Automatic refunds for passengers caught up in GO train derailment chaos

Provincial transit agency Metrolinx says it will automatically refund passengers who travelled on its GO train network in and out of Toronto during a major disruption caused by a derailment.

CEO Michael Lindsay announced that passengers who travelled on Feb. 2 and 3 would have their fares refunded, while passengers on some trips that took place on Feb. 4 would also get their money back.

He explained the derailment took four platforms at Union Station out of service for days and came as a result of an incorrectly secured track, which has been out of compliance for a decade.

“Rail is fastened to timber by ties,” Lindsay told reporters. “There were nine ties on one of the rails that, under repetitive stress and fatigue, had allowed the rail to move one and one-eighth inch out of alignment.”

Lindsay said that made the rail roll, the wheels on the train leave the track and the continually moving train — before an emergency brake was applied — plough through and damage switch technology.

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Metrolinx acknowledged the rails around Union Station are more than 100 years old and operating under increasing stress, with other examples of poorly secured track found in an emergency inspection after the derailment.

“There was a standard that we had updated in 2016; each one of those ties should have been fastened by four screws instead of two,” Lindsay said.

The result of the derailment was days of travel chaos in and out of Union Station, with Metrolinx having to manually re-assign tracks and platforms to different trains and departure boards struggling to keep up with the wave of delays and cancellations.

Lindsay acknowledged on Thursday that the transit agency had not managed its communications through the disruption well.

“I’d say sorry to begin with,” he told reporters. “We set the highest standards for ourselves of trying to tell people what’s happening from an operational perspective so that they can depend upon us. And we did not rise to that standard on Feb. 2 and 3.”