Burlington Via Rail train derailment kills three, injures dozens
Two locomotive engineers and a trainee are dead, and three passengers seriously injured, after a six-car Via Rail passenger train came off the rails on a straight track in good weather Sunday afternoon near Burlington, Ont.
Police shut down a major highway that passes over the tracks near the crash site to allow air ambulances to land and take off, ferrying two people to Hamilton General Hospital, which declared a code orange for an "external disaster."
The bodies of the three engineers were removed from the locomotive at 8 p.m.
As of 9 p.m., only 50 of the train's 75 passengers had been located. It appeared numerous passengers had "self evacuated," said Halton Regional Police Chief Gary Crowell, speaking at a press conference.
Of 75 passengers, 42 were injured, including a child; they were taken to four hospitals in Hamilton and Mississauga
The three most seriously injured suffered a broken leg, a back injury and a heart attack. A crew member in the body of the train was also among the injured.
One passenger was reportedly ejected from the train through a broken window.
"It's very tragic for us," said Via spokeswoman Michelle Lamarche. "Of course Via is co-operating [with a Transportation Safety Board investigation]."
Passenger Deanna Villella, 40, of Welland, Ont., told the Canadian Press she felt a slight bump before luggage started flying and her car started to roll over.
"It was like a plane crash," she said. "The cars were completely twisted and on their sides. It was awful."
The rescue was complicated by some passengers who escaped the wreckage on their own and walked away, but a Via official said everyone had been accounted for. Uninjured passengers were taken by bus to Toronto's Union Station, their original destination.
"We are a small company. We are very close, and so we know everyone by name," said John Marginson, chief operating officer of Via Rail. The names of the dead have not yet been released.
Mr. Marginson could offer no explanation for the crash, but he ruled out the effect of weather, and said an investigation by the Transportation Safety Board would likely focus on the train's black box, which records speed and mechanical data.
In aerial views of the scene, the six rail cars can be seen still attached, to each other, but the second and third are jackknifed across the tracks at a right-angle to each other, and the first came to rest against a trackside building, lying on its right side.
It was in this car that the three deaths occurred.
Police shut down a major highway that passes over the tracks near the crash site to allow air ambulances to land and take off, ferrying two people to Hamilton General Hospital, which declared a code orange for an "external disaster."
The bodies of the three engineers were removed from the locomotive at 8 p.m.
As of 9 p.m., only 50 of the train's 75 passengers had been located. It appeared numerous passengers had "self evacuated," said Halton Regional Police Chief Gary Crowell, speaking at a press conference.
Of 75 passengers, 42 were injured, including a child; they were taken to four hospitals in Hamilton and Mississauga
The three most seriously injured suffered a broken leg, a back injury and a heart attack. A crew member in the body of the train was also among the injured.
One passenger was reportedly ejected from the train through a broken window.
"It's very tragic for us," said Via spokeswoman Michelle Lamarche. "Of course Via is co-operating [with a Transportation Safety Board investigation]."
Passenger Deanna Villella, 40, of Welland, Ont., told the Canadian Press she felt a slight bump before luggage started flying and her car started to roll over.
"It was like a plane crash," she said. "The cars were completely twisted and on their sides. It was awful."
The rescue was complicated by some passengers who escaped the wreckage on their own and walked away, but a Via official said everyone had been accounted for. Uninjured passengers were taken by bus to Toronto's Union Station, their original destination.
"We are a small company. We are very close, and so we know everyone by name," said John Marginson, chief operating officer of Via Rail. The names of the dead have not yet been released.
Mr. Marginson could offer no explanation for the crash, but he ruled out the effect of weather, and said an investigation by the Transportation Safety Board would likely focus on the train's black box, which records speed and mechanical data.
In aerial views of the scene, the six rail cars can be seen still attached, to each other, but the second and third are jackknifed across the tracks at a right-angle to each other, and the first came to rest against a trackside building, lying on its right side.
It was in this car that the three deaths occurred.
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