This Day in History: 1986-02-08

The Hinton Disaster: VIA Rail’s eastbound train #4 collided with a CN freight train near Hinton, Alberta. VIA 4 combined the Super Continental and Skeena trains at Jasper. 23 people were killed, including the crews of the VIA and CN locomotives. The collision occurred because the CN crew passed a stop signal. This was Canada’s deadliest train accident until the Lac-Mégantic disaster in 2013.

The disaster led to a number of safety improvements, including mandating a Reset Safety Control device in all lead locomotives to replace the “deadman’s switch”.