Rail safety week focuses on prevention

If you live in Yorkton, you can’t help but be aware of the train, given the two rail lines that cut through the city. Rail safety week, which runs from Sept. 23 to 29, is a reminder to treat those trains with respect and pay attention at the many rail crossings in the area.

The City of Yorkton joined with representatives from CN and CP police to highlight rail safety and remind people to look, listen and live.

“Our goal is to try to educate the public and make them aware of the risks that become huge and dangerous when you don’t abide by the signage and you don’t stay where you’re supposed to be,” said Cst. Hank Neumiller, CN Police officer for the Yorkton area.

There were 223 incidents involving trains in 2017, 72 of which were fatalities. Neumiller said that the main thing that linked all of those incidents was that they were all preventable, so they use rail safety week to highlight the need to pay attention around railroad tracks.

Neumiller also used the opportunity to highlight what people need to do if they have an emergency around railway tracks. While most people have the instinct to phone 9-1-1, he said that what you need to do is to phone the 1-800 number on the crossing and inform them which crossing you are at, which is also written on the rail crossing sign. The reason behind doing this is so that either CN or CP can tell their crews.

“9-1-1 deals with police, fire and ambulance, they’re not thinking about the railroad, they don’t have any communication with the train crews, they don’t have any communication between anyone in and amongst the railroad. Where if you phone the 1-800 number associated with the railroad, they can trickle down, they can call 9-1-1, they can get the police and ambulance coming, they can do all of that, but they can also tell the trains, at this location something is going on, you guys need to stop. Without that, the train is coming, and one of our trains at track speed, which is approximately 90 km/h, will take a mile to stop. They might not see anything until they’re well within that mile, and they can’t stop, and we might see a serious injury or a fatality.”

The need for a week for rail safety is more pressing as the railways expand, said Neumiller.

“We’re going to see some of our communities who see one or two trains a week see one or two trains a day. So the communities, we’re going to have to really work with them to improve their knowledge and awareness of us, because after 15 years of one or two trains a week, and all of a sudden there’s one or two trains a day, the communities aren’t used to that.”

They also focused on the joint venture between the city, CN and the Yorkton Business Improvement District to build new fence along the rail line near the skate park. The $30,000 project is a necessary one, because that area of track has long been associated with trespassing, from well before the Skate Park in the area was built, explained Neumiller, due to its proximity to downtown.

“There were always people trespassing across the railway as a shortcut to get where they needed to go. It was an issue because any time is train time, and if you have a crew coming through at 4:00 a.m. and you have somebody walking down the tracks with their headphones on and not listening or it’s winter and they have their hood up and toque on and they can’t hear you, that’s a huge risk to everyone.”

The fence is expected to be built in the spring.