Accession consists of records created and/or maintained by the Board of Railway Commissioners (1904-1938), the Board of Transport Commissioners (1938-1967), the Canadian Transport Commission (1967-1988), and the National Transportation Agency (1988-1996). These records document a wide variety of railway incidents and general safety issues that were reported and investigated over the years. These incidents involved accidents, collisions, trespassing, derailments, side swipes, fires, leaks, bomb threats, and run-away cars. The collection spans approximately 1,000 different incidents. Also, a limited number of files appear to be of investigations conducted into more general safety issues, especially around the transportation of Dangerous Goods, one file relating to an overview of the causes of major rail accidents occurring in Atlantic Canada in 1987, and the 1980-81 Grange Inquiry into the Mississauga derailment that occurred on Nov. 10, 1979, causing the evacuation of the entire city. See the Mississauga Railway Accident Inquiry fonds (R1056) for associated records.
Be aware that in many cases, multiple files may have been created to document particular rail incidents. It appears to have been standard practice that the regional investigators created and filed records in their regional offices, but they also forwarded copies of relevant records to HQ, where HQ employees then created, compiled, and maintained an official HQ file on their end. Regional files will often involve more of the working documents related to an investigation, including sometimes sketches and photos of incidents, notes from witness statements, drafts, and other investigation materials. HQ files, on the other hand, will typically include less of the investigation materials, and focus more on the official documents, such as final investigation reports. HQ files will also typically include records of correspondence with external parties around particular incidents, including, for example, with the implicated rail companies, other government departments and investigating agencies, family members of victims, and the general public. This collection involves many examples as well of collections of two separate files related to singular cases, where one grouping of files is called "Official file," and another grouping of files is called "Internal file." Researchers might therefore be warranted in continuing to search for secondary files in the Canadian Transportation Agency fonds (RG46), even after locating a single file that is relevant to a particular case.
Finally, note that for the majority of the records in this collection, especially those dating up to 1988 or 1989, TSB is not expected to have added or modified records in the files. However, for any incidents that took place around 1989-1990, expect that TSB may have taken over some of the duties related to the case, whether that means continuing the investigation, continuing the production of a final report, or corresponding with external parties after the finalization of any report. If the case files in this collection do not document TSB activities like these, the possibility exists that TSB created separate files that a grouped in a different collection. Again, a researcher might be warranted in continuing to search for secondary files in the TSB fonds (RG156)
