For most any motorist in or around Weyburn, being delayed by a train at one of the crossings at Government Road, Third Street or 16th Street is an annoyance, and at times, an inconvenience if the train is particularly slow.

City council is considering a partial solution, by raising the speed of the trains going through Weyburn.

For a reason that Mayor Don Schlosser admits is a mystery, the speed of trains going through the city has been restricted to 10 miles an hour, or 16 kilometres an hour, since 1932. CP Rail has made a number of requests to the city over the years to have that increased, and until now council has always rejected the idea for fear of the public's safety.

For the first time, with every safety precaution possible now in place, council is prepared to allow the trains to increase their speed to a proposed 30 mph, or 48 km/h, but first they want to hear from the public-at-large if they agree.

Some additional safety precautions will be added to the crossing arms that are now in place; fencing on both sides of the track along the 30-foot right-of-way will be installed, going from around Barber Motors to near the museum.

With an increased speed, the idea of the fence is to keep pedestrians from crossing the tracks at places other than the crossings at Third Street and Government Road. As was recently observed by CPR and city officials, there are many people who make this crossing.

In addition, lighted crossing arms will apparently also be installed at the 16th Street crossing if the speeds are allowed to increase.

For the public's information, the rail tracks are now extremely safe; in former days, when train track lengths were bolted together, derailments would sometimes occur because of problems with the tracks. Now, the tracks are seamless, running in one continuous length from North Portal up the Soo Line to Moose Jaw.

Some people did ask about the possibility of derailments such as recently occurred in Estevan, but those were due to the old bolted tracks, and not speed - that train was only going 8 mph when the derailment occurred.

With this assurance, and the safety measures that have been put in place, city residents should be able to rest assured there is no risk to their safety, plus wait times at the crossings will be reduced. In a test run conducted on May 4 with a 115-car train, a wait time of five and a half minutes at 10 mph now should be reduced to three minutes and six seconds with a speed of 30 mph.

The best benefit of all will be for our emergency services (fire, ambulance), as shorter wait times could mean saving lives. Another benefit is less noise: the test showed that trains don't have to slow down much for 30 mph, and therefore is less noise for acceleration like there is from 10 mph.

All in all, CP Rail has put a good proposal together and city residents should support it, and should accordingly let city council know. - G.N.