Canadian Transport Sourcebook

The Railway Accident on the Grand Trunk.

We last night announced that an accident had occurred yesterday morning on the Grand Trunk Railway, through which three lives had been lost. We find the following further particulars in the Toronto Leader:

One of the most fearful railway accidents that has occurred in Canada since the great Desjardins Bridge catastrophe—although not attended with such great loss of life—happened on the Grand Trunk Railway yesterday, at the bridge over the river Credit a short distance east of the village of Georgetown. This bridge is built of iron and solid masonry, and is one of the most extensive and substantial on the line of the Grand Trunk. The stream which it spans is narrow, but the distance between the banks is several hundred feet, the bridge being elevated above the ground about 100 feet for nearly its whole length, and in some places about 125 feet. It is situated about thirty miles west of Toronto. The accident occurred, about eight o'clock in the morning, to a freight train as it was nearing this bridge, and resulted unhappily in the loss of three lives, as well as of two cars, with their contents. The train was an ordinary one, laden with flour, pork, wool and other produce of the West, and was on its way from Sarnia to Portland. It was in charge of Mr. Robert Kennedy, the conductor, and besides himself, the engine-driver (Mr. B. Thompson) and the fireman, there were on board two brakesmen, named G. Waldie and R. Crooksham. On arriving at the Georgetown station, everything connected with the train appeared to be in good working order; and although there was a keen frost during the previous night, it did not appear to have affected the wheels or axles of the cars. Soon after leaving the station, however, and when within two hundred yards of the bridge, the axle of the last car but one suddenly broke. The train was then proceeding at a little less than the ordinary rate of speed, between twelve and fifteen miles an hour, but this was sufficiently rapid to throw the last two cars off the track a few seconds after the breaking of the axle. In the hindmost car the conductor and the two brakesmen named above happened to be gathered at the time, and they were powerless in that situation to do anything towards stopping the train. The cars were dragged along over the sleepers, which they cut through at every bound, and thus increased the danger of being overturned. The engine-driver, in the meantime, knowing nothing of the accident which had occurred, because those in the last car were unable to communicate with him, proceeded towards the bridge at the same rate as before. The locomotive had just crossed it when the fated cars behind entered upon it. They were carried but a short distance further when the couplings which connected them with the cars in front gave way under the unusual pressure upon them. The cars immediately ran off towards the edge of the bridge, and in a moment they toppled over, and with a loud crash were hurled into the awful chasm below. The three unfortunates boxed up in them had no opportunity of escape, and no time, were the means presented to them. They were carried down with the ponderous falling mass, which almost buried itself in the snow and earth—more than one hundred feet below the parapet of the bridge!

It was an appalling catastrophe, and as may be surmised, visited with instant death the poor men who were unfortunate enough to be in the cars. Upon the train being stopped, and the two employees upon it who escaped returning to the scene, they found the cars lying beneath the bridge a mass of ruins, and the bodies of the conductor and brakesmen dead, yet warm, in the midst of the debris. They were terribly mangled, that of Mr. Kennedy especially. His head was completely severed from the trunk, and so badly disfigured that it was quite beyond recognition. The other bodies were also fearfully mangled; and it was evident that in the case of each death must have been instantaneous. The remains were gathered up and conveyed back to the village of Georgetown, where the proper officers were made acquainted with the facts with the view of an inquest being held. The investigation took place last night, but we did not learn whether a conclusion had been come to or not.

The deceased were all residents of Toronto.

Copyright/Licence: This work was first published in 1964 or earlier, and the author of the work was anonymous. To the best of my knowledge, the author of the work was unknown at the end of the year 50 years after the work was published, meaning that this work would be in the public domain in Canada, per section 6.2 of the Copyright Act. Note also this link. See disclaimers.