Eleven Transportation Safety Board investigators have been sent to the scene of that horrific train bus crash in Ottawa.  But Chief operating officer Jean Laport says it’s a complex job and could take quite awhile to figure out what caused yesterday morning’s crash which took the lives of 5 passengers and the bus driver. “To do a complete and total job, our team will take the time required to determine what happened in a very thorough manner, and to arrive at specific findings,” he Laport explained, “This could take several months.”  Laport says investigators will be checking to make sure the warning systems and gates were working properly and looking at data from the train’s black box recorder.

Several area hospitals in Ottawa received more than thirty patients from the crash, including eight who were still listed in critical condition last night.

Bus passengers who survived the crash say the driver simply didn’t stop.  The impact sheared off the bus’s entire front, and knocked the VIA locomotive and one of its four passenger cars off the tracks.

The Amalgamated Transit Union identifies the dead bus driver as 45-year-old Dave Woodard, whom a friend describes as “one of the nicest guys” at O-C Transpo.

VIA Rail train service between Toronto and Ottawa has been replaced by chartered buses until at least tomorrow. For updates on VIA service check here