(The Brampton Guardian posted the following story by Pam Douglas on its website on August 13.)
BRAMPTON, Ont. — A potential train derailment was avoided during Monday afternoon rush hour when torrential rains washed away an embankment supporting railway tracks beside Kennedy Road, according to police.
A Peel police officer spotted the mudslide on the east end of the railway bridge crossing Kennedy Road just south of Clarence Street at 4:45 p.m. Police contacted CN Rail and two trains– one cargo and one GO Transit– were stopped before reaching the area.
“Two trains were stopped before they could get there,” said Peel police spokesperson Const. Wendy Sims yesterday. “We later heard that a derailment was possible if a train had passed.”
The slide covered the sidewalk on the east side of the road.
The GO train, the first of the evening rush hour trains en route to Georgetown from Union Station in Toronto, was stopped just past the Bramalea GO station. After the tracks were inspected and deemed unsafe, the train was taken back to the Bramalea station.
Passengers were bused to the Brampton or Georgetown stations, the final two stops on the train’s regular run. All other GO trains that followed for the evening stopped in Bramalea and buses were used to get passengers– approximately 6,000 who disembark the train in Bramalea/Brampton and Georgetown daily– to their final destinations, according to GO spokesperson Heather Burnett.
The damage was repaired by CN workers overnight. They brought in three loads of gravel and used a backhoe to do the work.
“They re-established the embankment. It had been washed out to the edge of the track, but the majority of the ballast was still in place,” said Ian Thompson, CN’s director of public affairs.
As for the possibility of a derailment, Thompson said he couldn’t say it would have happened, but said the trains were stopped out of a concern for safety.
“The structure had been weakened to the point that we didn’t want to take any risks,” he said.
By 11 p.m. Monday GO officials were notified that the line would likely be open for yesterday’s morning trains. The repair work was complete by 1 a.m.
There was a 10 to 15 minute delay in morning service while trains were brought from the Bramalea station to Georgetown to begin service, according to Burnett.
All train engineers were issued an order to travel slowly over the spot, a temporary situation while the embankment resettles. Inspections and reassessments of the embankment will be done, Thompson said.
All freight trains were rerouted while repair work was done, he said.
Monday’s afternoon downpour also caused motorists some delays. Flooding closed Rutherford Road S. at about the same time the embankment was washed out. Deep water on the road made it impossible for traffic to pass in the industrial area of Selby Road and under the Rutherford Road bridge north of Selby. Peel police blocked off the road while city and region workers responded to clear away the pooling water. It was suspected a clogged culvert– discovered by a tow truck driver in the area– caused the flooding.
“It (the water) is up to our waists,” said one woman who works in the area of Selby and Rutherford. “We’ve never seen anything like this in our lives. You can’t get your car out of here.”