Thursday, January 01, 2009

No VIA In The Maritimes

VIA Press Release. There was a CN derailment "near Villeroy, Quebec" (east of Trois Rivieres, Quebec) that has interrupted all VIA Rail service east of there. The Ocean and Chaleur have been interrupted and alternate transport is being arranged. The press release says that train 614 will leave Montreal tomorrow, January 2 at 5 AM.

From the Montreal Gazette:

About 70 homes were evacuated after freight cars derailed late Wednesday night on the Canadian National railway tracks at Villeroy, halfway between Drummondville and Quebec City. Most of the 32 freight cars that jumped the tracks were empty, but one wagon struck a nearby propane reservoir, raising fears of an explosion.

The cause of the derailment is not yet known, a CN spokesperson said.

Work on the line is expected to disrupt train traffic today between Montreal and Quebec, he said.

Most residents who had been evacuated returned to their homes early Thursday morning.

No one was injured in the train derailment.


Theoretically, they could detour over MM&A and NBSR through Maine, but that is not going to happen.

4 comments:

Brian B. said...

Hi Steve,

Your mention of CN detouring traffic via NBSR / MM & A, if they needed that option, reminded me of an occurrence on February 10th, 2004.

On that date, I saw a NB Southern westbound at McAdam, with 4 units.......#'s 2318, 3700, 2317, and 2319 and 50 cars. There had been a CN derailment ( can't recall the location ),that impeded traffic to / from the Maritimes for several days. I had heard rumours of some possible detour CN traffic over NBSR and that train I saw on Feb. 10th / 04, must have been such for at least two reasons.......the entire 50 car consist were boxes( several with Wisconsin Central reporting marks ) and the train did not stop in McAdam, for the usual crew change or set offs / pickups.

Charles Hastings said...

Hi Steve,

Great post and all I have to say about that is No surprise! CN seems to have a derailment every month or so with these monster size trains. You can only cut costs to a certain degree! It would be nice to see a VIA train run across Maine again but I wonder how difficult it would be to cross the border. I bet the passengers on the train would love the transit time being almost 12 hours shorter!!

Canadian Train Geek said...

Brian, there was indeed a derailment in early 2004. Ray Morrissette posted:

"A 40321-07 2632-5661 with 70-24-8710T-5535F derailed late afternoon [February 7] in downtown Montmagny"

"From eyewitness(my father-in-law) a least 1 span(the on on the east end) of the bridge at mile 77.8 Montmagny sub is down in the Riviere-du-sud... One tank car is balancing in the open... Few bulkheads are partly unloaded... Numerous(3) crossings blocked.... Many emergency vehicles from nearby on the scene"

Canadian Train Geek said...

Repaints... it would be great to see a detour over CP but the customs would be a nightmare. It was bad enough in the Atlantic days, but post 9/11 it would just not be feasible without a lot of negotiations, alas.