Worst railway accidents
| Accident | Date | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Jeannette’s Creek train wreck | 27 October 1854 | Chatham-Kent, Ontario |
| Desjardins Canal disaster | 12 March 1857 | Hamilton, Ontario |
| St-Hilaire train disaster | 29 June 1864 | Otterburn Park, near Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec |
| Shannonville derailment | 22 June 1872 | east of Shannonville, Ontario |
What was the deadliest train crash?
#1 Sri Lanka Tsunami Train Wreck
The train, dubbed the Queen of the Sea, was destroyed by the Indian Ocean tsunami on December 26, 2004, in what is now considered the world’s deadliest rail tragedy.
How many people were killed in Canada’s deadliest rail disaster in 1864?
The St-Hilaire train disaster occurred on June 29, 1864, near the present-day town of Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec. A passenger train fell through an open swing bridge into the Richelieu River after the crew failed to obey a stop signal. The widely accepted death toll is 99 people.
What is the most famous train crash?
Queen of The Sea, Sri Lanka
The Queen of The Sea train crash in Sri Lanka, caused by the Indian Ocean Tsunami which struck in December 2004, is regarded as the worst train disaster in railroad history after it caused the death of over 1,700 people.
Did a train derail in Canada?
A Canadian Pacific Railway freight train had derailed about two kilometres northwest of the village, located about 160 kilometres southeast of Regina. A large fire ignited as a result of the derailment and thick black smoke affected visibility in the area, RCMP say.
What is a scariest train in the world?
- World’s Scariest Train Rides.
- Indonesia’s Argo Gede Train Railroad.
- Japan’s Aso Minami Route.
- Colorado’s Georgetown Loop Railroad.
- Alaska’s White Pass and Yukon Route.
- Argentina’s Tren a las Nubes.
- India’s Chennai-Rameswaram Route.
- Australia’s Kuranda Scenic Railroad.
What country has the most train deaths?
Using Wikipedia’s list of rail crashes and its UIC-sourced list of rail passenger-km by country, one can compare different countries’ mainline passenger rail accident fatality rates. The US turns out to be the least safe among the regions I’ve checked, even worse than India; much-maligned China comes out first.
What was the deadliest event in Canadian history?
Cascadia Earthquake, British Columbia
The cataclysmic shock struck at night, according to Indigenous oral history, rupturing a 1,000 kilometre-long fault line from Vancouver Island to northern California, plunging coastal forests into the sea, and killing between 2,000 and 3,000 people.
Who was the first person to be killed by a train?
William Huskisson
William Huskisson (born March 11, 1770) was a statesman, financier and MP but he will always be remembered as the first widely-reported person in history to be fatally injured in a railway accident.
How many people are killed by trains in Canada?
Rail fatalities (Figure 3) totalled 57 in 2018, down from 76 reported last year and from the 10-year average of 75. Crossing fatalities totalled 19 in 2018, the same as in 2017 but below the 10-year average of 23.
Figure 2.
| Rail accident type | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Non-main-track derailments | 600 | 51 |
| Other | 211 | 18 |
Who robbed the first train?
brothers John and Simeon Reno
On October 6, 1866, the brothers John and Simeon Reno stage the first train robbery in American history, making off with $13,000 from an Ohio and Mississippi railroad train in Jackson County, Indiana.
Have two trains ever hit head on?
The Crash at Crush was a one-day publicity stunt in the U.S. state of Texas that took place on September 15, 1896, in which two uncrewed locomotives were crashed into each other head-on at high speed.
Can 2 trains collide?
Train / Train Collisions
The impact and damage are simply devastating. Second, unlike car accidents, collisions between two trains are always avoidable. There is simply no excusable reason, given today’s technological possibilities, that two trains should ever collide.
Why did Canada get rid of trains?
Once we decided that moving goods was more important than moving people, rail travel began its long, steady decline. Passenger trains became an expensive, inefficient afterthought. At the end of the Second World War, governments began to invest more in highways, in travel by car and in airlines.
Has a bullet train ever wrecked?
In 2011, a high-speed bullet train crashed near the south-eastern city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, killing 40 people. The Chinese government later admitted that the crash was caused by design flaws and sloppy management.
When did the railway end in Canada?
For example, passenger service ended on its line through southern British Columbia and Crowsnest Pass in January 1964, and on its Quebec Central in April 1967, and the transcontinental train The Dominion was dropped in January 1966.
What is the nicest train in the world?
- British Pullman, A Belmond Train, England.
- Cruise Train Seven Stars, Japan.
- Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, Europe.
- Belmond Royal Scotsman, Scotland.
- Rovos Rail, South Africa.
- Belmond Andean Explorer, Peru.
- Maharajas’ Express, India.
- The Presidential Train, Portugal.
Why is it called the death train?
Constructed during World War II, the Thailand to Burma railway is also known as the Death Railway. It is said that one man died for every sleeper that was laid on the track.
Do ghost trains exist?
Ghost trains are reported in many different parts of the world where trains have at some point been prevalent forms of transportation. Accounts of ghost trains have been reported in Canada, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and in many states of the United States.
Which country has the safest railway?
ORR’s analysis found that Britain ranks first for ‘whole society’ safety risk, which combines the overall average of number fatalities and serious injuries across five risk categories for passenger, employee, level crossing user, trespasser, and other risks.
Is a train more likely to crash than a plane?
HOW SAFE ARE TRAINS? Trains are statistically much safer than driving. In 2020, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics recorded 40,867 total deaths from travel, including in planes, in cars on highways and on trains.