| Dugald Rail Disaster | |
|---|---|
| Details | |
| Date | September 1, 1947 9:44 p.m. |
| Location | Dugald, Manitoba |
| Country | Canada |
| Line | Transcontinental mainline |
| Operator | Canadian National Railways |
| Incident type | Head-on collision |
| Cause | Disregard of train orders |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 2 |
| Deaths | 31 |
| Injured | 85 |
The Dugald rail accident was a head-on collision between two Canadian National passenger trains on September 1, 1947, in Dugald, Manitoba, Canada, resulting in the deaths of 31 people. [1]
A westbound Canadian National Railways (CN) train, The Minaki Campers’ Special operating as Passenger Extra 6001 West, was a seasonal excursion service carrying vacationers from the Minaki region of Northwestern Ontario on the Monday evening of the Labour Day holiday weekend. It had been given orders at Malachi, Ontario, 100 miles (160 km) east of Winnipeg, to meet train No. 4, the eastbound Continental Limited at Vivian. [2] These orders were later changed, so that the meeting point was relocated 16 miles (26 km) westward for a meet at Dugald, 14 miles (23 km) east of Winnipeg. These second orders had been received at Elma, Manitoba. [2] The eastbound train was led by a CN U-1-d-class 4-8-2 steam locomotive numbered 6046.
By the train order operation rules then in use, Extra 6001 would use the siding at the east switch of Dugald. The conductor of the train reminded the engineer of the Dugald stop one or two miles beforehand, by the air signal line, and received the proper acknowledgement. [2] However, Extra 6001 failed to enter the siding at the east switch, and collided head-on with the stationary eastbound train No. 4 at 9:44 p.m. [3] at approximately 30 miles per hour (48 km/h). [2]
Extra 6001 was composed of U-1-a class 4-8-2 steam locomotive 6001, two steel baggage cars, nine wooden gas-illuminated coaches, and two steel parlour cars. After the collision, the wooden carriages of the vacation train caught fire. Strict rationing of steel during World War II had resulted in old wooden cars being kept in service until newer cars could be purchased. The collision began a series of events that caused fires fuelled by compressed gas from broken lines and tanks on the wood coaches that gutted the wooden cars and set fire to oil tanks near the tracks. With the exception of the engineer and fireman of Extra 6001, who died in the initial collision, the fatalities of this incident were caused by the fire. [4] No fatalities occurred in the vacation train's two rear cars or on the Continental Limited. Both of the locomotives involved were rebuilt and repaired by CN after the wreck.
An inquiry blamed the crew of the vacationers' train for failing to obey orders. The inquiry also determined that the crew's error had been precipitated by their seeing a "clear" signal, which implied that the track ahead was clear, and that the Continental Limited's dimming of its headlamp while waiting in the station lessened its visibility to the oncoming vacation train. This resulted in both the acquisition of modern rail cars and the improvement of rules regarding operations on the line.
The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
Via Rail Canada Inc., operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada.
The Canadian is a transcontinental passenger train operated by Via Rail with service between Union Station in Toronto, Ontario, and Pacific Central Station in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The Super Continental was a transcontinental Canadian passenger train operated by the Canadian National Railway from 1955 until 1977, when Via Rail took over the train and ran it until it was cancelled in 1981. Service was restored in 1985 but was again eliminated in 1990. The original CN train had a Montreal–Ottawa–Toronto-Winnipeg–Saskatoon–Edmonton–Jasper–Vancouver routing with daily service.
On February 8, 1986, in what is now part of Yellowhead County, Alberta, Canada, 23 people were killed in a collision between a Canadian National Railway freight train and a Via Rail passenger train called the Super Continental, including the engine crews of both trains. It was the deadliest rail disaster in Canada since the Dugald accident of 1947, which had 31 fatalities, and was not surpassed until the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in 2013, which resulted in 47 deaths.
Dugald is a community in Manitoba, Canada, located 10 kilometres east of Winnipeg at the junction of PTH 15 and Provincial Road 206 in the Rural Municipality of Springfield. It was the site of a railway accident in 1947.
Minaki is an unincorporated area and community in Unorganized Kenora District in northwestern Ontario, Canada. It is located at the point where the Canadian National Railways transcontinental main line crosses the Winnipeg River, between Wade to the west and Ena Lake at the east, and was accessible only by rail until about 1960. It was a fuelling and watering point in the days of steam locomotives; now few trains stop in Minaki, though the thrice-weekly Via Rail transcontinental Canadian passenger trains will stop on request at the Minaki railway station.
The Canadian National U-1-a U-1-b class locomotives were three subclasses of 37 4-8-2 Mountain-type steam locomotives built for the Canadian National Railways between 1923 and 1924. They were retired between 1951 and 1962.
The Canoe River train crash occurred on November 21, 1950, near Valemount in eastern British Columbia, Canada, when a westbound troop train and the eastbound Canadian National Railway (CNR) Continental Limited collided head-on. The collision killed 21 people: 17 Canadian soldiers en route to the Korean War and the two-man locomotive crew of each train.
An accident occurred on the four-track mainline of the New York Central Railroad at 10:02 P.M. on March 27, 1953, 2.4 miles (3.9 km) east of Conneaut, Ohio. It began when an improperly secured load of pipe broke loose from a gondola car on an eastbound freight train, damaging the westbound passenger track. A passing westbound freight crew notified the first train and stopped to assess what had happened, but a fast westbound passenger train could not stop and was derailed by the damaged track, colliding with the adjacent westbound freight. Finally, an eastbound fast passenger train struck the derailed equipment from the first two trains. There were 21 deaths and 49 people were injured.
The Bryn Athyn train wreck occurred on December 5, 1921, when a head-on collision occurred on a single line of track near Bryn Athyn station in Pennsylvania, United States. The collision resulted in a fire and claimed 27 lives while injuring 70 others.
