18 cars jump track east of town

Alicia Boisson
South Peace News

Local authorities are concerned with the level of communication between them and CN Rail. The cause for the concern was a derailment, that occurred about 15 kilometres east of High Prairie on the night of Feb. 27 at approximately 11:15 p.m. M.D. of Big Lakes emergency coordinator John Gould, says neither municipality nor any of the local authorities were informed of the 18-car derailment. “There was no threat but we didn’t know that,” says Gould. “I could have gone out there and assessed the situation and notified the proper people to ensure everything was as safe as possible for everyone involved in the clean up.” During a phone conversation with Public Affairs representative for CN Rail, Jim Feeney, Gould was told there is no moral obligation to contact the surrounding authorities if there were no dangerous goods. “But they still should have let us know,” says Gould, even if it meant organizing some way to direct traffic. “They had half the highway blocked off with no early indication of a work site up ahead. This isn’t safe for either the clean up crew or motorists.” Gould says a derailment in May 2006 was another incident where the local municipalities weren’t notified. “During this incident they were completely blocking a road to residences,” adds Gould. “If there would have been an emergency we would have had to reroute, losing minutes. Had we been notified at that time we could have informed our emergency teams so they could have planned accordingly.” Gould says that in a later conversation with the command supervisor, Brian Kalin, they both decided perhaps they should meet and discuss future communication protocols. Feeney says there are protocols in place in case the cars are carrying dangerous goods, but in this case it wasn’t a threat to the local residents because the cars were only carrying grain and wood pulp.

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