The Hinton Train Crash

Early in the morning of February 8, 1986, just east of Hinton, Alberta, passengers on the Via Super continental from Vancouver to Montreal were just sitting down to their breakfasts in the dining car. They could not have known a freight train was hurtling towards them on the same track. The freight train smashed into the Super continental and unleashed a flood of grain, sulphur and sewage. A fifty-foot fireball of ignited fuel destroyed parts of both trains. 76 cars derailed and scattered over the landscape. 23 people were killed in the accident and 82 injured. Although many people speculated that the freight train's front man and engineer had both fallen asleep at their controls, the men did not survive the crash.