THIS DAY IN JOURNAL HISTORY
Dec. 15, 1950: Soldiers injured in Jasper-area train wreck flown home for Christmas
An RCAF Dakota aircraft left Edmonton carrying 15 members of the 2nd Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, who had been injured three weeks earlier when their westbound troop train collided with an eastbound passenger train.
Twenty-one men — 17 Canadian soldiers en route to Korea, as well as the two-man locomotive crews on each train — died Nov. 21 near Canoe River, B.C., west of Jasper. The injured soldiers were transferred to Edmonton hospitals for treatment.
Interviewed before takeoff, the happy soldiers expressed thanks for the efforts of Dr. P.S. Kimmett of Edson and his wife, a nurse.
The Kimmetts, who were aboard the passenger train, supervised efforts to assist 50 injured people, despite having almost no supplies or trained personnel. The soldiers also thanked the medical staff at the Mewburn Veterans Centre in Edmonton, as well as the townspeople of Jasper.
Except for the engine and coal car, which were demolished, there was little damage to the passenger train. But one dining car on the troop train was used as a hospital, another as a morgue.
Their wounded soldiers’ flight would stop at Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal, before continuing the next day to Halifax and St. John’s. The plan was to place them in military hospitals close to their homes so they could spend Christmas with their families.
In the wake of the crash, the CNR installed block signals on that particular stretch of track and later realigned the main line in that area, eliminating a sharp curve that prevented crews from seeing oncoming trains. To read more stories from the series This Day in Journal History, go to edmontonjournal.com/history.