Gogama top of mind during Rail Safety Week

Rail safety has been front and centre in the North, due in large part to a crude oil train derailment near Gogama on March 7.

The derailment involved more than 30 crude oil cars and leaked oil into the Makami River and Lake Minisinakwa. The derailment happened only weeks after another crude oil train derailed in the same region.

NDP MPP France Gélinas brought up the Gogama community's concerns surrounding the spill in the Ontario legislature Monday.

“For people down here (in southern Ontario) Gogama is easy to forget,” she said. “For the people of Gogama as the ice starts to melt and the water in the bays show signs of oil floating on top, the worries are constant.

“The people of Gogama are asking for support from their provincial government. They want help with the environmental assessment interpretation; they want help putting a dollar figure on their loss. They want their government to pay attention to them and acknowledge they exist.”

This week also happens to mark Rail Safety Week nationally.

Operation Lifesaver, an organization funded by Transport Canada and Canada's railways, through the Railway Association of Canada, is tasked with an awareness campaign to improve rail safety across the country.

But that campaign does not deal with derailments. Instead, its focus is solely on rail crossings and the risks around railway property.

“As far as the other rail safety issues, we don't speak to that,” said Mike Regimbal, Operation Lifesaver's national director. “But our partners and stakeholders, certainly, that's part of their overall program.”

In 2014, 21 people were killed at railway crossings, and 36 people died while trespassing on railway property.

But the numbers were down from 2013, when 31 people were killed at railway crossings, and 44 people died while trespassing on railway property.

As part of Rail Safety Week CN will conduct a rail safety blitz from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. by the railway tracks on Lasalle Boulevard.

Regimbal said deaths and injuries along rail property are avoidable.

“Some people think it's a safe place to be, when in fact it's the opposite,” he said.