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A day of rail-related chaos in Saskatoon has rekindled the conversation around getting trains out of the city.
A CP Rail train stalled Thursday morning, causing major delays at several intersections. Then, in an unrelated incident, another CP train was involved in a fatal collision with a pedestrian at the crossing on 20th Street West.
Mayor Charlie Clark spoke with The Brent Loucks Show Friday morning.
“It is, and has been a big disruption when those situations occur, and for it to happen twice yesterday was a particularly difficult situation, for sure. And I also want to send condolences to the family of the woman who lost her life at the crossing at 20th Street,” he said.
While he acknowledged many in the city would like to see the rail lines removed entirely, the idea remains extremely expensive.
“It’s about a $600 million price tag to move just the CP Rail line, which is the line that goes across Idylwyld and 20th and through the middle of the city.”
He said there are some talks of twinning CP and CN Rail lines coming into the southeast of the city. But he said any such move would still be a long way out.
“The reality is, it’s a tough situation to resolve. We haven’t given up by any means and we still continue to explore options.”
Clark said in the meantime, they’re looking at shorter-term solutions to at least take some sting out for drivers.
“The other options we were talking about that are less daunting and that we can make more progress on in the short term is to better use technology to inform people and to identify when there are trains blocking the intersection, to have advanced warning for people,” he said.
He said one area that has improved is the communication from the railways with the city. He said he was getting updates via text directly from a CP official as they worked to resolve some of Thursday’s issues around blocked intersections.
“I do give them some credit. I think things like when an engine fails in the middle of the city, that’s a frustrating situation for sure. I guess what I want to know is that the companies are fully maintaining their equipment,” he said.