On Friday June 13, 1986, at around 7:30 p.m. a pair of 11-year-olds moved the level crossing barrier at Gouin and Sunnybrooke in Pierrefonds as a prank.Soon after, a car full of five people drove over the level-crossing and was smashed. All but one died when hit by an eastbound MUC commuter train to Montreal from Two Mountains traveling at 70 km/h. The driver of the grey Chevrolet, Sebouh Bardakjian, perished along with Jacques Goczol, Marc Larue and Sylvie Martin, all between 17 and 19. Another passenger riding shotgun, named Phillip Rainbow, 18, managed to make it out with lung damage and a spleen removed. He told media that they saw the problem at the last minute but thought they'd get by.
The driver's mother Takouhie Bardakjian learned of the accident while watching late Pulse on CFCF (CTV Montreal) according to the victim's uncle Bedros Torossian.
Police spoke to the children who removed the barrier and stated that they were confident the kids wouldn't do such a thing again. Those two, who could not be named at the time and cannot be named here, would be 37-years-old now.
No idea if the surviving Phillip Rainbow, who recovered after 15 hours in a coma, is the same one who was recently jailed in Cameroon for a crime he says he did not commit.The barriers are still relatively flimsy to this day, as one can almost tell from the photoshopped recreation of the scene above.
The next month the families of all of the victims (except Rainbow and Martin) hired lawyer Reevin Pearl to sue the province, CN, and two municipalities for gross negligence.
In August, the coroner's report blamed the driver Bardakgian, 29, for the accident as there was another car in front of them patiently waiting and the lights and bells were blaring to warn of the train coming, so he was considered to have been duly alerted.
Rainbow had quit school to work in a restaurant and was best friends with Larue, as they grew up as neighbours in DDO, until the Larue family moved to Nun's Island. Marc Larue was studying at the College de Rigaud.
I photographed it that day.
ReplyDeleteOne of the worst train accidents I ever did for the MUCPD
Scene covered more than 1/2 mile down the track
I'm guessing the kids were actually driving north (not south as in this photoshopped image) otherwise the shotgun-side passenger would have been the first to die.
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall reading somewhere else that the driver demonstrated some digital irritation to the car waiting, not understanding that the guy was stopped for a perfectly good reason.
Sounds like the Dorion accident around 1966, where a school bus was hit by two CN trains after someone lifted the crossing gates, going in two directions (at that spot, the speed limit is about 95 miles per hour, and trains will go as fast as possible in order to climb the Des Cèdres hill - the steepest hill on the Toronto line - without slowing down too much).
ReplyDeleteThe school bus driver was the company owner's son and had no driver's licence.
19 kids died.
Years later, I got to be friends with a CN conductor, a very nice guy who always seem to carry an immense burden on his shoulders.
He eventually took his pension, and at his pensioning party, I learn the reason: he was a brakeman on the second train who hit the school bus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorion_level_crossing_accident
Yes, well aware of the Dorion level crossing. I was hoping to get a view of the documentary some woman made of the ordeal before writing about it but am pretty much on the verge of going ahead without it, as it's definitely the elephant in the room when it comes to train/car crashes in the Kweeb.
ReplyDeletePrescient choice of a BNSF locomotive in your PhotoShop depiction, seeing as Warren Buffett's BNSF will soon be merging with his buddy Bill Gates' Canadian National...at which time the arrogance and sanctimonius state of several ex Illinois Central Gulfers staffers will be swept out the door as The Lazy Snake has to shape up to the BNSF customer-is-right mantra
ReplyDeleteSunnybrooke, etc. Part One:
ReplyDeleteA little more research into the Sunnybrooke tragedy reveals that local residents had been complaining for years about of "noise pollution" of trains blasting their usual warning signal (--.-) as they approached that and the Alexander Street level crossings.
See:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19840607&id=04oxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qaUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4508,3990990
Apparently, after a long wait and up until June 1984 (two years prior to the accident) mechanical arm barriers had finally been installed next to the clanging bells and lights at that crossing, after which the train whistling was to be terminated. One wonders then if the accident would have happened at all if the driver of the car had heard the train's warning whistles!
Not surprisingly, counter-petitions had been taken by other residents who wanted such train whistling to be maintained or re-instated as the case may be, with the argument that it prevented such level-crossing accidents and discouraged small children from straying too close to the tracks.
Incidentally, the long-proposed Sunnybrooke level crossing had been a political football between the communities of West Island towns going back as far as the late '60s as the population of Dollard des Ormeaux in particular had expanded more quickly to the point where its vehucular traffic had been forced to siphon north along Sources Blvd. to Gouin Blvd. and thence to points east. Furthermore, it would be years still before Sunnybrooke would connect southward to St. Regis Blvd. and the Trans-Canada Highway.
