At least one Canoe resident is grateful Monday’s train derailment didn’t turn out worse than it did.
Debbie Lovestone, who has lived in Canoe since February, says she only heard a loud “clunk” at 5:30 Monday morning when 10 train cars loaded with coal went off the tracks. Though the power went out, Lovestone says she didn’t initially realize the noise or the outage was caused by the derailment. And, when she learned what had happened, Lovestone was immediately grateful no major harm had come of it.
“When they say minor miracle, it was a major miracle, I think, the way it happened, that it was low speed and coal rather than gas,” says Lovestone.
Lovestone’s reaction stems, in part, to concerns she has with the speed and weight of trains going through her neighbourhood over the past two months.
“The speed was excessive, and the weight seemed to be – whether it was a combination of the weight and the speed, our house shook. Our heavy, heavy furniture, it would shake… it was like an earthquake.”
Lovestone has communicated her concerns to CP. She says she was told they would look into it, they appreciate calls from residents, and if something was off, they would investigate.
Since the derailment, only one of the two tracks has been open to traffic, and Lovestone says traffic is now slow going, similar to how it was a few weeks back when work was being done on the tracks for a city sanitation line.
“I talked to the workmen and said, ‘wow, the trains are amazingly slow.’ And they said, ‘we’ve asked them to go slow because we’re working here.’ And that’s when it clued in for me, they don’t need to go that fast and they shouldn’t be going that fast in a residential area.”
CP spokesperson Kevin Hrysak acknowledges having seen an email relating to Lovestone’s concerns, and said CP is following up on it. However, he said speed and train weights are not anything out of the ordinary.
“Some trains have gotten longer over the years, in that regard, but with the distributed power that they have… with locomotives at various spots among the cars actually puts less wear and tear on the trackage and the cars – they’re like a buffer.”
The time of day or night have no impact on speeds, Hrysak explains, and the permissible speed is always the same. That said, there are variables based on traffic, signals, etc, that determine a train’s speed.
“If a train’s there on a meet at Canoe with another train, it could be coming in slower into Canoe to meet that train, as opposed to a train that just has clear signals… it would be going track speed. Just because trains are going different speeds through there doesn’t mean they are speeding or we’ve increased speeds.”
Lovestone maintains there’s a notable difference to the train traffic through Canoe, and views Monday’s incident as significant.
“It’s a warning – it’s a warning to pay attention to that area and keep everybody safe,” says Lovestone.