The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Colborne @ Chronicle By Bill Eelchof Train fre â€" Train fire â€" Officials‘survey the wreck of Train 66, Monday.morningâ€"after Sundayâ€"nights fire,; caused by a 1.3â€"metre.plece of rail laid across the line. Police are saying the rail was too heavy for children, or a lone adult to lift, and must have been placed on the ling by at least two adults. Damage has been estimated at over $3â€"million. Photo by Ted Amsden Doug Davis had more than 400 unexpected guests arrive on his doorstep carly Sunday night. Area farmer aids injured passengers ‘They were refugees from a VIA Rail train that stood ablaze on the track at the back of his Brighton Township property. "I‘ve never seen anyâ€" thing like it," Mr. Davis said Monday. Witnesses described the train as a ball of fire as it went through the town. of Brighton. When Mr. Davis saw the fire, he rushed to the scene. He was stunned by what he saw. "I have never seen a fire like that. It was not a little fire. The (railroad) cars Canadian ‘colourist‘ creates special work â€"see page 2 â€"â€" were just meltedâ€"down wrecks," he said. After a few moments, passengers began to appear out of the wreckage and the surrounding wooded area. Mr. Davis said he and his children grabbed flashâ€" lights and led groups of people back to his house. _ Most were dazed and in shock. i One of the first things Mr. Davis did was to get out his backhoe and clear a makeshift road for emerâ€" gency crews and evacuaâ€" tion teams to reach the tracks. The area is swampy, wooded and secluded, he said. Fire. officials soon arrived at the scene to extinguish the blaze. In the meantime, many of the our C train‘s 417 passengers were huddled in the Davis home. It got so crowded in the house that Mr. Davis flipped on the heat in his garage so that the travelâ€" ers could shelter there. A lot of them had cut hands from smashing winâ€" dows in their bid to escape. Many also comâ€" plained about burned feet. Mr. Davis said his wife and children attended to the passengers‘ needs as best they could. "We handed out clothes, coffee, hot water, shoes and boots," he said, noting that many passengers also wanted to soak their burned feet in the Davis bathtub. A bus soon arrived to Happy hookers meeting at church â€"see page 13 â€" ; Newsq transfer the passengers to East Northumberland Seeâ€" ondary School in Brighton. There, they were attended to, and those with more serious injuries were sent to area hospitals. Several remained at the Davis home. Mr. Davis said one mother and her young child waited at the home until a family member from Toronto came to pick them up. _ Mr. Davis downplayed his family'srefl’orls. "In anything like this you just do it," he said. â€" Brighton resident Doug Johnston was sitting in Most were gone by 11 See Train, page and ( Police and investigators from the National Transâ€" portation Agency are investigating a dramatic train fire last night near Brighton in which more: than 50 persons were injured. By Robert Washburn An eastbound VIA express headed for Monâ€" treal from Toronto struck a metreâ€"long piece of rail lying in the rail bed just after 6 p.m., rupturing the fuel tank under the engine and igniting more than 13,000 litres of fuel. Passenger train bursts into flames at Brighton Ball of fire As the crew attempted to stop the train, the firstâ€" class passenger car became engulfed in fire, sending flames 10 metres into the night sky as the train passed through the town of Brighton. n It took nearly two and a half hours to extinguish 2 / the fire. The train, bearing about 400 passengers, finally came to a stop near Boes Road, about two kilomeâ€" tres east of the town. Colborne hockey peewees in nailâ€"biter â€" see page 6 â€" Firefighters from Brighton, Murray Townâ€" ship and Colborne and ambulance crews had to struggle along a narrow, muddy road to reach the scene. Brighton Deputy Fire Chief Brian Brose said today the scene was chaos when he arrived. The 17 members of the train‘s crew were trying to get passengers off the train. Some passengers in the first passenger car had smashed windows and jumped from the train before it had stopped. "Our first prlo‘rity was to get people away from the area," Mr. Brose said. Brighton OPP, ambuâ€" lance crews and a heliâ€" copter from CFB Trenton helped with the evacuaâ€" tion. Hundreds wandered to a nearby farm house. The Brighton Kinettes and Kinsmen, along with members of St. John Ambulance, were at the school with coffee and food even before people started arriving, he said. Within 30 minutes, local buses were transâ€" porting people from the accident scene to East Northumberland _ Secâ€" ondary School in Brighton, he said. tingill was responsible for coâ€"ordinating the town‘s emergency plan. All passengers except those with serious injuries were taken to the school until buses hired by VIA picked them up at about 11 p.m. to take them to their destinations â€" cither Montreal or Dorval airport. Several persons travâ€" elled" back to Toronto in cabs at VIA‘s expense, Mr. Pettingill said. About 52 people were transported directly to hospitals in Trenton, Belleville and Cobourg. About 18 were admitted with various cuts, bruises and burns. One person sustained a broken hip. Mr. Pettingill said the town‘s emergency plan was executed without a hitch. Dianne Graham, a spokesperson for VIA, said the train blocked the major . route . among Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto. About 2,000 other VIA passengers were affected, as their trains were forced to wait until the burned engine and passenger cars were removed from the track by about 10:30 p.m. The train was to be moved to the Montreal rail yards later on Monday, she added. There is no evidence that the piece of rail on the tracks was deliberately set in the path of the train, she said. It will be up to investi= gators to determine the cause, she added.