Editorial

Trains, tracks, people, trucks

Rubberneckers on Slave Lake’s 2nd Ave. N.W. had something to entertain them last Friday when a Mackenzie Northern grain car derailed. The car, carrying canola seed, hopped off the tracks just east of Caribou Trail, causing that street to be blocked for several hours.
It was bad news for the railway, but could have been much worse. It was also inconvenient for traffic, but could have been much, much worse.
Mackenzie Northern trains seem to be getting longer. One hundred-plus cars is not unusual, making a vehicle of over a mile in length. A derailment in that spot could just as easily have blocked Caribou Trail, 3rd St. Main St. and 7th Ave. S.E. – maybe even Hwy. 88 to boot.
But it didn’t, and that may have been part of the reason for Mackenzie Northern manager Tim Husel’s relatively upbeat mood at the scene of the accident Friday morning. Also on the plus side, the derailment caused little or no damage to the track. The cargo might have to be written off and the cost of bringing a crane down from Grimshaw (Husel was surprised none was available in Slave Lake) must have been fairly steep. But all things considered, it was far short of a disaster.
Husel took the time to chat with The Leader about railway safety issues in general. He is very pleased at the recent success of the program to keep schoolkids and other pedestrians off the tracks through town.
Husel said the program has been so effective he’s holding it up as an example in a national trade magazine. He’s also referring to it in talks with municipalities such as High Prairie and McLennan, where he says similar education and enforcement programs haven’t done as well or even gotten off the ground.
The program really has been effective in Slave Lake, as anyone who drives Main St. during lunch hour knows. It started with a saturation approach to educating the townsfolk, with particular emphasis on the school population. There were mailouts and class visits, making it plain that after a period of warnings, police would be writing $287 tickets.
They did it too, and although provincial court judges on more than one occasion saw fit to lower the fines, the enforcement was effective. Foot traffic on the tracks dropped way off.
What’s happened is that kids on their way from Roland Michener School to the mall are walking on 1A Ave. instead of crossing the street to the sidewalk on the north side. Husel says he’s talking with the Town about moving the fence a few feet onto railway right-of-way to facilitate the construction of a walkway on the south side of the street. Bit by bit the obstacles are being tackled, and the result is – or should be – a safer community.
Husel certainly thinks it is.
Train track safety is always a challenge, largely because to many people the slow-moving beasts don’t really seem very dangerous. Who couldn’t get out of the way of a train doing 15-miles per hour if they wanted to? Well, that doesn’t take into account people who don’t, or won’t or can’t pay attention. Then of course there are the drivers who think they can beat the train, and don’t. Such was likely the case with the log truck that caused a CN passenger train to derail west of Edmonton recently.
Mackenzie Northern trains killed two people in the past couple of years in communities west of here. Husel’s hoping for a fatality-free 2005 for his railway and praises this community for its leadership in helping that happen.