The Dugald rail accident was a railway accident that occurred on September 1, 1947, in

Dugald, Manitoba Dugald is a community in Manitoba, Canada, located 22 kilometres east of Winnipeg at the junction of PTH 15 and Provincial Road 206 in the Rural Municipality of Springfield. It was the site of a railway accident in 1947. In the Dugald trai ...

, Canada, resulting in the deaths of 31 people.

Background

A westbound train, The ''Minaki Campers’ Special'' operating as Passenger Extra 6001 West, was a seasonal excursion service carrying vacationers from the

Minaki Minaki ( or ) is an Unincorporated area#Canada, unincorporated area and community in Unorganized Kenora District in northwestern Ontario, Canada. It is located at the point where the Canadian National Railways Transcontinental railroad, transcon ...

region of

Northwestern Ontario Northwestern Ontario is a secondary region of Northern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario which lies north and west of Lake Superior and west of Hudson Bay and James Bay. It includes most of subarctic Ontario. Its western boundary is the ...

on the Monday evening of the Labour Day holiday weekend. It had been given orders at Malachi, Ontario, east of

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

, to meet

Canadian National Railways The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I railroad, Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern United States, M ...

train No. 4, the eastbound ''Continental Limited'' at Vivian.Shaw (1978) p. 140 These orders were later changed, so that the meeting point was relocated westward for a meet at Dugald, east of Winnipeg. These second orders had been received at Elma. The eastbound train was led by a CN U-1-d-class

4-8-2 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels, eight powered and coupled driving wheels and two trailing wheels. This type of steam locomotive is commonly known as t ...

steam locomotive numbered 6046.

Collision and fire

By the

train order operation A train order is "an order issued by or through a proper railway official to govern the movement of trains". Train order operation is the system by which trains are safely moved by train orders. It is distinguished from other forms of train opera ...

rules then in use, Extra 6001 would use the siding at the east switch of Dugald. The conductor of the train reminded the engineer of the Dugald stop one or two miles beforehand, by the air signal line, and received the proper acknowledgement. However, Extra 6001 failed to enter the siding at the east switch, and collided head-on with the stationary eastbound train number 4, the ''Continental Limited'' at 9:44 p.m. at approximately . Extra 6001 was composed of U-1-a class

steam locomotive 6001, two steel baggage cars, nine wooden gas-illuminated coaches, and two steel parlour cars. After the collision, the wooden carriages of the vacation train caught fire. Strict

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

of steel during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

had resulted in old wooden cars being kept in service until newer cars could be purchased. The collision began a series of events that caused fires fuelled by compressed gas from broken lines and tanks on the wood coaches that gutted the wooden cars and set fire to oil tanks near the tracks. With the exception of the engineer and fireman of Extra 6001, who died in the initial collision, the fatalities of this incident were caused by the fire. No fatalities occurred in the vacation train's two rear cars or on the ''Continental Limited''. Both of the locomotives involved were rebuilt and repaired by CN after the wreck.

Inquiry

An inquiry blamed the crew of the vacationers' train for failing to obey orders. The inquiry also determined that the crew's error had been precipitated by their seeing a "clear"

signal In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

, which implied that the track ahead was clear, and that the ''Continental Limited’s'' dimming of its headlamp while waiting in the station lessened its visibility to the oncoming vacation train. This resulted in both the acquisition of modern rail cars and the improvement of rules regarding operations on the line.

In popular culture

* "The Minaki Train Crash " - episode about the Dugald rail accident from the documentary ''

Disasters of the Century ''Disasters of the Century'' is a documentary television series that airs on History Television. The program is produced by Regina, Saskatchewan-based '' Partners in Motion''. Each episode documents two different disasters from Canada and aroun ...

'' (2000), aired on Canadian network

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

References

Notes

Bibliography

* {{coord, 49.8856, N, 96.8392, W, source:wikidata, display=title Railway accidents and incidents in Canada Railway accidents in 1947 1947 in Canada Disasters in Manitoba Accidents and incidents involving Canadian National Railway Rail transport in Manitoba September 1947 events in Canada Eastman Region, Manitoba