High speed caused Via train crash in Burlington
Posted March 1, 2012 10:03 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Via Rail passenger train that went off the tracks in a fatal crash in Burlington was travelling at more than four times the authorized speed at the time, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) confirms.
At a news conference in Richmond Hill on Thursday, lead investigator Tom Griffith said the train was switching tracks at around 67 m.p.h. (108 km/h) although the maximum authorized speed at that crossover is 15 m.p.h. (24 km/h).
“While we know the excess speed caused the derailment, this is not the end of the investigation — It’s only the beginning,” Griffith said.
“We need to figure out why. We need to understand the environment in which the crew was operating and why they made the decisions they did.
“Unfortunately the lack of an onboard voice recording will make this investigation more challenging.”
Griffith said the train’s black box — which records speed, brake pressure and whether the whistle was blowing — showed the brakes were not used before the crash. He also said the track signals appeared to be working.
“Were the signals 100 per cent? We don’t know that right now,” he said.
The NDP says Ottawa could have prevented the crash if it adopted technology that automatically slows down trains to a safe speed.
“Rail safety experts agree that incidents like the Burlington derailment would not have happened with positive train control (PTC) in place,” NDP transport critic Olivia Chow said in a statement.”
“How many more tragedies does it take for the Harper government to take action?”
The U.S. Congress made PTC mandatory in 2008 after a major train crash in California.
The NDP blames the Conservative government for ignoring a TSB request nine years ago to make voice recorders mandatory in locomotive cabs.
Three crew members died and 46 people were hurt when the train crashed en route from Niagara Falls to Toronto around 3:30 p.m. Sunday.
A visitation for one of the Toronto engineers, 56-year-old Ken Simmonds, was held in Mississauga on Thursday.
Both Simmonds and victim Peter Snarr, 52, also of Toronto, had more than 30 years’ experience as locomotive engineers. The third victim, 40-year-old Cornwall resident Patrick Robinson, was a new employee on board as an observer.
