A CP Rail lumber train making its annual trip from Calgary turned wrong very quickly the morning of Jan. 7, 1984.
Around 9:45 a.m., the train was unable to slow down as it approached Medicine Hat and sped up to approximately 100 km/h as it approached a curve rated for no more than half that speed.
Lumber sprayed across roads near Parkview Drive, fertilizer cars tipped and two cars carrying sulphur ignited while multiple propane tank cars were empty in one of the largest accidents in Medicine Hat’s history.
The News is looking back at notable events from Medicine Hat’s history as we enter our 141st publishing year.
The derailment of 62 of the 73-car train spilled burning sulphur and lumber on the corner near Altawana Drive, while the train engine careened into the main yard, slamming into another engine, leaving behind wreckage of one man dead and others badly injured.
Engineer Michael Kulikoski, 55, was the lone fatality in the wreck. He did all he could to prevent the wreck before perishing in the crash.
Approximately 160 residents in Riverside were evacuated following the derailment, as well as 60 residents of St. Joseph’s home for the elderly who were taken to the Veiner Centre, designated as the official evacuation centre.
In the afternoon edition of the News, police chief Eric Lloyd said he saw the train from his Prospect Drive home overlooking the river just moments before the derailment.
“I saw the train going at 60-70 miles an hour and I said to my wife, ‘that train will never make the bend,”” he said.
An initial report given by the fore-runner of the Transportation Safety Board the next day stated that an air line to supply the brakes became pinched in couplings between cars.
The pinched air-brake line was determined the ultimate cause along with some human factors in the rapidly developing situation – poor radio communication with the caboose may have kept the issue from being detected sooner, as reported in the News’ 40th anniversary story on Jan. 6, 2024 about the wreck.
As well, the caboose crew failed to notice pressure dropping until the train was between 2.25 and 1.6 kilometres from the downgrade into the river valley, whereas four kilometres is needed to execute a stop there.
A misaligned switch at the Medicine Hat yard shunted the then-runaway locomotive into a switcher engine, the driver of which was badly injured.
Prior to the 1984 crash, Medicine Hat had seen several train wrecks over 100 years.
The city’s first rail accident in 1897 bore some resemblance to the CP Rail freight train wreck. At midnight, Nov. 10, 1897, an eastbound train collided with a westbound train at the CPR coal sheds in the city. The accident’s cause was reported to be a switch that had been left open and even though the eastbound train engineer realized the danger, he could not slow the train.
Five more rail disasters occurred in Medicine Hat between 1899 and 1923.
