Details of Railway Accidents in the Ottawa Area

1958, May 12 - Workman killed by a train on a bridge, Canadian Pacific, Brockville subdivision

Ottawa Citizen 13 May 1958 Race Along Railway Bridge Fails CPR Workman Killed By Locomotive SMITHS FALLS (Staff) A railway employe trying to run from the path of a train on a bridge over the Rideau River here yesterday afternoon was struck and killed only a few feet from safety. The victim was William Edward Dalton Payne. 38, of Third Street, Smiths Falls, a bridge man with the bridge and building department of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Payne was with a 10-man crew reinforcing concrete in the stone piers of the 170-foot span which crosses 30 feet above Sly's Rapids at the southeast edge of Smiths Falls. He was standing alone on the bridge deck about 20 feet from the north end when the train approached. Foreman Mervin Cowell said he shouted a warning to Payne but his cries may have been drowned in the noise of a com pressor being operated on the job. The other workmen were on a scaffold below the bridge deck. Cowell watched helplessly as Payne made his dash from the bridge. "I thought he had made it" Cowell said. "He was only about two ties from the end when he was hit." Payne's body was flung onto the east side of the bridge abutment by the diesel locomotive.  Coroner Dr. J. J. McGuire said he died of multiple injuries, including extensive head injuries. There will be an inquest, he said. Smiths Falls Constables Don Wilson and Gordon Underwood investigated. The train was a regular passenger unit. No. 262, bound from Brockville to Ottawa and due in at the Smiths Falls station about two miles from the bridge at 4.40 p.m. It was reported that the union fireman in the crew, Wilfrid Gibbons of Ottawa, saw the man on the track as the train came out of a curve south of the bridge. The train was braked but not in time to avoid hitting the maintenance worker. The engineer was Al Imeson and the conductor was John McNally, also of Ottawa. The tragedy was witnessed by W. B. Malloy, canalman at Old Sly's Locks. He was standing with his nephew, Harvey Traversey, and another canal worker, Arthur Truelove. They attempted to wave down the train. It stopped a short distance along the track, backed up and brought Payne's body in the baggage car to the Smiths Falls station. Dalton Payne was born in Bishop's Mills, a son of Josiah Payne and the former Ethel Bigford, who survive. He was married in Smiths Falls in 1943 to the former Viola Giff. He had been employed with the CPR bridge and building department for the past five years. He leaves, besides his wife and parents, one son, Rodney, 11; two brothers, Everall of Calgary, Alta., and Beverly, with the Canadian Army at Camp Ipperwash; two sisters, Mrs. Roy (Viven) Evoy and Mrs. Ronald (Mildred) Ritchie, both of Smiths Falls.  Funeral arrangements are not yet completed. The body is at the Amby Funeral Home.

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Updated 4 March 2019