Talk:Hinton train collision

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A TV program I watched once claimed the the crash had happened because Jack Hudson died at the controls while Mark Edwards slept. Any more info on this? GCarty 14:26, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's a possibility, especially considering Hudson's health problems. However, the coroner's inquest was not able to draw any conclusions because the bodies were so mangled. So, I haven't introduced this idea in the article since I didn't have any hard evidence to back it up. JYolkowski // talk 21:01, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

More recent investigation suggests you were partly right, but the brakeman at the other end of the train should have caught the error. It seems probable that the man in the caboose was asleep and not sitting in the watch position from which he would have seen the warning lights (three sets)and had time to set the breaks from his cab. The Canadian railway system at that time was inherently unsafe because single track was used for fast passsenger and freight trains running in contrary directions and used simple loops off the main line to park the freight trains to allow a passenger train to pass.This system was entirely reliant on the train crews applying the brakes when in a loop. Such an a system is inherently accident prone would not have been allowed by that date in the USA where trains that did not stop jn the loop were run off into dead track. After the crash Canadian Railways radically altered their practices and track engineering.