Long before the Sunnybrooke level crossing was finally built, Dollard had often demanded that the town of Pierrefonds at least allow its residents an eastern road exit via Hyman Avenue to connect with Logan Avenue inside Pierrefonds' A Ma Baie residential district and that a parking lot even be built near to the CNR's A Ma Baie railway platform so that Dollard residents could use it.
As expected, however, A Ma Baie residents were up in arms about such a plan, reasoning that excessive traffic from Dollard would be detrimental to their children's safety.
Pierrefonds also contended that it would be preferable to wait until the long-promised railway commuter line upgrade occur before committing itself to any road connections.
Sunnybrooke, Etc. Part Two:
ReplyDeleteAfter much bickering among the parties involved, it wasn't until the summer of 1982 or 1983 that the Sunnybrooke level crossing was actually built, and this despite the fact that Dollard had always insisted that there be an underpass instead.
Dollard also suggested (perhaps facetiously) that, to alleviate the inevitable future traffic congestion, Hyman Avenue eventually be extended all the way east to Pitfield Blvd., that the long-existing Alexander Avenue level crossing in Pierrefonds' Cloverdale Park sector be turned into a pedestian-only underpass, and that the A Ma Baie platform be closed entirely and the station moved just east of Sunnybrooke Avenue--proposals which, needless to say, outraged Pierrefonds residents.
In the end, Dollard got its way. The A Ma Baie platform no longer exists, thus leaving Cloverdale Park residents without their original and long-established easy access to commuter rail service. It must have felt like a real kick in the teeth to wake up one day and find your railway station gone.
The projected southerly route connecting Sunnybrooke to St. Regis Blvd. and the Trans-Canada Highway dragged on as well. Also following much political bickering with the then Montreal Urban Community Transit Commission, bus service was finally established from Montreal into the West Island, presumably to reduce reliance on the automobile--although it has taken a few more decades of persistent traffic congestion and rising fuel costs to convince people out of their cars in favour of public transit.
It is highly unlikely that St. Regis Blvd. will ever be extended eastward through St. Laurent's industrial park, logically onto Cypihot and then to Pitfield (the service road of Highway 13). As we all know, what looks simple on a map may not be so easy to accomplish in reality (think Cavendish).
Incidentally, there are no longer physical "nimby" barriers at the corner of Toupin where Cavendish connects to it. Were they really necessary in the first place?
I was 5 years old when this happened, I lived down the street in the townhouses right off Sunnybrook and spring garden with mom, dad and brother. I remember my father racing up to the train tracks only a few minutes after it happened. I remember he peeled out of the parking lot and raced up to the tracks in his mustang 5.0. my mother and I stayed back where she was basically hysterical and so was I even though she wouldn't tell me what happened. I believe that night or the night after "can't remember" basically the entire neighborhood went to the tracks for a vigil to the kids that had been killed. only years after my father told me when he got to the tracks there were only a handful of people trying to help and police showed up very quickly, he said there were body parts all over and by the time he got back to his car he threw up and broke down crying. I've never seen my parents so upset.I'm still not even sure how I found this site. thanks for letting me share.
ReplyDeleteCorrection:
ReplyDeleteThis tragedy occurred at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 13, 1986 and not June 12.
See the Gazette pages 1 and 2.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=Fr8DH2VBP9sC&dat=19860614&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
Note that in the article, one of the witnesses states that "The trains go slowly here.", which contradicts the suggestion that the train was going 70 miles an hour when it collided with the car.
The Sunnybrooke level crossing still exists today despite sporadic pressure to build an underpass. Presumably, it will take a few more such accidents to get an underpass built, as was indeed the case with Beaconsfield's Woodland Avenue following several horrendous truck collisions several years ago which prompted residents' outrage.
I grew up in Pierrefonds in the 70s, I left in 1979 and I remember the accident in the newspaper in 1986. I went to elementary school with Sylvie Martin.
ReplyDeleteOne of the victims, Sylvie Martin was going out with my roommate John (Jonathan) Poulin at the time. Earlier that fateful day, the car in the accident pulled up at our apartment to pick up John and go to La Ronde. There were already 5 people in the car and John did not feel like going in a crowded car with them. He kissed Sylvie goodbye for the last time and they drove off. John was deeply affected by this tragedy and withdrew from the World for months, then just disappeared - I have never seen or heard of him since the Fall of 1986...
ReplyDelete