

There were three in the cab: the two engineers and a trainee. The fourth crew member was the service manager and he or she would be in the coaches. There was at least one news report saying there was a fifth crew member on board. In the summer months food and beverage service is provided on train 92 and a service attendant is carried for that purpose. A recent news headline says the TSB representative who hosted a briefing said the trainee could have been in control of the train. This is somewhat misleading. I watched that interview. The man was asked a leading question: if it was possible that the trainee was driving the train and he replied it was possible but no-one knows at this point.

Everyone: I learned about this accident after receiving Newsday (Long Island) this morning...
They had an aerial photo posted on Page 6 and a article about the accident from the AP...
In the Toronto G&M photo section on this accident it was photo #30...(Mon. 2/27)

The first thing I thought of was that it was an accident involving a vehicle at a nearby grade
crossing...but in reports nothing was mentioned and I later noticed the switches nearby...
Was the train crossing over at the time of the accident?

I remember that the busy Hamilton-Oakville-Toronto main line has grade crossings even with
it as busy as it is...Does anyone know if any move to eliminate those grade crossings is being
done? I do feel that if this line gets electrified in the future a move to do this should be done...

I noted that the event recorder has been found and hopefully it will help find the cause of this
tragic accident...My condolences to the VIA Rail employees who were involved...

This accident was serious enough to literally tear the trucks off of F40 #6444...In the one picture
that was printed in LI Newsday I could not tell what type of locomotive was involved until I looked
at other pictures of the accident...I identified that there were 5 LRC cars on the train...

MACTRAXX

May all the via employees rest in peace. I don't want to make this thread more depressing but I read a report that stared the loco slid into a building.

Here is the said article http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/b ... ent-begins

marquisofmississauga wrote:

ARBKAL wrote:

ThirdRail7 wrote:That look like an F-40. Is it typical to have 4 employees in the cab on VIA?

The cbc article linked above stated that one of the employees was a trainee, thus the reason it had 4.

There were three in the cab: the two engineers and a trainee. The fourth crew member was the service manager and he or she would be in the coaches. There was at least one news report saying there was a fifth crew member on board. In the summer months food and beverage service is provided on train 92 and a service attendant is carried for that purpose. A recent news headline says the TSB representative who hosted a briefing said the trainee could have been in control of the train. This is somewhat misleading. I watched that interview. The man was asked a leading question: if it was possible that the trainee was driving the train and he replied it was possible but no-one knows at this point.

I would be really surprised if this accident was due to human error of the operating crew, not saying its impossible but with 3 people in the cab that leaves plenty of eyes that should be looking out.

As per the article above, the train was negotiating a crossover, due to maintenance work being done on the mainline(?)track. A good article w/graphics by the National Post, unusual for the tradmed nowadays re. railway matters.

MACTRAXX wrote:Was the train crossing over at the time of the accident?

Yes, according to the latest reports the train was crossing over from track 2 to track 3 (north to south) at the time. The train had also just completed its station stop at Aldershot, less than a mile back, so it should not have been moving very fast.

I remember that the busy Hamilton-Oakville-Toronto main line has grade crossings even with it as busy as it is...Does anyone know if any move to eliminate those grade crossings is being done?

Construction of the King Road underpass has already started. There has been some speculation that this may have been a contributing factor in the incident.

Hopefully the switch gets rated for the higher speeds though. In the link I posted it said the switch should be taken at 15mph.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/s ... ctims.html

Also, the vicinity of the grade crossing (I've actually been by there) raises my eyebrow. They could have struck something & it didn't have an effect till they took the switch. It could have also picked the switch which could have put excessive lateral forces into play. It is odd that the truck got ripped off the F40, I wonder if the loco was traveling on one side & the weight sheared off the bolts.

I guess we'll just have to wait for an official cause.

What I find interesting is the note in the article (actually in the diagram attached to the article) that the front truck went a good 200 meters past the wreck site.

Is it possible for a bogie to travel that far derailed?

And if not, how on earth does a multi-hundred-thousand pound locomotive "fall off its truck", and leave said truck still on the rails?

Volks, how say we let the Canadian investigative agency do their work; from postings I've reviewed at other sites, it appears like the (US) NTSB, "they know their stuff".

I just hope it wasn't human error. I'm reminded of a certain Metra train that took a 15mph crossover too fast. The hard part is that the three people who could tell the most are not able to shed any light on anything now....

I've been on many a train on the Oakville Sub that has departed Aldershot on Track 2 and been up to a pretty good speed by the time it reached King Road (on a straight move on Track #2)....

Gilbert B Norman wrote:Volks, how say we let the Canadian investigative agency do their work; from postings I've reviewed at other sites, it appears like the (US) NTSB, "they know their stuff".

Don't worry, nothing here will stop the Canadians from doing a good job. If anyone has any experience or knowledge that could help dear readers here to understand how such a thing could happen it would be good to see their posts.