GATINEAU, Quebec — A VIA Rail Canada train came within about 1,100 feet of a head-on collision with a Canadian National freight train in an April 2023 incident, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said in an investigation report released today (Wednesday, Oct. 16). In the report, the agency renewed its call for Canada to require a system similar to positive train control in the United States.
“Even though the TSB has been calling for this for almost 25 years,” the agency said in a press release accompanying the report, “the Canadian railway industry continues to rely solely on administrative defenses to protect against train crews not responding appropriately to signal indications.” Multiple investigations have demonstrated, the TSB said, “that the current defenses in place are not enough to prevent adverse outcomes.”
The incident occurred April 13, 2023, at about 2:51 p.m. on CN’s Kingston Subdivision near Cornwall, Ontario. CN train 372 was traveling eastbound with two locomotives — one at the head end and a midtrain distributed power unit — and 126 cars, including 16 loaded with hazardous materials, while VIA Train No. 67, with a locomotive, four coaches, and 167 passengers aboard, was en route from Montreal to Toronto.
Approaching a signal at mile 71.6 on the south track of the two-track main line, the freight train’s crew members were discussing where to set out a car that needed repairs, and missed a Clear to Stop signal indication, which requires them to be ready to stop at the next signal. Unprepared for the stop indication at the next signal, which they did not positively identify until about 500 feet away, the crew ran past that signal at 43 mph despite an emergency brake application when they recognized the situation. The crew immediately made an emergency radio broadcast. The train eventually stopped some 1,786 past the signal at approximately mile 69.1.
The engineer of the VIA train, which was on the same (south) track as the freight train but was preparing to cross to the north track, heard the emergency broadcast and brought his train to a stop short of the freight train, which had traveled past the point where the passenger train was to cross over. The TSB found that the emergency broadcast by the freight train’s crew allowed the VIA crew to stop in time to avoid a collision at mile 69.9.
In its final investigation report, the TSB notes that it has been calling for “physical fail-safe defenses” since 2000, and that while Transport Canada and the rail industry have been discussing the issue, “the pace of development is slow.” The agency strongly urged the transport agency and rail industry to accelerate the development of a fail-safe train control system on “high speed rail corridors and all key routes in Canada.”
There was no one to bleed so the problem will probably be ignored.
Even though the crew of 372 was clearly at fault, their announcement on the radio prevented a disaster.
I wish that a crew had made radio warnings on the afternoon of January 6, 2012 after a rear end collision. It would have given a third train enough time to prevent, or reduce the severity of, a secondary collision 2 minutes later. Yep, I was on the third train.