TSB says fatal train derailment started on its own

CALGARY — A Canadian Pacific freight train parked on a frigid night in the Rocky Mountains began to move on its own before a derailment that killed three workers and sent 99 grain cars and two locomotives hurling off the track.

The Transportation Safety Board says the westbound train had been parked on a grade with its air brakes applied for two hours near Field, B.C., just west of the Alberta-B.C. boundary, when it started rolling. The handbrakes were never applied.

“It was not anything the crew did,” senior investigator James Carmichael said Tuesday.

“The train started to move on its own.”

He said the Calgary-based crew was taking over the train east of Field on Monday because the previous workers were nearing maximum work hours. The new crew was not yet ready to depart when the train started moving at about 1 a.m.

He said the train consisting of 112 cars and three locomotives was carrying grain to Vancouver and gained speed well in excess of the 32 km/h maximum for the tight turns in the mountain pass.

It barrelled along for just over three kilometres before it derailed at a curve ahead of a bridge over the Kicking Horse River.

Only 13 cars and the tail-end locomotive remained on the tracks.

“The lead locomotive came to rest on its side in a creek and a number of derailed cars came to rest on an embankment,” said Carmichael.

“The remaining cars, including the mid-train remote locomotive, piled up behind.”

The crew was in the lead unit, which was severely damaged. Carmichael said the data recorder had not yet been retrieved from that locomotive.

The railway identified the men who died as conductor Dylan Paradis, engineer Andrew Dockrell and trainee Daniel WaldenbergerBulmer.

The derailment happened between the Lower and Upper Spiral Tunnels in Yoho National Park, which were built 110 years ago to help trains traverse the treacherously steep Kicking Horse Pass.

“This territory’s among the most challenging railway territory in North America,” said Carmichael. “Investigators and others are