(The Canadian Press distributed the following article on January 15.)
WHITBY, Ont. — A freight train travelling over a bridge derailed Wednesday night sending massive containers plummeting onto the road, killing two women in a van who were driving by, say Durham Region police.
“It’s crushed right now,” Sgt. Paul Malik said of the vehicle soon after arriving on scene. He said early Thursday that two women died in the freak accident. A CP Rail spokesman said two flat-deck rail cars derailed and 14 of the massive containers they were carrying fell from the train. About half of them tumbled down the embankment to the road, some of them spilling their contents as they spun to the ground, said Paul Thurston.
“Some of them are on either side of the road,” he said of the box containers which were six metres and 12 metres long.
“There is some paper, there’s some other general boxed goods that I can’t quite identify in the dark.”
Another spokesman, Mark Seland, said earlier it was not clear whether any flat-deck rail cars also fell from the overpass.
It was unclear what caused the derailment, however weather conditions were cold and snowy at the time.
Seland said the cargo did not pose a danger to the public and there was no need to evacuate the area, a bedroom community just east of Toronto.
The accident scene, a four-lane road that leads to Highway 401, Canada’s busiest highway, is surrounded by a residential area.
Malik said “everybody” was at the scene but the cold and wet conditions hampered clean-up efforts.
“We’ve got several of our duty inspectors and emergency personnel (there) as well as CP Rail,” he said.
The clean-up effort was expected to last until at least 10 a.m. Thursday morning, he said.
The train was en route to Toronto from Smith Falls, Ont.