File photo - Crews work at the scene of the Irvine train derailment in August.

By Alex McCuaig

Train derailment

City, county prepared for train derailments

Dec 13, 2019 | 5:18 PM

Medicine Hat, AB – Major train derailments like the one earlier this week outside of Saskatoon are rare in southeastern Alberta.

But they do happen.

However, the city has been spared anything like the incident 100 kilometres east of Saskatoon which spilled more than 1.5 million litres of oil and a fiery explosion that occurred early Monday morning.

The city’s last major derailment occurred in January 1984 when a train left the tracks at the bottom of the Crescent Heights grade – one of the steepest along the Canadian Pacific Rail line between Ontario and the Rockies.

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While rare, the city’s fire chief said derailments are a concern.

“A train derailment with leakage, fire, explosion in a populated area – of course that is a big concern,” said Chief Brian Stauth. “One of the things we need to be concerned about are the increased shipments of crude by rail.”

However, Stauth says the city fire department works along side CP rail officials for training and communication to mitigate those concerns and deal with emergency preparedness.

Something Cypress County Fire Chief Kelly Meyer agrees is critical in dealing with situations such as that which occurred in August when a train derailment required the evacuation of Irvine.

“With train derailments, they are very unique situations,” said Meyer. “That’s where we’ve been working with CP rail, getting our members trained for train derailments.”

Meyer said according the county records, the August derailment was the first in numerous years for the rural municipality.

The last major derailment within the city limits prior to 1984 occurred in 1908.