Via Rail train was changing track before derailment near Burlington, Ont.: report

A Via Rail passenger train was reportedly changing tracks when it derailed and killed three people this weekend near Burlington, Ont.
The train was crossing over from one track to another as one was being worked on by a crew, said Rex Beatty, the president of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, told CBC News on Monday.
``Think about it as a detour around that work area,'' Beatty said.
He told CBC the crew work would have had no impact on the crash and that crossovers are normal operations that happen routinely.
However, he admitted that it is his understanding that crossovers do not happen at that location that often.
``It would be unusual at that location given the proximity to Toronto, but it's certainly not abnormal in any way.''
The derailment Sunday killed two locomotive engineers and a trainee, and seriously injured three passengers.
Investigators gave media at the crash scene a brief update Monday morning. They said they're hoping to have data later Monday from the train's black box.
Transportation Safety Board investigator Tom Griffith told reporters the black box - which provides data that's typically used to determined what happened in a crash - was badly damaged during the derailment, which left three people dead Sunday.
However, he said it was not damaged beyond repair, and that investigators expected to recover some information from the device Monday.
The six-car Via Rail passenger train came off the rails on a straight track in good weather Sunday afternoon.
The incident occurred close to the site of a 2008 freight train derailment in the city, which is located about 60 kilometres southwest of Toronto.
First responders arrived to find one of the passenger cars ``completely on its side,'' and another ``on a bit of a slant,'' said Halton Regional Police Chief Gary Crowell, speaking at a news conference Sunday night. The badly damaged locomotive was resting against a trackside building.
The names of the Via employees have not been released.
Via officials said three passengers had serious injuries and 42 other passengers and one other crew member were also taken to local hospitals. Among the injured was a child. They were taken to four hospitals in Hamilton, Ont., and Mississauga, Ont.
The three most seriously injured suffered a broken leg, a back injury and a heart attack.
One passenger was reportedly ejected from the train through a broken window.