The Chatham woman, whose identity hasn’t been released, received critical injuries in the crash that occurred shortly after 3 p.m. near Keil Drive South. The woman later died in hospital.
The train travelling east struck a white SUV and pushed it more than 300 metres before it came to a stop.
Dennis Brown, who can see the railway tracks from the back of his home on Park Avenue West, didn’t see the crash, but he saw the train pass by shortly before it came to a stop behind a neighbour’s home.
Brown said he was shocked by what he saw.
“I thought the train was plowing snow,” he said. “Then I realized it was a SUV that the train had on the front of it, and actually it was moving snow as it was going down the track.”He said didn’t hear the brakes from the train, adding “everything just came to a stop.”
Brown said put on his coat and boots and ran outside where he saw the train had come to a stop behind a home a few doors down from his.
Emergency crews arrived, pulled a man out of the SUV and began performing CPR, he said.
The train bound for Toronto was nearing a stop at the Chatham VIA Rail station when the crash occurred.
None of the passengers or crew were injured, Via said in an email.
The crash caused delays to some trains between London and Toronto, Via said.Don Phelan, whose Park Avenue West home is also near where the vehicle and train came to a stop, didn’t know there was a crash until he saw police cruisers go by with their sirens and lights going.
Just prior to that, he began to wonder why a train had been at a standstill with its engine running for so long on the tracks near his home.
After going into his backyard to see what was happening, Phelan said, “I’m like ‘This is crazy,’ ” when he saw the crash scene.
Another Park Avenue West resident, Dennis Wenwick, also didn’t realize there had been a train crash until the emergency crews began arriving on scene.
“I didn’t even hear the train brake or nothing,” he said.
He also saw emergency crews performing CPR on a male.
