Details of Railway Accidents in the Ottawa Area

1959, February 2 - Crossing Accident at Petawawa, CPR Chalk River sub., one fatality

Ottawa Citizen  3 February 1959 Train Kills Petawawa Teacher, 23 PETAWAWA (Special) - A 23-year-old school teacher from Camp Petawawa suffered fatal injuries last night when her car was in collision with a westbound CPR train. Mamie Marie Huttunen, a kindergarten teacher at Pinecrest School died at 11 p.m., army doctors vainly attempted to save her life by four hours of emergency operations. Train engineer Emile Carle of Smiths Falls said it looked to him as though the car had skidded on the ice-coated street before coming to a stop on the crossing, in the path of the train. The seven-car main transcontinental passenger train had just pulled out of the Pembroke station 13 minutes before, and was travelling at a speed between 65 to 70 miles an hour at the time of the collision. There are no wig-wag signals at the crossing in the heart of the village, but visibility is good and unobstructed. The young teacher, a native of Port Arthur, had just left her boarding-house to attend a community choir practice in Pembroke. The train carried the car for 400 yards, and ripped the front part from the car body, hurling it ahead for 50 yards. The young woman had to be freed from the car. She was pinned behind the wheel. The train was delayed for 45 minutes.. The train conductor was Arthur Cauchy. OPP Cpl. Vince Coffey and Constable Roy Wilston of Pembroke investigated. Ottawa Citizen  4 February 1959 Rifle Shot Hits Train PEMBROKE (Special) Pembroke police believe a shot fired at a CPR engineer last night may be connected with Monday's fatal train-car crash at Petawawa. The engineer, A. P. Nevton, was in charge of a train on the same run as the train which hit a car, killing Miss Maimie Huttunen, 23-year-old Camp Petawawa school teacher. The shot, believed to be from a 22-caliber rifle, smashed the w'ndow in the engine's cab. The train was passing the foot of Pembroke's James Street a few minutes after pulling out of the Pembroke station at 6.50 o'clock.

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Updated  3 January 2020