No one hurt when Via Rail train derails in eastern New Brunswick

Two cars of a Via Rail train derailed early Thursday afternoon near Coal Branch, about 46 kilometres northwest of Moncton.

All 94 passengers and 15 crew are safe,and no one was injured, Via Rail said.

The train was travelling between Montreal and Halifaxaround 12:35 p.m.when the two cars derailed but remained upright.

RCMP were dispatched to the Kent County site shortly after.

Bonnie Adams was on the train making her way to Moncton from Campbellton.

"When it went over the crossroads it was very scary," she said.

Despite the scare, she said no one was injured.

"That's God blessing there, because we could have been all badly hurt."

Mark Perry, fire chief of the Beersville-Harcourt Fire Department, said they got a call around 1 p.m. about the derailment, and a firefighter on his way to Moncton stopped at the scene and reported no one was injured.

"So the paniclevel went down," Perry said.

He and his crew helped bring passengers from the train cars to the buses.

"It was just lucky, because a derailment could have been a lot worse."

Took out homeowner's driveway

The train derailed in front of Troy Kaye's house, taking out his driveway.

"I was inside just doing a couple chores and I heard the train go by and kind of heard a rumbling sound but there was so much wind you couldn'ttell if there was anything abnormal to it," Kaye said.

He heard sirens and saw emergency crews going by, but it wasn't until he got a text from his neighbour as he was going to pick up his daughter that he went outside to look.

"You could see where it completely ripped out our driveway and all the beams," he said."I don't think there's going to be any trains going by for a while."

Via Rail said the train, which is called Train 14, has been cancelled andalternative transportation has been foundto take passengers to their final destinations.

People along the route with reservations were being contacted by the company and offered alternative transportation, full refunds or ticket exchanges.

Via said it is investigatingthe cause of the derailment with its partner owners of the infrastructure, meaning CN Rail.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is also deploying a team of investigators to the site to gather information and assess the incident.

Eric Collard, a spokesperson for the board, said it classifies incidents to determine the level of the investigation.

"First we have to figure out what kind of investigation we're going to be doing," Collard said.

While it is still too early to determine that, Collard said the board will work with Via and CN Rail to gather information.