(The Canadian Press circulated the following article on May 16.)
McBRIDE, B.C. — The remains of two people were found in a train wreck at the bottom of a ravine yesterday after crews finally doused a fire that had been raging for 24 hours.
“Two people are dead and the families have been notified,” said RCMP spokesman Pierre Lemaitre.
The bodies are believed to be those of the train’s brakeman and engineer, both of Prince George, B.C. Lemaitre said he was waiting for the coroner, who was working at the scene last night, to give the final word on the identities of the bodies.
The crew members were the only two aboard the CN Rail freight train when it plunged off a trestle in a remote area about 500 km northeast of Vancouver.
The train was travelling on the CN northern line that links Prince Rupert, on the B.C. coast, to Edmonton.
CN spokesman Jim Feeny said the locomotive started out from Prince George and was headed for Winnipeg.
The first six cars of the 86-car train plummeted into a ravine when it crossed over a trestle bridge.The bridge collapsed under the train and crumbled into the ravine with the cars, but it is not known what caused the accident.
The cars that went over were full of lumber and the crash ignited a fire that blazed through the night.
Work crews were forced to build a road to the isolated location near the Alberta border and beside the Fraser River. “The road allowed us to bring in personnel and equipment and the priority was to put out the fire,” Feeny said.
“There were still flames at the derailment site (yesterday) morning (but) the fire was mostly extinguished.”
Feeny said the remaining cars were pulled back by a locomotive sent from Prince George.
Investigators from the federal Transportation Safety Board, Transport Canada and the railway were on the scene, said Feeny.
The accident disrupted the schedule for Via Rail passenger service, which uses that line for a train between the resort town of Jasper and Prince Rupert.
“So for approximately the next three to five days we will be busing our passengers between Jasper and Prince George and then from Prince George to Prince Rupert until we have regular rail service,” said spokesman Catherine Kaloutsky.
CN Rail suffered a similar tragedy in March 1997.
Two Kamloops, B.C., employees died when a train hit washed-out tracks in the Fraser Canyon east of Vancouver and fell into a ravine.