Dunrankin is an unincorporated place and railway point in
geographic
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...
Kirkwall Township,
in the
Unorganized North part of
Algoma District in
northeastern
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...
Ontario,
Canada.
It is on the
Canadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
CN i ...
transcontinental railway main line
Mainline, ''Main line'', or ''Main Line'' may refer to:
Transportation
Railway
* Main line (railway), the principal artery of a railway system
* Main line railway preservation, the practice of operating preserved trains on an operational railw ...
between the dispersed rural community of
Peterbell to the west and the railway point of
Agate to the east, and is passed but not served by
Via Rail transcontinental ''
Canadian'' trains. The place is on the
Dunrankin River, a left tributary of the
Kapuskasing River
The Kapuskasing River is a river in the James Bay drainage basin in Cochrane District and Algoma District in northeastern Ontario, Canada. Shows the river course. The river is a left tributary of the Mattagami River.
Course
The river begins at ...
.
History
Dunrankin is part of a section of what was originally the
Canadian Northern Railway that was under construction from 1913 to 1915.
The westbound Canadian National "
Super Continental
The ''Super Continental'' was a transcontinental Canadian passenger train operated by the Canadian National Railway from 1955 until 1977, when Via Rail took over the train and ran it until it was cancelled in 1981. Service was restored in 1985 b ...
" collided head-on with a freight train that was leaving a siding and entering the main line near Dunrankin, Ontario, on August 2, 1967. The engineer and fireman on the Super Continental and the engineer and a brakeman on the freight train were all killed. One passenger was taken to hospital, while the other 150 passengers sustained no or only minor injuries. A fire started from oil spilled from the locomotives, but the fire was quickly put out from the help of nearby section hands who organized a bucket brigade with sand to smother the flames.
References
Other map sources:
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{{authority control
Communities in Algoma District