The Transportation Safety Board of Canada held a news conference on Tuesday morning to provide an update on the investigation into a train derailment near Field, British Columbia that killed three crew members on Monday.

The CP Rail freight train originated in Red Deer and went through Calgary before heading west on its way to Vancouver.

The train consisted of 112 cars and three locomotives and derailed between the Upper and Lower Spiral Tunnels just east of Field at about 1:00 a.m.

The three crew members who were killed were all from Calgary and have been identified as conductor Dylan Paradis, engineer Andrew Dockrell and trainee Daniel Waldenberger-Bulmer.

TSB officials said on Monday that the train plunged more than 60 metres from a bridge and that the lead locomotive came to rest in the Kicking Horse River. CP says it is working with Parks Canada to ensure that the environment was not negatively affected.

CP released a statement on Monday afternoon from its president and CEO, Keith Creel, who said ‘Our entire railroad family mourns this tragic loss’ and that it is a ‘tragedy that will have a long-lasting impact on our family of railroaders.’

At a news conference on Tuesday, TSB senior Investigator James Carmichael said that the crew was switched out at Partridge and investigators will check to see if any issues were identified before the new crew took over the train.

“We haven’t had an opportunity to talk to the previous crew that was on there but that is one of the things we’re going to try and find out if there was any issues before hand, at this time we just know that they met, talked and the switch was made,” he said. “They were onboard but there are things they have to take care of before they leave, they have to do their checks and make sure all their paperwork is in place before they depart. And lots of times if they’re there they have to wait for the signal to allow them to go so there’s no opposing traffic.”

Carmichael says the freight train was parked and began to move on its own.

“When the train was brought into Partridge, once the first crew that was on there stopped the train, they placed the train into emergency, which is an emergency brake application that holds the brakes in place. We’re going to try and determine why the brakes didn’t stay in place, so that will be part of our investigation,” he said. “Our preliminary indications are saying right now that it’s a loss of control and our investigation will progress and we will look for every indication of how that train was handled going down the hill.”

He says a ‘loss of control’ is a situation where the crew can no longer maintain the designated track speed and that the TSB will review the locomotive’s recorder to determine how fast the train was going at the time of the derailment.

“At this time we still haven’t got an exact number of how fast they were travelling. The track speed through that area is 20 miles an hour,”

The TSB says it is still early in the investigation and that it will look at other derailments as part of the investigation.

“As we go forward we will look at other investigations that have taken place in this area and across Canada, if they’ll help us with this investigation,” said Carmichael. “That will be part of the investigation moving forward is looking at other failures.”

Carmichael says they are waiting for track profile information from the railway, which includes information on the grade and curvature, but that the crew didn’t cause the train to move on its own.

“It was not anything the crew did to the train to start it to move on its own,” he said. “The train when it was brought into Partridge it was parked for about two hours, we don’t have the exact time frame on it yet, we know it was approximately two hours. Once the new crew got on there, we have to look at the locomotive event recorders and determine what happened as far as the brakes releasing and the train starting to move. We don’t know at this point when there was a loss of control, its still so early, we’ve got a lot of work to determine the sequence of events that took place.”

He says some of the cars went down embankments and the terrain is steep in some parts so it will take some time to complete the investigation.

The TSB says 13 cars and the rear locomotive remained on the track

Support for the three crew members is growing and a GoFundMe page has been established to help their families, with a goal of $60,000.