The Editor:
Re: Sapperton train whistles could cease by 2025: city (Sept. 29, 2023)
What a joke! The city issued a press release December 2014 stating, "Whistle cessation can be achieved at the Cumberland Street crossing as minimal upgrades are required with a possible completion date in 2015."
The Cumberland Crossing for which traffic cannot approach directly already has crossing gates, bells and flashing lights.
The signage that was a previously identified as a requirement as well as the warning paint on the road approaches has been completed.
What are the additional measures costing a million dollars that are required for the Cumberland street crossing?
Access to this crossing is closed after sunset.
Since moving to the area in 2003, the number of trains passing through the Cumberland, Spruce and Braid crossings has increased significantly.
In 2003, there was no Amtrack (four per day counting both inbound and out bound), no Rocky Mountaineer (seasonal but certainly detracts from having windows open in summer), four CPKC coal trains each day and the usual assortment of trains hauling grain, containers, liquids, potash, sulphur, automobiles and lumber.
The train whistling is very inconsistent as others have noted, but why the engineers are required to blow the whistle when the train has already entered the crossing seems pointless.
Perhaps, the city could spend less time buck passing on this issue and actually follow through on implementing the whistle cessation at Cumberland first raised as a possibility eight years ago.
- David Thomson, New Westminster
