Details of Railway Accidents in the Ottawa Area

1955, March 26 - Derailment at Hull, Beemer

From the Ottawa Citizen Saturday 26 March 1955: Train Derailed At Hull (with picture). No one was injured when a CPR Toronto-bound passenger train jumped the tracks at the Hull station at the height of the snowstorm Saturday afternoon, The engine, coal car and a number of baggage cars left the tracks when a faulty switch shoved the slow-moving train onto the Maniwaki line. Train crews working with cranes righted the derailed cars about six hours after the mishap. Meanwhile, passengers were taken back to Ottawa where they boarded another train bound for the Queen City. The derailed cars blocked Hull's St. Redemp-teur and St. Hyacinthe Streets until close to 9 o'clock in the evening. Hull police rerouted traffic and stayed on the job until engine and cars were placed back on the rails and taken to Ottawa. From the Ottawa Journal Monday 28 March 1955 Passenger Train Derailed in Hull No One Injured All passengers and crewmen on a crowded CPR passenger train to Toronto Saturday afternoon escaped injury when the two leading cars of the locomotive jumped the track just outside Hull West station at 3.38 o'clock. Neither the baggage car nor the parlor car, the only two affected in the accident, were overturned. Four other passenger cars in the train remained on the rails. The accident stopped all  traffic on the line for four-and-a-half hours. Passengers on the train were able to proceed to Toronto with only an 1 hour's delay after their cars were detatched, returned to Union Station in Ottawa and re-routed through Ottawa West. CPR officials told The Journal today that the cause of the derailment is not yet known. They are continuing their investigation. The accident, occurred after the leading wheels of the locomotive jumped the track at the Montcalm crossing, about 100 yards west of Hull station, and the train continued down the track with the front wheels off the rails. Outside the station where the  Maniwaki break turns off the main line, the free front wheels picked it up and the locomotive followed them on to the branch line. Although ths front wheels of the baggage and parlor cars. went off the track, the rear wheels of both cars remained on the main line. No cars were overturned, although some passengers received a jolting in the freak derailment. The track was spread and bent about 30 feet at the scene of the accident.

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Updated 29 March 2018