By Gareth Madoc-Jones
Between 2004 and 2015, there have been 585 trespasser accident deaths and 298 crossing accident deaths on Canadian railways. These two categories make up 830 of the 966 total people killed on Canada’s train tracks during this period.
To view all 966 Canadian railway deaths from 2004 to 2015 scroll below.
These numbers originate from a Transportation Safety Board database. They’ve been recently published on the government of Canada’s open data website in a data set called “Rail Occurrence data from January 2004 to present.”
The data set reveals CP and CN Railways make up for 796 of the 830 people killed in crossings and trespassing related accidents. CN railways have 321 trespasser deaths and 164 crossing deaths, while CP has seen 206 trespasser deaths and 105 crossing deaths since 2004.
In separate email responses to the high death tolls, both CN communications director Mark Hallman and CP Rail spokesperson Salem Woodrow say their organizations have been focused on education and enforcement to prevent crossing and trespasser deaths.
Transport Canada says its teamed with the railway industry to support a non-profit organization called Operation Lifesaver to educate the public about the dangers of trespassing on railways. “One of the goals of Operation Lifesaver is the prevention of trespassing incidents that often lead to serious injury or death,” Natasha Gauthier, a spokesperson for Transport Canada, says in an email.
Mike Regimbal, the national director for Operation Lifesaver, admits “the laws are there” for rail safety at crossings and for trespassers. “Each incident we believe is preventable and our messaging is stay away from the tracks. If you have to cross the tracks, do it at a safe location,” adds Regimbal.
Regimbal also acknowledges a significant number of the 585 trespasser deaths since 2004 have been suicides. “Most people consider those types of events a railway problem. Well, they’re not. It is a community issue and there’s the mental health component with that.”
Transport Canada could not provide any numbers related to suicide deaths on railways. A study into railway suicides at the Center for Research and Intervention on Suicide and Euthanasia at the Université du Québec à Montréal indicates there was an average of 43 suicide deaths per year between 1999 and 2008 on Canadian railways. The report also reveals close to 38 per cent of all Canadian railway deaths during the ten-year period were suicides.
To view the UQAM-CRISE report on railway suicides click below.
Aside from suicides, Russell Brownlee, a civil engineer working for Giffin Koeth, a consulting firm specializing in rail safety, says he thinks railways can do more to encourage the use of proper crossings to prevent trespasser deaths. “Having them trespass because they have to walk very long distances is something that we’ve really ignored in the past,” says Brownlee, adding that building fences, installing security cameras, providing “nice” pathways and including signage to the shortest route can help discourage trespassing.
As far as dealing with crossing deaths, the previous federal government passed legislation on November 27, 2014 to ensure all railways in Canada upgrades its railway crossings by 2021 to new safety standards. They include new rules for signage, sight lines and surface of the crossing.
Crossing deaths dropped from 20 in 2014 to 13 in 2015 when the new legislation was in effect for the first full year. Brownlee doubts the 35 per cent drop in crossing deaths has anything to do with the new rules, since full compliance isn’t required for another five years.
And it appears railway deaths had already been dropping prior to the new crossing laws. In the past five years, the number of combined trespasser and crossing deaths on Canadian railways reveals a downward trend, falling from 66 deaths in 2011 to 43 deaths in 2015. It’s not entirely clear what can explain the decline, but Regimbal says getting this number down to zero is the target, but it’s “not realistically attainable.”