Details of Railway Accidents in the Ottawa Area

2009, August 16 - VIA locomotive 902 on passenger train 46 catches fire at Richmond, Smiths Falls sub., closest crossing McBean Street. 
334 passengers were evacuated without injury, ten treated for insect bites and stress. 
Both engineers were taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.

CTV Ottawa 17 August 2009 Fire Stalls VIA Train 323 passengers were evacuated from a VIA Rail train Sunday night after the engine caught on fire in a swampy area in south Ottawa. Firefighters say it happened just after 8pm. The train was about 20 minutes away from Ottawa's Fallowfield station in the city's west end when the blaze broke out. It came to a stop on the tracks just south of the town of Richmond on a four kilometre stretch between McBean Street and Kettles Road. Most of the evacuated passengers had to walk about two kilometres in the dark to be picked up. A few, including the elderly, were escorted by firefighters. Buses were called in to shelter them from the barrage of bugs in the swamp, and then later to bring them to the main terminal downtown. Frustrated family members waited hours for loved ones at the station on Tremblay Road. They called CTV Ottawa saying VIA Rail had given them no information. 13 passengers were treated for minor injuries, including bug bites. The cause of the fire is not known. The Transportation Safety Board report R09H0010

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Updated January 2014