CN Rail is remaining tight-lipped over potential increases in train traffic in Lac La Biche County due to the company’s plans to ship vast quantities of oil sands crude by rail.
Last May, the company announced they would be making $10 million worth of upgrades “to support additional traffic” on their secondary line between Lac La Biche and Fort McMurray. And on June 27, 2012, CN Rail stated they would be shipping up to 12,000 carloads of crude oil per year from Fort McMurray to Mississippi, starting later this year.
But CN spokesperson Warren Chandler declined to tell the Post how many, if any, of those car loads would be shipped through the Hamlet of Lac La Biche.
“We do not comment on confidential information from customers,” Chandler said.
The community has been trying for years to move the CN switching yards out of the downtown core, due to the safety hazards and frustrations caused by the trains literally cutting the town in half. A potential increase of thousands of rail cars a year would only aggravate an already frustrating situation.
“Those trains have been known to block both crossings for up to 55 minutes,” said Lac La Biche County Councillor John Nowak at a meeting earlier this month. “It’s harming the town and it’s stopping development. And we’ve had several near misses, like when a child’s bike was caught underneath a train.”
For years, the county has been in talks with the rail company to move the switching yards out of the hamlet. But, diplomatically, the councillor said the community has been “meeting some resistance” with the railway.
County reports state that it would cost $9 million to relocate the switching from the Hamlet of Lac La Biche to a less cumbersome area. The municipality is looking for $6.2 million from the Alberta government to help with the costs.
It appears that Lac La Biche County and CN Rail continue to be decidedly off-track when it comes to reaching a compromise in the long-running switching yard struggle.
