(The Globe and Mail posted the following story by Siri Agrell and Elaine Marshall on its website on January 16.)
TORONTO — The young Keswick mother killed in Wednesday’s train derailment had opted to spend the night at her aunt’s home in Whitby rather than drive home in a snowstorm.
The snow had already been falling for hours when Christine Harrington, 19, and her aunt Kathleen Kellachan, 36, finished their day’s work at a pharmaceutical company in Toronto.
Ms. Harrington was nervous about driving 45 minutes north to her home in Keswick, where she lived with her mother, Angie, and her three-year-old son, Nolan. Less than two hours later, both she and her aunt were dead, struck by a derailed freight train in a freak accident CP Rail officials are at a loss to explain.
“I don’t understand what happened,” said Moira Harrington, Ms. Kellachan’s older sister. “I want answers. They’ve ruined lives and families.”
She said her sister and niece had been to Wal-Mart before heading home to escape the cold and snow.
Ms. Harrington had started working at Novopharm Biotech two weeks ago, a cafeteria job that allowed her to be close to her aunt, who had worked there as a secretary for years.
Ms. Kellachan lived with her parents in Whitby, a two-minute drive from where Ms. Harrington’s vehicle was crushed by the massive containers that spilled from the derailed train as it left the tracks just before crossing a railway bridge.
Canadian Pacific Railway said it could be weeks or months before investigators can determine the cause of the derailment.
Brock Winter, vice-president of field operations for CP Rail, called the accident “very unusual.”
The accident happened at approximately 7:45 p.m. on Wednesday on Garden Street, just north of Highway 2.
Mr. Winter said the train, travelling at approximately 80 kilometres an hour, was heading northwest to Toronto when the last two freight cars came off the tracks. The cars were carrying seven containers each, filled with household goods and paper products, which fell as the train left the tracks.
Mr. Winter said these types of containers are not affixed to the train, but that their own weight normally keeps them in place.
The 14 loose containers, weighing a total of at least 210 tonnes, and the two derailed cars slid down an embankment on the southeast side of the bridge and on to the road below, destroying the southbound vehicle driven by Ms. Harrington.
Police reports described the vehicle as a van. However, a family member said the pair had been driving an Oldsmobile Alero, a mid-size car.
After hitting the vehicle, the containers continued across the road and up the embankment on the north side, carrying the stricken vehicle with them. The wreckage eventually came to rest at the top of the north embankment.
Sergeant Paul Malik of Durham Regional Police said a second vehicle, driven by a man, was also on the road at the time of the accident. The man was not injured and his car received only minor damage when it was hit by debris.
The train caught fire, but firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze. There were no hazardous materials in the containers.
The crash is being investigated by Durham Regional Police, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and CP Rail. Mr. Winter of CP said the rail company did not yet have any idea on the cause. “It is premature to speculate,” he said.
“We don’t know the cause at this time…. There’s a comprehensive full investigation occurring.”
Though the police say the temperature in the area had dropped to -30C at the time of the accident, Mr. Winter said he did not believe the cold weather to be a factor.
“We operate in cold weather all the time,” he said. “It’s part of how we operate on Canadian Pacific Railway.”
The train was en route to Toronto from the Port of Montreal when the derailment occurred.
Sgt. Malik said it would take crews days to clean up the accident scene.
“We want to advise residents living in the area that crews will be operating heavy machinery over the next few days to remove the debris and begin reconstruction,” he said.
The women’s family was demanding answers yesterday. They were also horrified by a news conference held by CP Rail officials, who stressed the company’s safety record and gave no explanation for the accident.
“I just can’t get over why no one can get the story straight,” said Ms. Harrington through a steady stream of tears.
No one from CP Rail had contacted the victims’ family to explain what happened or apologize for the deaths — a silence they find surprising and insulting.
“We should not have to worry about trains falling from the sky and landing on our families,” said Dan Harrington, Moira Harrington’s husband. “CP has some serious questions that need to be answered and we haven’t heard a thing. Nothing.”
“We’ve got a three-year-old child here that needs to be taken care of the rest of his life,” Mr. Harrington said. “Someone’s got to be held accountable.”
Ms. Harrington’s father, Mike Harrington, remembered the last conversation he had with his daughter when she called home Wednesday asking permission to spend the night in Whitby.
“The last thing I said to her was ‘I love you,’ ” he said through tears. “And she said, ‘I love you, Dad’ and that was it.”
A joint memorial for the women will be held at the Lady of the Lake Church in Keswick at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.
A trust fund was being set up for Nolan Harrington through the Scotia Bank in Keswick.