1979 Mississauga train derailment

The Mississauga train derailment, also known as the Mississauga Miracle, occurred on November 10, 1979, in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, when a CP Rail freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed and caught fire. More than 200,000 people were evacuated in the largest peacetime evacuation in North America until Hurricane Katrina. ^{[citation needed]} The fire was caused by a failure of the lubricating system. No deaths resulted from the incident.

Mississauga train derailment
Details
Date	November 10, 1979 11:53 p.m.
Location	Mississauga, Ontario
Coordinates	43.5710°N 79.6401°W / 43.5710; -79.6401
Country	Canada
Operator	CP Rail
Incident type	Derailment
Cause	Overheated journal bearing
Statistics
Trains	1
Crew	2
Deaths	0

Background

In 1979, Mississaga, a suburb of Toronto, had a population of approximately 217,000 people.^{[citation needed]} Over 46,000 city residents left the city for employment, while over 30,000 would enter the city from elsewhere. Ontario Highway 401 and Queen Elizabeth Way highway passed through the city, and every household had at least one vehicle for transportation.^[1]

A few year prior, the chief of police for the Peel Region (which contains the city of Mississauga) was in charge of managing a hijacking at Malton International Airport (now known as Toronto Pearson International Airport). He felt ill-prepared for the event, and afterwards organised emergency plans for various potential events in the region. This caused Peel to be one of the few regions in Ontario with a well-developed plan should an emergency happen, including a general evacuation plan for the city.^[1] Prior to this incident, the evacuation plan was implemented on a smaller scale during a major tank farm fire in the Mississauga community of Port Credit. Other agencies, such as Mississauga Transit, Mississauga Red Cross and Metro Toronto Ambulance, coordinated with Peel Region police during the implementation of emergency plans during various events in the region and found them satisfactory. The plan assumed that the Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services would act independently from the police. Peel Region police officers were required to know the various plans to be promoted within the force, causing most police officers to be knowledgeable of the plan's contents.^[2]

The evacuation plan consisted of four main elements: establishing a perimeter around the danger area and a further one out as a control area, the establishment of an emergency operations centre in a mobile van between the two perimeters, the establishment of an on-site commander, and a media centre between the two perimeters to disseminate information to the public.^[2]

Causes

A CP Rail freight train, train 54, led by FP7A #4069, F9B #1964, GP35 #5005 and GP38AC #3010 was eastbound from Windsor, Ontario.^[3] The train consisted of 106 cars that carried multiple chemicals and explosives, including styrene, toluene, propane, caustic soda, and chlorine. On the 33rd car, heat began to build up in an improperly-lubricated journal bearing on one of the wheels, resulting in the condition known among train workers as a "hot box". (This was one of the few still in use at that time as most had long since been replaced with roller bearings.) Residents living beside the tracks reported smoke and sparks coming from the car, and those who were close to Mississauga thought the train was on fire. The friction eventually burned through the axle and bearing, and as the train was passing the Mavis Road level crossing, near the intersection with Dundas Street, a wheelset (one axle and pair of wheels) fell off completely.

Derailment and aftermath

At 11:53 p.m., at the Mavis Road crossing, the damaged bogie (undercarriage) left the track, causing the remaining parts of the train to derail. The impact caused several tank cars filled with propane to burst into flames.

No one was injured during the derailment, but buildings and vehicles were damaged. The derailment cut off power to the city garage, where firetrucks would refuel, so firefighters had to travel to neighbouring municipalities to refuel.^[2]

The wreckage contained numerous cars filled with chemicals that could damage the area. Eleven cars were filled with propane, which is explosive when exposed to heat. Four cars were filled with caustic soda; it can ignite combustible materials when exposed to water and destroy human tissue upon contact. Three cars contained styrene, a flammable liquid, which produces hallucinogenic effects when there are high concentrations of it in the air, and another three cars contained toluene, which is explosive when exposed to air and causes death when inhaled in high quantities. One car in the wreckage contained chlorine, which causes heart failure when exposed to large amounts.^[4]

A propane tank exploded fifteen minutes after the derailment, sending a flaming tank car 800 m (2,620 ft) north-east into the air, landing in an empty field. A third explosion happened twenty-five minutes after the derailment.^[4]

A huge explosion resulted, sending a fireball 1,500 m (5,000 ft) into the sky which could be seen from 100 km (60 mi) away. As the flames were erupting, the train's brakeman, Larry Krupa, 27, at the suggestion of the engineer (also his father-in-law),^[5] managed to close an air brake angle spigot at the west end of the undamaged 32nd car, allowing the engineer to release the air brakes between the locomotives and the derailed cars and move the front part of the train eastward along the tracks, away from danger. This prevented those cars from becoming involved in the fire, important as many of them also contained dangerous goods. Krupa was later recommended for the Order of Canada for his bravery,^[6] which a later writer has described as "bordering on lunacy."^[5]

The explosions were noticed by several people, who called emergency lines to report a gas explosion or plane crash. Others sought out the explosion to try to discover what happened, causing traffic jams towards the site of the derailment.^[4]

