(The following appeared on the National Post website on February 26, 2011.)
Shortly after 5:30 a.m. on March 21, 2009, a Canadian National Railway Co. freight train destined for Montreal derailed outside Brighton, Ont., a small town about two hours east of Toronto.
In all, six rail cars were ripped off the tracks — three carrying hazardous materials — after the train, which stretched nearly 2.7 kilometres, came to an unexpected and abrupt stop. This forced some of the heavier cars in the back of the train to crash into some lighter ones closer to the front, causing the knuckle connecting them to break.
There were no injuries or hazardous materials spilled, but the accident did catch the eye of regulators. Not because of its impact, but because of the sizeable length of the train involved, how it was built, and the echo it carried of previous accidents involving these longer, heavier trains that are increasingly populating the country’s largest railways.
The full story appears at www.NationalPost.com.