Details of Railway Accidents in the Ottawa Area

  1898, March 13 - Derailment at Sharbot Lake

Ottawa Journal 14 March 1898 JUMPED THE TRACK A C.P.R. Train at Sharbot Lake Crashed Into a Hill A C.P.R. train jumped the track at Sharbot Lake Saturday morning owing to the rails spreading. The train left here at 8 a.m. Saturday. Fortunately no damage to any of the passengers resulted, but the engie ploughed its way some distance into a hill. The engine and tender and some of the cars were damaged. The train was delayed five hours. Chesterville Record 17 March 1898 A Canadian Pacific passenger train of four coaches was derailed about three miles east of Sharbot Lake on Saturday morning about 10.40 o'clock.  A sprung rail was the cause of the accident.  The engine and the fore truck of the tender did not leave track and the baggage car held to the ties, but the passenger coaches were overturned and thrown into the ditch.  The coaches were considerably damaged and the track, ties and railbed were torn up for a distance of two hundred yards.  Nobody was hurt.  There were twenty passengers on the train, most of whom were were in the coach behind the baggage car.  This coach was thrown on its side and brought up against a large boulder.  Sir Frank Smith and Senator Lougheed were the only passengers in the rear car and, although badly shaken up, escaped uninjured. Almonte Gazette 18 March 1898 The C.P.R. train from Toronto on Saturday was five hours late in consequence of jumping the track and plowing into a hill at Sharbot Lake through the spreading of the rails.  No lives were lost but the engine and several of the cars were injured.

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Updated 26 November 2023