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The Canoe River train crash occurred on November 21, 1950, near Valemount in eastern British Columbia, Canada, when a westbound troop train and the eastbound Canadian National Railway (CNR) ''Continental Limited'' collided head-on. The collision killed 21 people: 17 Canadian soldiers en route to the Korean War and the two-man locomotive crew of each train. The post-crash investigation found that the order given to the troop train differed from the intended message. Crucial words were missing, causing the troop train to proceed on its way rather than halt on a siding, resulting in the collision. A telegraph operator, Alfred John "Jack" Atherton, was charged with manslaughter; the Crown alleged that he was negligent in passing an incomplete message. His family hired his Member of Parliament, John Diefenbaker, as defence counsel. Diefenbaker joined the British Columbia bar to take the case, and obtained Atherton's acquittal. After the accident, the CNR installed block signals on the stretch of track on which the crash occurred. The railway later realigned the main line in that area, eliminating a sharp curve that prevented crews from seeing oncoming trains. Diefenbaker's successful defence of Atherton became an asset in his political rise. A number of monuments honour the dead. == Crash == On November 21, 1950, a westbound troop train, Passenger Extra 3538 West—consisting of the S-2-a class 2-8-2 steam locomotive 3538 and 17 cars, about half of which had wood bodies with steel underframe—was travelling from Camp Shilo, Manitoba to Fort Lewis, Washington. It was carrying 23 officers and 315 men of 2nd Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (RCHA) for deployment to the Korean War, a movement dubbed Operation ''Sawhorse''.〔 The train was moving through the Rocky Mountains on the CNR transcontinental mainline. CNR Train No. 2, the eastbound ''Continental Limited'', consisted of the U-1-a class 4-8-2 steam locomotive 6004 and eleven all-steel cars and was en route from Vancouver to Montreal.〔 By 1950, the CNR used the part-wooden cars only for the transportation of soldiers; other passengers were no longer carried in them. After the 1947 Dugald rail accident, the Board of Transport Commissioners had ordered that wooden passenger coaches not be placed between all-steel cars. However, under the terms of that decision, General Order Number 707, the wooden cars with steel underframes did not count as "wooden cars". CNR dispatcher A. E. Tisdale meant to send both trains identical orders to "meet" (get past each other) on a mostly single-track section. His intended order read "Psgr Extra 3538 West meet No. 2 Eng 6004 at Cedarside and No. 4 Eng 6057 Gosnell." (Cedarside and Gosnell were sidings where trains could wait to allow opposing traffic to clear.)〔 Tisdale dictated the order from his office in Kamloops, British Columbia, to Alfred John "Jack" Atherton, the operator at Red Pass Junction, for delivery to Passenger Extra 3538 West, the troop train, and to F.E. Parsons, the operator at Blue River, westbound from Red Pass Junction, for delivery to No. 2, the ''Continental''. The words "at Cedarside" did not appear in the order as copied down by Atherton to be handed to the troop train crew. Parsons's version of the order accorded with Tisdale's, and was passed to the ''Continental'' and to Train No. 4. According to Hugh A. Halliday in his history of Canadian railroad wrecks, "it would have been one man's word against the other, but the Blue River operator had been on the line at the same time. Parsons backed up Tisdale's version of events; Atherton would be cast firmly as the culprit in this affair." When the westbound troop train stopped at Red Pass Junction, Atherton gave the incorrect written order to train conductor John A. Mainprize. As the full order had been passed to the eastbound ''Continental'', its crew expected to meet the troop train at Cedarside, eastbound from Blue River; the crew aboard the troop train expected to meet the ''Continental'' and another train at Gosnell westbound from Cedarside. With neither train crew aware of anything wrong, the troop train passed Cedarside and the ''Continental'' passed Gosnell. Both trains were travelling at moderate speeds, and attempted to negotiate a sharp curve from opposite ends.〔 Thomas W. Tindall, a forestry employee, saw the two trains approaching each other from an embankment; he tried to signal the ''Continental'' crew, who responded to his frantic signals with a friendly wave. The two crews did not realise that a collision was imminent until the last moment, and the trains struck head-on at 10:35 a.m.〔 The accident occurred south of Valemount, east of a small station named Canoe River, westbound from Cedarside.〔 The crash took place on the only stretch (18-mile (29 km) long) of CNR mainline in the mountains not protected by automatic block signals. The leading cars of each train were derailed, while those which had been part of the troop train were demolished by the crash.〔 According to testimony at the inquiry, most of the deaths were caused by steam from the troop train's ruptured boilers penetrating the damaged cars.〔 At the moment of the crash, two soldiers, Gunners William Barton and Roger Bowe, both of Newfoundland, were buying cigarettes at the newsstand aboard the train. The structure of the newsstand shielded them in the crash, and they survived. Their fellow Newfoundlanders, Gunners Joseph Thistle and James A. White, standing just a few feet away, were not shielded by the newsstand and perished in the crash. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Canoe River train crash」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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