Immediate response

Peel Regional police were the first to arrive on the site shortly after the derailment.^[4] As the night continued, more officers of higher rank joined, as well as officers from the Ontario Provincial Police and Metro Toronto police. Firefighters arrived two minutes after the first police, after watching the explosion from their station. A half hour after the derailment there were over 100 firefighters on site with eight pumpers, three ladder trucks and two rescue vehicles.^[7]

The police officers on the site activated the police's disaster plan and began perimeter control, ordering people to leave the area. They selected a car wash as the emergency operations centre, summoned the duty inspector to the site and started strategizing on how they would relay information to the media. At the police headquarters, officers called local services including the Peel Regional Paramedic Services, Metro Toronto Ambulance, Red Cross and Mississauga Transit. The firefighters concentrated on cooling cars with water, creating a controlled burn. This would cause the leaking gas to be burned, instead of released into the atmosphere, but would also mean the fire would continue for several days. The firefighters ordered the gas companies to cut off access to nearby buildings.^[7] The fire department contacted neighbouring departments and the gas company, while also calling local residents that they knew who had chemical expertise.^[8]

Emergency responders had difficulty identifying the contents of the railcars, leading to frustration. The railway assured police for several hours that none of the train's cars contained chlorine, even though police could smell the chemical; the railway later confirmed that chlorine was contained in the wreckage. The chemical experts gave inconsistent advice on how to manage the disaster, causing a provincial cabinet minister to call the chemical company to question their competence.^[8] By 1:45am, the police moved their emergency operations centre to an office in a local brick plant.^[9]

A ruptured chlorine tank became a cause for concern. There was a possibility of a deadly cloud of chlorine gas spreading through suburban Mississauga.

Evacuation

Several factors helped facilitate the evacuation. The traffic along the roads and highway was light because the evacuation was on a Sunday. The weekend was also a holiday weekend for Remembrance Day: since it was commemorated on a Sunday in 1979, many employees were not required to work on the following Monday.^[10]

The population of Mississauga, about 217,000 people, were evacuated in under twenty hours. The operation was managed by municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government, with four police forces, firefighters, over 100 ambulances helping with the evacuation. The first areas to be evacuated were residents near the train derailment: when emergency responders arrived at the incident, there was a huge fire with some tankers exploding, causing concern for their safety.^[11]

A number of residents (mostly the extreme west and north of Mississauga) allowed evacuees to stay with them until the crisis abated. Some of these people were later moved again as their hosts were also evacuated. The evacuation was managed by various officials including the mayor of Mississauga, Hazel McCallion, the Peel Regional Police and other governmental authorities. McCallion sprained her ankle early during the crisis, but continued to hobble to press conferences.

Aftermath

Within a few days Mississauga was practically deserted, until the contamination had been cleared, the danger neutralized and residents were allowed to return to their homes. The city was finally reopened on the evening of November 16. The chlorine tank was emptied on November 19.

It was the largest peacetime evacuation in North American history until the evacuation of New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and remained the second-largest until Hurricane Irma in 2017. It was the last major explosion in the Greater Toronto Area until the Sunrise Propane blast in 2008.

The government of Ontario ordered an official inquiry concerning railway safety when transporting dangerous goods. Some of the recommendations included giving municipal governments the authority to prepare emergency measures for various situations. The government implemented this recommendation by creating the Emergency Planning Office in May 1980. The Emergency Plans Act, passed by the Ontario government in 1983, required all of their departments to create a plan for providing services to an area during an emergency: these plans were then coordinated through the Emergency Planning Office.^[12]

As a result of the accident, rail regulators in both the U.S. and Canada required that any line used to carry hazardous materials into or through a populated area have hotbox detectors.^[13]

Larry Krupa was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame for his contribution to the railway industry. He was recognized in the "National" division of the "Railway Workers & Builders" category.^[14]

The city of Mississauga sued CP in hopes of holding the railroad responsible for the massive emergency services bill. However, the city dropped its suit after CP dropped its longstanding opposition to passenger service on its trackage near Mississauga. This cleared the way for GO Transit to open the Milton line two years later.^[15]

Hazel McCallion, in her first term as mayor at the time of the accident, was continuously re-elected until her retirement in 2014 at age 93.

In popular culture

• "Party Rapp," a 1979 rap song by Mr. Q, references the derailment, the first known explicit reference to Canada in a Canadian hip hop song.^[16]

• "Trainwreck 1979," a 2014 rock single by Canadian band Death From Above 1979, is about the derailment:

It ran off the track, 11-79
While the immigrants slept, there wasn't much time
The mayor came calling and got 'em outta bed
They packed up their families and headed upwind
A poison cloud, a flaming sky, 200,000 people and no one died
And all before the pocket dial, yeah!

• The derailment is mentioned in the season four Bob and Margaret episode "A Very Fishy Christmas".

See also

• Ontario portal
• Trains portal

• List of rail accidents (1970–79)
• List of rail accidents in Canada