Are train companies railroading Canadian communities? – Macleans

July 12, 2015

Towns and cities across Canada are taking on powerful train companies over everything from speed to belligerence

The elected leaders of Rivière-Verte, a postcard-pretty village in northwestern New Brunswick, do not have a reputation for wasting public dollars. With just 744 residents, a tax base of 354 dwellings and full slate of services to maintain, there’s little cash in the kitty for unnecessary spending, much less impulse buying. And for a town with neither a municipal police force nor a top-flight baseball team, a radar gun seems an especially extraneous expense.

But when Mayor Michel LeBlond sought permission last month to purchase a shiny new Bushnell Velocity—$119.99 online; accurate to within two kilometres an hour—his four fellow councillors couldn’t rubber-stamp the order fast enough. Like LeBlond, they’d long suspected that CN Rail trains were barrelling through their community faster than the mandated 84 km/h limit. And the danger had just hit home with a thud. The previous week, three rail cars carrying automobiles had jumped the tracks that flank the village to the southwest, two of them flopping over, BMWs tumbling about inside of them. The third somehow managed to stay upright, despite uncoupling from the rest of the train. At some point, a grass fire started on the bank of the St. John River.

Read More: http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/are-train-companies-railroading-canadian-communities/