Hand brakes ordered for trains after deadly derailment in B.C.

CALGARY— Days after a Canadian Pacific Railway train began sliding down a steep pass near Field, B.C. — killing all three crew members — federal Transport Minister Marc Garneau has issued an order requiring all trains in similar situations to also use hand brakes when stopped on mountain grades.

Before the train derailed, hurtling down one of the steepest grades in Canada before coming off the track and plunging 60 metres into the Kicking Horse River, it had sat for two hours in the bitter cold outside a remote mountain station.

It then “began to move on its own,” according to the Transportation Safety Board (TSB), quickly speeding out of control with three people aboard. None of the train’s hand brakes had been set — a system that is labour-intensive to apply, but would have been the best way to ensure the 112-car grain train didn’t roll down the slope, according to several experts interviewed by Star Calgary.

The TSB said the train had only its air brakes engaged in what’s called emergency application, meaning they’d recently been applied to stop the train quickly, but needed to be recharged before they could be used again. Garneau’s ministerial order under the Railway Safety Act will apply to trains in the same situation.

“This order takes effect immediately and will remain in effect as long as necessary,” Garneau said in a statement from Transport Canada on Friday.

Canadian Pacific had already issued similar instructions to its crews before the minister’s announcement.

According to a bulletin sent to CP’s operations staff Wednesday and obtained by Star Calgary, train crews who’ve used their air brakes in emergency to stop on a mountain grade must also apply hand brakes in 25 of a stopped train’s cars.