CN Rail has spent the past few days promoting this ongoing week as Rail Safety Week, a annual event held in September that is dedicated to reminding the general public how important rail safety is in addition to pointing out the risks in trespassing in rail yards and not following rail crossing signs.
The rail company has teamed up with many communities all over Canada for this week with the City of Terrace being included in that group as well.
Terrace Mayor Sean Bujtas pointed out the sense in the partnership for City considering how it’s main rail line is set up;
“When we talk about rail safety, the concern of the rail yard being in the middle of our town is always top of mind. We got the one overpass and we’ve got the level crossing. And we’ve had some fatalities over the years of people crossing through the yard. So we’re always asking CN to do better and make sure that people are safe when it comes to their trains.”
Mayor Bujtas also had some potential ideas on what CN Rail could do in order to improve safety measures around rails in the community;
“I would hope that CN would work with higher levels of government and work on ways to increase the ability for people to cross the tracks. I think a big wish is a second overpass in our community at some point. It’d be nice to have the province, CN and maybe the federal government work together in making our community safer in that way.”
But even with those potential improvements, practicing ways to stay safe when going by train tracks like not getting unnecessarily close to any tracks or crossings, listening for potentially approaching trains and looking both ways before going through a crossing are still important.
Anyone who notices an unsafe situation near a railroad is asked to call the CN Police phone number at 1-800-465-9239.