Another video has been submitted to CTV News of young people playing near the train tracks on Richmond Street in London, Ont. This time, it shows two young women lifting the crossing arm while a train barrels down the tracks around 2:20 a.m. Saturday morning. It comes just two weeks after a young man was seen jumping onto a moving train at those same tracks. It also happened as Operation Life Saver Canada’s (OLC) Railway Safety Week comes to a close this weekend. “Year after year, there are railway fatalities across this nation and one death is too many,” said Sandra LaRose of OLC, who lost her daughter Kailynn to a train fatality in 2018. Larose has dedicated the last seven years of her life speaking to nearly 30,000 students in five different provinces. “Our focus is education,” she said. “Educating Canadians about rail safety is vitally important. There are very few places in this vast country of ours that do not have road and rail intersect.” Just 50 kilometres west of the Forest City in Strathroy, Ont., the Southern Ontario Live Steamers (SOLS), operators of Sleepy Hollow Railway were holding a fun rail safety and awareness day. “Recently we’ve seen some real disturbing footage, particularly in London at certain crossings,” said Alan Johnson, secretary of SOLS. “It’s very challenging when you see those videos, because we know that it doesn’t take long for something to go really bad. When you approach a crossing, you always make sure that you look and you listen and you live. That’s really what we’re here advocating for today.” They had their model railway train for families to ride, but also to learn about safety, even on a small model railway. “Everybody that’s on this train here that you see today, all those people are learning valuable lessons about how to behave around trains properly,” said Johnson. “We make sure that they’re on the platform behind the yellow line. We make sure that they get off in an orderly fashion. They wait until the train comes to a complete stop, and it’s just reinforcing the lessons of being safe around trains.” Officers from Strathroy-Caradoc Police, CN Police and the OPP were also on hand to answer questions about rail safety and inform the public about the potential dangers. “Rail crossings are actually private property,” said Cont. Katherine Lockwood of Strathroy-Caradoc Police. “Under the Railway Traffic Act you can actually be fined. Fines start at a minimum $500 and go upwards from there.” LaRose hopes that every person will see the sidewalk signs posted at rail crossings and ask them to head the responsibility to “Look, Listen and Live.” “If every student who hears me speak can walk across the graduation stage to receive their diploma, have an outstanding career, fall in love and have a family and live a full life, I know that Kailynn and I have had a part.”
