BURLINGTON, Ont. — Two of the three Via Rail engineers killed when their passenger train lurched off the tracks were experienced drivers, each with more than 30 years in the industry, the company said Monday as investigators worked to figure out what went wrong.
Peter Snarr, 52, and Ken Simmonds, 56, both of Toronto, were veteran locomotive engineers with decades logged with CN and Via, and were at the train’s controls when the crash occurred Sunday afternoon, the company said.
A third engineer, Patrick Robinson, 40, of Cornwall, Ont., was also killed in the crash. Robinson was in the cab and observing the other two “as part of his familiarization program” when the accident happened in Burlington, west of Toronto.
The train was changing tracks when it derailed, and dozens of passengers were injured.
“This is a truly heart-rending situation for all of us at Via,” chief executive officer Marc Laliberte said in a statement.
“We immediately began to investigate the accident in order to determine the cause or causes, and will continue until we find out what went wrong, and have put in place measures to prevent any such recurrence.”
Via spokeswoman Michelle Lamarche said the train’s black box has been recovered and is being examined by the Transportation Safety Board. The Ministry of Transportation and CN, which owns the track, are also on the scene.
Safety Board investigator Tom Griffith said Monday it’s too early to speculate on the cause of the crash, but promised the board will look into every possible factor, including speed.
“The download (from the box) will tell us exactly what was happening, what the crew was doing on that locomotive,” he said at the scene.
“It will tell us the speed, it will tell us the brake pressure, tell us when the brakes were applied, whether he was blowing the whistle,” he said.
But unlike a plane, the locomotive didn’t have a voice recorder or a camera.
The speed limit for a passenger train along that corridor is about 130 kilometres per hour, but trains are required to slow down while switching tracks, he said.
Train 92 was travelling from Niagara Falls, Ont., when it left the tracks around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday in Burlington — about 100 metres from where a freight train derailed some four years ago.
The train’s manifest listed 75 passengers but emergency officials have said they couldn’t confirm whether it was accurate.
The locomotive and one passenger car flipped onto their sides and crashed into a small building next to the tracks. Another two passenger cars were forced off the rails and came to rest in an L-shape.
The three engineers who died were riding in the cab of the locomotive.
In all, 45 were admitted to hospitals to be treated for injuries ranging from minor to a broken leg, a back injury and a heart attack, Via officials said.
Halton paramedics reported ferrying 32 people to area hospitals. Other jurisdictions were also involved in the medical response.
All but nine people had been released from hospital, Via said.
Trains will continue to be detoured or replaced by chartered bus service on the Toronto-Niagara Falls and Toronto-London-Windsor routes.
GO commuter trains were unable to service the Aldershot station for the Monday morning rush as a result of the crash and were being re-routed through Burlington. Aldershot remained closed until further notice, with a bus shuttle service operating in both directions.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty offered condolences to the families of the victims.
“It’s going to be very important, of course, that we work together with the federal government now to pursue whatever inquiries, investigations are necessary to ensure we better understand what exactly happened here so we can take steps to ensure it’s not repeated,” McGuinty said.
“I’m very confident that (GO trains) are safe. Heroic steps have been taken this morning to ensure that the lines are available for passenger use.”
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath also stressed the importance of learning from the tragedy.
“As time goes by and we learn what happened, we will work to make sure that Ontarians can travel safely in our province.”