After a harried night outside of Timmins, the 294 passengers and crew onboard a VIA Rail train finally arrived in Toronto.

Their Vancouver-to-Toronto voyage was stopped outside Timmins after an 86-year-old female passenger died on board. Six other people became ill with what emergency crews feared was an infectious disease. It was not, and their illness was unrelated to the woman's death.

The six were Australian tourists who had boarded in Jasper, Alberta.

Five passengers were ill before they boarded the train, and had shown signs of a seasonal flu as early as May 4. They are no longer infectious. All passengers sitting near these five people were checked out by medical professionals, but did not have any symptons. Still, there were told to be extremely cautious about signs of the flu in the coming days.

The sixth tested positive for a cold virus.

The cause of the woman's death has not yet been determined.

The entire train was quarantined for 10 hours in Foleyet as police, EMS workers and doctors examined the ill and searched for clues as to what exactly happened.

Once the train arrived, passengers had nothing but praise for VIA staff

"The staff were wonderful. Very, very good. Via couldn't be faulted. They were really great," beamed Jim Kirk.

Miriam Kearney said they were given frequent updates. "Periodically they let us know they were working on it, I mean, they really didn't have any medical information to give us. So it was just, we'll get there eventually...We had to wait for [Centre for Disease Control] to come out and time to go by and stuff like that. They did the best they could. They were competent and it looked like they were being really thorough."

Matthew Mason described what it was like onboard a stopped train for 10 hours.

"I was thinking it was mostly just a bunch of people sitting around, basically talking and getting along with what we have. We were stuck...so we decided to eat food and tell jokes. That's basically the scenario that ended up happening. I ended up playing Scrabble for a few hours," he laughs.

Norm MacNeil was not on the train, but his mother was. He was waiting for her at Union Station.

"The VIA rail number, they were very informative, and my mother was able to give me details and she was a in good cheer and everything was good and they kept her happy and now she's arriving back home and everything's good."

News of the quarantine reached the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials were pleased that the news spread so quickly, calling it a "successful test" of the system.

Doctor David Williams, Ontario's acting chief medical officer of health, says officials "did all the right things" in what proved to be a false alarm.

Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman said the response of emergency crews gave him, and Ontarians,  "even greater confidence that our ability to manage these kind of things has substantially approved."

Previous stories:

Train Finally En Route To Toronto After Coincidental Illness Scare

Doctors On Train Illness: Better Safe Than Sorry