Derailment terrifying for North Bay homeowner

A man whose home is sitting below a suspended rail car says he's been told by authorities it will be at least 24 hours before he and his wife Belinda can return home.

Ron Malcolm's house is just a few feet from the rail line, and the couple is used to the sound of rumbling rail cars passing by.

But they weren't prepared for this.

"It woke us up. It was pretty loud. I knew something was wrong," he told BayToday this morning.

The train, with 25 cars attached, derailed behind his place at 5:30 a.m.

"It was shaking the whole ground, shaking the house. It normally does that some days, it's a noisy train, but this was abnormal. I knew right away something was wrong.

"You could feel it. It was definitely coming off the tracks, you could hear it. Then I saw it through the window of the back room and of course when that happened I went back into the living room and waited for it to stop.
Then I took a look and that's when I saw all the chaos in my yard."

Malcolm says it didn't occur to him to flee the house.

"I panicked. I didn't know which way to go, what was up or what was down. I knew the train was coming off but how bad, I didn't know."

There were just the two of them home at the time.
He says they've been worried for the past 11 years that something like this might happen.

"You always hear it. You always wonder if it's going to
come off.

"Just got lucky this time I guess. We just got finished re-doing the whole outside of the house, windows, doors and siding, insulation and a whole new roof."

Malcolm says that renovation work went through his mind as the train was derailing. "Ya, guaranteed."

But when asked if he plans to move soon, he chuckles, "Nope."