ROGERS PASS, British Columbia — A Canadian Pacific train derailed after being struck by an avalanche over the weekend.
At 8:30 p.m. on Dec. 21, a CP intermodal train was struck by an avalanche on Rogers Pass in British Columbia’s Glacier National Park. Seven cars derailed in the incident and no one was injured, spokeswoman Salem Woodrow tells Trains News Wire.
The rail line was closed until the evening of Dec. 22 as crews rerailed the cars and cleared the avalanche.
Avalanches are common in the Canadian Rockies and CP takes a number of actions to mitigate the risk of slides impacting its operations, according to its annual winter preparedness plan. The railroad employs avalanche forecasters and, in instances where the danger for slides is high, will trigger them with a device known as a “DaisyBell” to reduce the risk. A DaisyBell hangs below a helicopter and can shoot pressure waves that trigger slides. In instances where an unexpected avalanche impacts the railroad, the company keeps people and equipment at the ready to clear a path through the slide. “Avalanche recovery is critically important to ensuring the fluidity of our network. In the event of an unplanned avalanche, we have crews and equipment in place to recover quickly,” the company’s winter plan reads.
The CP has been dealing with avalanches on Rogers Pass for more than a century. On March 4, 1910 — just three days after 96 people were killed in the Wellington, Wash. avalanche disaster on the Great Northern Railway — a slide on Rogers Pass struck a work train, killing 62 people. The CP later built the 5-mile Connaught Tunnel beneath Mount Macdonald.
