Details of Railway Accidents in the Ottawa Area

1977, July 10 - 17 cars derailed at Finch, Canadian Pacific, Winchester subdivision, caused by a track defect

Ottawa Citizen 11 July 1977 Finch again in centre of CP Rail accident FINCH (Staff) Seventeen cars of a CP Rail freight train jumped the rails here during the weekend, the second such accident this year. A United Co-operatives of Ontario worker said he and his colleagues are worried about the possibility of derailed cars someday crashing into their store, adjacent to the tracks. There were no injuries when the 17 loaded cars derailed, blocking the Smiths Falls-Montreal line. Work crews had cleared one of the two tracks by today and were continuing efforts to unplug the second track. In January, 14 cars jumped the rails blocking a highway through Finch for several hours Ottawa Citizen 20 July 1977 Derailment blamed on human error By Tom Van Dusen Citizen staff writer CHESTERVILLE Seventeen Canadian Pacific freight cars derailed at Finch July 10 because of human error, not a broken wheel which at first was the suspected cause. As a result of the accident which will cost CP Rail as much as $250,000 an area track supervisor has been transferred to a less demanding post, L. A. Hill, general manager of operation and maintenance for the railway's eastern region, told The Citizen Tuesday. A rail defect at Finch had in fact been detected by a track recorder car 10 days before the wreck and it could easily have been prevented, Hill said." "A half hour spent resurfacing the track would have corrected the condition and the derailment would not have occurred," he said. The recorder car which contains equipment to detect various track flaws had rated the problem at Finch a priority. It should have been remedied immediately, Hill explained. "The maintenance staff didn't appreciate the magnitude of the defect and just didn't get around to fixing it," he said. The 17 cars part of an 87-unit Toronto-bound freight left the tracks because a dip had developed in a bridge approach. The irregular surface was detected by the recorder car. There were no injuries and little damage to private property in the derailment, the second at Finch this year. Fourteen cars of a 100-unit train piled up last Jan. 7 after a wheel broke.

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Updated 26 May 2020