MONTREAL – Many Quebecers are starting to think long and hard about what happened in Lac Megantic and are wondering whether a tragedy of the same magnitude could happen in their backyards.
In the city of Vaudreuil-Dorion, just west of Montreal, residents have been complaining for months about speeding trains.
Am Sidhu Mahal loves everything about living in the area: the parks, the people – but not the fast-moving freight trains.
“My house shakes, everything shakes,” she said.
She’s seen that at night, the freight trains travel at excessively high speeds.
“We can feel our whole house shaking.”
Although the vibrations have caused cracks in many homes, up until now, the trains have been seen as just a nuisance.
But in light of the tragedy in Lac Megantic, many are now worried about a train derailment in Vaudreuil, causing devastation for its 35,000 residents.
“Obviously what happened there can happen everywhere,” noted Guy Pilon, the city’s mayor.
He believes that it’s time for a change and would like the trains that roar through his community to slow down.
“Thirty to forty kilometres an hour would be fine, but right now the numbers we have, they go up to 100 kilometres an hour,” he said.
On Monday, he fired off a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Joining the mayor in his efforts to slow trains down is MP Jamie Nicholls.
He’s demanding more positive train controls or technology that automatically stops trains moving at unauthorized speeds.
“This has not been one year, we’ve been asking for this for many years, and we’ll continue to do so because we believe this is a measure that ensures safety,” he said on Monday.
A spokesperson from Canadian Pacific, the company which owns and operates the tracks in question, told Global News that it respects the guidelies set by Ottawa.
But Mayor Pilon said that he’s become frustrated with that answer.
“Enough is enough now.”
While the politicians argue about the issue, a local citizens group is putting together a petition and others are collecting data by using radar guns.
The common goal of these residents is to make their city a little safer.
“A train isn’t going to derail when it’s moving slowly through a community,” said Patrick Conway. “It’s going to derail when it’s going too quickly.
“What’s it going to cost you to slow down?”
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