VIA Train 92 left Aldershot station about 3:30 Sunday afternoon, following a 10-minute stop.

Passenger trains can accelerate as quickly as a car. Heading east toward Union Station, Train 92 was travelling at 67 mph (108 km/h).

It passed one signal and then another. Each signal should have warned the engineers to slow down to 15 mph (24 km/h) as they approached a crossover from track 2 to track 3.

The crossover, normally used to shuffle freight trains, was being employed for the Niagara Falls passenger trip because of a CN crew working up ahead on the track. In fact, Train 92 sounded its whistle to alert the crew of its approach.

But when the train jumped the track, killing three engineers and injuring 46 passengers, there were no indications it had ever reduced speed. The throttle was wide open. The brakes were never applied.

Investigators know this from the event recorder they recovered from the smashed locomotive.

What they don’t know — and it’s not clear they will ever learn — is which of the three engineers aboard was driving that day and why the train continued to travel at a speed four times the authorized limit, said Transportation Safety Board lead investigator Tom Griffith.

“After they left the station, if the signal indication was proper, they should have not reached that speed and they would have been down to the proper speed going into the crossover,” he said Thursday.

Griffith stressed that at this early stage of an investigation expected to continue for months, he’s not ready to attribute the derailment to human error.

But he renewed calls for voice recorders to be mandatory in train cockpits, just as they are in airplanes and ships.

“The board is concerned that voice recordings, a valuable investigative tool, are not yet on Canadian trains,” he said.

The Transportation Safety Board has been recommending the recorders for all trains since 2003, but nothing has been done.

Those recordings would tell investigators which of the three engineers was calling the signals that day. Train engineers rely on the complex signals posted on tracks to tell them when they will be switching tracks and the authorized speed for a particular stretch of rail. Although they can read the speed of travel in the cockpit, there’s no equipment inside the train telling them the authorized speed on that track block.

“Normally the person on the control would call (the signal) first and would be answered by the second locomotive engineer. So that would tell us from the sound of the voice who was actually operating that locomotive,” Griffith said.

Early indications are that the signals were working that day, but investigators may end up taking down the signal devices and tearing them apart to ensure they were operating as designed, he said.

A VIA Rail spokesman did not say why voice recorders aren’t used. But the company is committed to moving ahead quickly with discussions about voice recorders with the engineers’ union, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, said spokesman Malcolm Andrews.

The union did not return calls to the Star on Thursday. But federal NDP transportation critic MP Olivia Chow said she spoke with union representatives Thursday who support the recorders. They also support positive train control (PTC).

PTC is a computerized system that can shut down trains remotely if crews miss signals or travel at unauthorized speeds. It is now required in the United States and would have prevented the Burlington derailment, Chow said.

But a $200 million proposed cut to VIA Rail infrastructure funding by the federal government will make paying for safety upgrades more difficult, she said.

Rail industry experts say the railways are concerned about the cost of upgrading technology and, in the case of voice recorders, cite privacy concerns.

But Chow points out that CN, which owns that section of track, is a highly profitable company.

Federal Transport Minister Denis Lebel told the House of Commons on Thursday that he has directed the Advisory Council on Rail Safety to look again “on an urgent basis” into installing voice recorders in locomotive cabs.

The rail dispatch centre at Highway 7 and Keele St. has a panel similar to that of an airport, Griffith said. Dispatchers can trace a train’s progress on the screen, but they don’t monitor speed.

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Train engineers typically start out as conductors. They take courses and train under the guidance of another experienced engineer.

Although VIA trains can travel up to 100 mph in some parts of Canada, the usual speed for the section of track near Burlington is 95 mph. On Sunday it had been reduced to 80.

Local business owners and area residents said earlier in the week that they often see VIA trains travelling through the corridor at a very fast clip.

“The passenger trains come through here too fast,” said Jim Trickey, 64, who lives on the residential side of Enfield Rd., about a half a kilometre from Sunday’s derailment. His home backs onto the tracks.

“You can hardly hear them they’re so fast,” said his wife, Clare, also 64. GO Transit trains don’t move as quickly through the corridor, the couple added.

CN has said it investigated the tracks before the crash and found no signs of deterioration or wear, and police have ruled out any criminal wrongdoing.

Killed in the derailment were Ken Simmonds, Peter Snarr and Patrick Robinson.

Injuries to passengers ranged from minor to a broken leg, a back injury and a heart attack.

Two Toronto law firms have now filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of passengers who were aboard the train when it derailed on Sunday, as well as the passengers’ children, siblings, parents and grandparents, if living.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by Koskie Minsky LLP and Howie, Sacks & Henry LLP, claims damages for negligence and breach of contract and names VIA Rail Canada, Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway Co. as defendants.

The lead plaintiff is David Carmichael, 48, who suffered a fractured spine, three broken ribs, a broken nose and a lacerated liver. He was released from hospital Wednesday. His son, Drew, 11, was also on the train and ended up with a broken foot.

On Monday, two other law firms, Sutts, Strosberg LLP and Falconer, Charney LLP, were the first to file.

After an event involving mass injuries, such as a train derailment, lawyers often move fast in putting together class-action claims, sometimes even before the cause is known. The faster they file a statement of claim, the better their chances of remaining part of the case if multiple lawsuits are consolidated into a single class-action consortium.

With files by Tracey Tyler and Jayme Poisson

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