The Transportation Safety Board says trains must be equipped immediately with backup safety mechanisms that can prevent a collision or derailment.
The board’s recommendation to the federal government comes after a 2023 collision in Montreal between a commuter rail train and a Canadian National Railway freight train that injured six people.
In a report Tuesday, the board said the CN train had passed a signal at the St-Léonard—Montréal-Nord station indicating it needed to keep its speed at 15 miles per hour.
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The report said the crew had assumed the next signal would have permitted them to go faster, so they sped up to 41 miles per hour and did not notice the commuter train until it was just 150 metres away, slamming into it.
Both cameras inside the CN cab had been intentionally obstructed by sheets of paper, preventing investigators from fully knowing what was happening inside the space where the crew operated the train.
The board says that for 25 years it has been calling for physical fail-safe defences that kick in when a crew does not respond to signals, adding that interim measures are necessary right now.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2025.
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