The media is focusing on the devastation in the town of Lac Megantic and how the train started moving, but little attention is being paid to how the locomotives stopped. Somehow, the five engines continued through the town and came to rest "about a kilometer away".
To get from there to here, these locomotives would have rolled on right through town, clear around the bend of the bay and then curved back in the opposite direction — about a kilometre in distance from the full-bore impact epicentre.
The Toronto Star
In this photo, the flaming locomotive before the runaway.
Photo credit: Nancy Cameron
The Star, established in 1892, is questioning how the engines traveled so far after the derailment "on a shabby stretch of track".
A person could pull the stakes out of the rotting and splintered ties with one good yank. Yet this corroded rail line held fast against the wheels of a runaway train’s forward section. The Toronto Star
Don Ross, Transportation Safety Board investigator, confirmed to the Star that the locomotives detached and traveled on after dumping its deadly load.
Of course, the media focused on the devastation and by the time reporters thought about the locomotives, the area was sealed off as a crime scene. After searching the many photos of the accident, I finally found a picture of the engines.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers guard the main locomotive involved in a July 6 fatal train derailment and explosion in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Tuesday, July 9, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS, JACQUES BOISSINOT — AP Photo
Officials won’t even reveal when these engines were found, far beyond the fatal jumping off spot where the rest of the 72-car haul crashed into the soft underbelly of central Lac-Mégantic. The Toronto Star
The investigators obviously do not want the public or the media at this location because it has been designated a crime scene, but by combining multiple media sources, an approximation may be determined.
If this map published by The Canadian Press is accurate, the train continued along the red, dotted line line and stopped about one kilometer from the town in a secluded area. Also, note the elevation. The train's path started at Nantes (1685 feet), while derailment site in Lac-Megantic is at 1300 feet elevation.
How did the runaway locomotives travel uphill?
According to Google Earth, the last mile is mostly uphill. After the five locomotives declined slightly to from 1300' to 1298' as it crossed a bridge, the engines climbed to perhaps 1327' before resting, depending on exactly where it stopped.
I selected a distance of one mile in this scenario because the terrain and vegetation on Google Earth closely matches the photo of the engines above.
Click photo for larger image
Propane still suspected
Investigators and railroad official have yet to answer questions raised by Kevin Burkholder, editor of Eastern Railroad News. Another resident has told the Toronto Star that she witnessed propane tanker in the area before fleeing.
But Marie-Eve Boucher, who lives near the train yard that was at the center of the disaster, told the Toronto Star that she looked out her window after the ground began to shake and saw flames licking a tank car filled with propane.
She and her husband ran to a nearby shopping mall, about a mile from the downtown, and then heard an "enormous explosion."
Earlier, Burkholder reported that a Lac-Megantic resident, a "rail fan" who monitors activity at the yard, told him that he saw four propane cars Friday on the same storage track.
Hopefully, investigators will soon shed some light on the mysteries of the Ghost Train.
Meanwhile...
A growing chorus of municipalities across Quebec and Canada are demanding that rail companies release details about the hazardous materials they transport and prove their infrastructure is sound, following the Lac-Mégantic tragedy in which 50 people are missing.
Montreal Gazette
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Edward Burkhardt, CEO of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, is not only so cheap he won't hire a public relations firm, but...
When he took over the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway in 2003, he cut employee wages by 40 per cent according to a company history in the Bangor Daily News.
There were more layoffs and cuts in expenditures in 2006 and again in 2008.
The company also announced plans “to improve safety and efficiency” by cutting its locomotive crews in half, replacing two workers a single employee.
That prompted at least one veteran engineer to quit the company in part over his fears for safety. Toronto Star
On Wednesday, police said that 20 bodies had been recovered, and 30 people remained missing and were presumed dead.
Amateur video shot 200 meters from the accident.