One of Canada's worst crashes: Re-telling the Almonte, Ont., train wreck of 1942
CTV
It was one of Canada's worst train accidents in history. Now 81 years on, a Pembroke author is re-telling the events of the tragic night in the Ottawa Valley.
It was one of Canada's worst train accidents in history. Now 81 years on, a Pembroke author is re-telling the events of the tragic night in the Ottawa Valley.
"Most of the victims of the crash were from the small Ottawa Valley towns stretching from Chalk River to Arnprior," says Jamie Bramburger, author of the recently released book Sudden Impact: The Almonte Train Wreck of 1942.
The crash happened Dec. 27, 1942, in the middle of what is now downtown Almonte.
Bramburger says a passenger train filled with people commuting back to Ottawa after Christmas was struck in the rear by a locomotive carrying troops destined for the battlefields of the Second World War.
"The two trains meet up in Almonte and it's a catastrophe. The troop train slams into the back of the passenger train. The last two coaches are obliterated. The locomotive stops halfway through the third coach," explains Bramburger. "The wooden coaches were just obliterated, pieces of wood flying everywhere, people being thrown all around the area."
Thirty-eight people died because of the crash and more than 150 people were injured.
"Most of the people who died that night were killed instantly."
