Lac-Mégantic derailment
Police helicopter view of Lac-Mégantic, the day of the derailment
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 Lac-Mégantic
Location within Quebec
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| Date | July 6, 2013 |
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| Time | 01:15 EDT (05:15 UTC) |
| Location | Lac-Mégantic, Quebec |
| Coordinates | 45°34′40″N 70°53′6″W / 45.57778°N 70.88500°WCoordinates: 45°34′40″N 70°53′6″W / 45.57778°N 70.88500°W |
| Country | Canada |
| Operator | Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway |
| Type of incident | Derailment of a runaway train |
| Cause | Combination of neglected defective locomotive, poor maintenance, driver error, flawed operating procedures, weak regulatory oversight, lack of safety redundancy |
| Statistics | |
| Trains | 1 |
| Deaths | 47 (42 confirmed, 5 presumed) |
| Damage | More than 30 buildings destroyed, 36 to be demolished due to contamination |
The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster occurred in the town of Lac-Mégantic, in the Eastern Townships of the Canadian province of Quebec, at approximately 01:15 EDT, on July 6, 2013, when an unattended 74-car freight train carrying Bakken Formation crude oil rolled down a 1.2% grade from Nantes and derailed downtown, resulting in the fire and explosion of multiple tank cars. Forty-two people were confirmed dead, with five more missing and presumed dead. More than 30 buildings in the town's centre, roughly half of the downtown area, were destroyed, and all but three of the thirty-nine remaining downtown buildings are to be demolished due to petroleum contamination of the townsite. Initial newspaper reports described a 1-kilometre (0.6 mi) blast radius.
The death toll of 47 makes it the fourth-deadliest rail accident in Canadian history, and the deadliest involving a non-passenger train. It is also the deadliest rail accident since Canada's confederation in 1867. The last Canadian rail accident to have a higher death toll was the St-Hilaire train disaster in 1864.
The railway passing through Lac-Mégantic was owned by the United States-based Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA). The MMA has owned and operated a former Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) main line since January 2003, between Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, in the west and Brownville Junction, Maine, in the east.
The rail line through Lac-Mégantic and across Maine was built in the late 1880s as part of the final link in CPR's transcontinental system between Montreal, Quebec, and Saint John, New Brunswick, with the section east of Lac-Mégantic known as the International Railway of Maine. Until December 1994 the line hosted VIA Rail's Atlantic passenger train as well as CPR freight service. A 1970s proposal to reroute the line to bypass downtown Lac-Mégantic was never implemented because of cost. The rail line was owned by CPR until sold in segments in January 1995. VIA Rail discontinued passenger service on the route in December 1994 owing to the pending change in ownership as VIA regulations then prohibited its passenger trains from operating on tracks that were not owned by either of Canada's two national railway companies. The eastern half of the line between Brownville Junction and Saint John was sold to the industrial conglomerate J. D. Irving, which established two subsidiaries: the Eastern Maine Railway and New Brunswick Southern Railway. The western half of the line between Brownville Junction toward Montreal was sold to Iron Road Railways, a U.S.-based company, which established a subsidiary called Canadian American Railroad.
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