Toronto’s transit agency brought in external reviewers and was running replacement buses on an east-end rail line Tuesday after a derailment the evening before left several passengers injured.
The Toronto Transit Commission said the rear car of a train on the Scarborough Rapid Transit system separated from the rest of the train on Monday evening and derailed at Ellesmere Station. Five people were taken to hospital with minor injuries.
The TTC said dozens of buses would replace the Scarborough Rapid Transit line, also known as Line 3, until it was safe to resume train service.
“External reviewers coming in to assist,” the agency wrote on Twitter. “But this could be several days at minimum so we have staff on scene to assist with options.”
About 44 people on board the derailed train car were evacuated, and 20 to 30 other passengers from the remainder of the train were able to exit themselves and walk down the tracks, authorities said.
Shelagh Pizey-Allen, a spokeswoman for the transit users advocacy group TTCRiders, said the derailment was “unthinkable” for riders who use the transit service daily.
“I was very shocked and angry that this kind of accident happened on the TTC because it could have been much worse,” she said.
“If it had happened further down the track and the train had been going faster, if it happened on a portion of the RT that was elevated, it could have been fatal.”
Transit riders want to see an independent and thorough investigation provide answers about how and why the derailment happened, Pizey-Allen said.
Line 3 is a 6.4-kilometre intermediate capacity rapid transit line with six stations that opened in 1985, and its trains have been in service 10 years past their design life, according to the TTC’s website.
The line is scheduled for decommission in November and will be replaced by buses until the Scarborough Subway Extension is opened by the province in 2030.
University of Toronto engineering professor Amer Shalaby said current Scarborough Rapid Transit line has been running much longer than what it was designed for.
“We have waited far too long and debated too much on how and what should replace the Scarborough RT,” he wrote in an emailed statement.
“I guess what happened is a lesson on the risks associated with inefficient decision making for our strategic transit projects.”
