A VIA Rail train derailed between Toronto and Windsor on April 23, 1999. At least two of the five crew members on board were killed while an estimated 100 passengers were treated for various injuries.Menno Meijer/Reuters
February, 2010: Five passengers and two crew members are injured when a Via Rail train leaves the tracks near Saint-Charles-De-Bellechasse, Que., demolishing part of a nearby house.
January, 2004: One woman is injured – from spilled hot coffee – when a Via Rail train derails near New Hamburg, Ont, while en route to Toronto from London, Ont.
April, 2001: A 15-year-old boy tampers with a rail switch on a line near Stewiacke, N.S., derailing a Via passenger train and injuring 23 people.
April, 1999: Two engineers die when a Toronto-bound Via Rail passenger train jumps the tracks in Thamesville, Ont., colliding with parked freight cars, as it heads toward a second passenger train. A Transportation Safety Board report concludes that human error left a switch in the wrong position, putting the two trains on a collision course, but heroic last-minute action by the two engineers prevented a head-on collision and a much greater tragedy.
September, 1997: One woman dies and 65 passengers are injured after a Via Rail train derails near Biggar, Sask., at 1:50 a.m. Two locomotives and 11 cars land at various angles, slicing through compartments in which almost 200 passengers are sleeping.
Feb. 8, 1986: Twenty-three people die and nearly 100 are injured when a nine-car Via passenger train and a CN freight train collide near Hinton, Alta. The 118-car freight train went through a closed switch. The crews of both trains are killed.
March 23, 1983: Five people are killed when a Via Rail Dayliner slams into four empty cars on a siding near Carstairs, north of Calgary. Officials reported a work crew had left a switch open, diverting the Dayliner onto the siding.
Nov. 21, 1950: Twenty-one soldiers and civilians are killed and 43 injured when a train carrying troops collides with a transcontinental passenger train while rounding a curve east of Canoe River, B.C.
Sept. 1, 1947: Thirty-one people are killed when an eastbound transcontinental passenger train collides with another passenger train at Dugald, Man.
January, 1910: Sixty-three people die in a derailment over the Spanish River in Ontario.
June, 1864: An estimated 100 people are killed when a train carrying immigrants derails near St.-Hilaire, Que., and falls into the Richelieu River. The exact death toll was never determined because authorities could not be sure all the bodies had been recovered.