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CP Rail confirms three crew members die in B.C. grain car derailment

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A Canadian Pacific Railway train passes through a crossing on a rural road in Delta, B.C., on Sunday February 5, 2017. Three crew members of a Canadian Pacific freight train have died in a derailment near the Alberta-British Columbia boundary. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

A union representative says a Canadian Pacific freight train fell more than 60 metres from a bridge near the Alberta-British Columbia boundary in a derailment that killed three crew members.

Greg Edwards with the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference says the workers had just taken over the train east of Field, B.C.

He says two of them were found near the locomotive, which landed in the Kicking Horse River, and the other was still inside.

The union says the three are believed to have been a locomotive engineer, a conductor and a conductor trainee based out of Calgary.

Edwards, who represents locomotive engineers in Western Canada, says he received the news in the middle of the night.

A British Columbia Environment Ministry spokesman said between 30 and 40 grain cars left the tracks in the derailment.