Two Canadian National Railway trains collide in northeastern British Columbia in the Canoe River train crash; the death toll is 21, with 17 of them Canadian troops bound for Korea.
The Canoe River train crash occurred on November 21, 1950, near Valemount in eastern British Columbia, Canada, when a westbound troop train and the eastbound Canadian National Railway (CNR) Continental Limited collided head-on. The collision killed 21 people: 17 Canadian soldiers en route to the Korean War and the two-man locomotive crew of each train.
The post-crash investigation found that the order given to the troop train differed from the intended message. Crucial words were missing, causing the troop train to proceed on its way rather than halt on a siding, resulting in the collision. A telegraph operator, Alfred John "Jack" Atherton, was charged with manslaughter; the Crown alleged that he was negligent in passing an incomplete message. His family hired his Member of Parliament, John Diefenbaker, as defence counsel. Diefenbaker joined the British Columbia bar to take the case, and obtained Atherton's acquittal.
After the accident, the CNR installed block signals on the stretch of track on which the crash occurred. The railway later realigned the main line in that area, eliminating a sharp curve that prevented crews from seeing oncoming trains. Diefenbaker's successful defence of Atherton became an asset in his political rise. A number of monuments honour the dead.
The Canadian National Railway Company (French: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) (reporting mark CN) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue and the physical size of its rail network, spanning Canada from the Atlantic coast in Nova Scotia to the Pacific coast in British Columbia across approximately 20,400 route miles (32,831 km) of track. In the late 20th century, CN gained extensive capacity in the United States by taking over such railroads as the Illinois Central.
CN is a public company with 24,000 employees, and as of July 2019 it has a market cap of approximately CA$90 billion. CN was government-owned, having been a Canadian Crown corporation from its founding in 1919 until being privatized in 1995. As of 2019, Bill Gates is the largest single shareholder of CN stock, owning a 10.04% interest through Cascade Investment and his own Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.From 1919 to 1960, the railway was referred to as "Canadian National Railways" (CNR).