CP Rail Crew Bus Crash | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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CP Rail Crew Bus Crash

On 28 May 1980, 22 workers on a Canadian Pacific Railway steel crew were killed in a bus accident on the Trans-Canada Highway near Webb, Saskatchewan, west of Regina. It was one of the deadliest motor vehicle disasters in Canadian history.

The crew members — many of them teenagers or young men — were killed when their bus collided with another vehicle. The bus flipped onto its side and was then struck from behind by a tanker truck loaded with liquid asphalt. A fire engulfed the bus, charring the bodies of many of the victims and leaving them unrecognizable in the aftermath. Twelve of the dead were workers from Newfoundland. There were eight survivors.