Didsbury Alberta - Town officials and representatives from the Canadian Pacific Railway will meet in the near future to discuss issues of concern the town has with the company.
 
Council passed a motion at its 22 Jul 2014 meeting requesting the discussion to resolve the volume and length of train whistles as trains pass through the community, maintenance of CPR property within town limits, the standing time of trains that block more than one crossing within the town, the speeds of trains as they pass through the community, and the vision the company has for developing property it owns within town limits.
 
It was pointed out that although Derek Sutherland, director of disaster services for the town, is informed by CPR officials what dangerous substances trains are carrying through the community, that is not shared with Roy Brown, the town's chief administrative officer, nor any member of council.
 
Brown said Sutherland, in fact, signed a confidentiality agreement with the company prohibiting him from discussing what the trains carry with other town officials.
 
"For us, we need to be able to handle that stuff," said Coun. Lavar Adams.
 
Coun. Joyce McCoy, who brought the issue forward for discussion, said in an interview that she's gotten a lot of feedback from residents expressing concern about the volume of the whistles.
 
"The trains seem to be getting longer and more frequent so it's not just a couple trains a day anymore. It's a lot more, and they're longer and they seem to honk a lot longer and it's become quite disruptive," she said in an interview.
 
McCoy said she was quite surprised to learn that more town officials aren't aware of the types of goods that are going through town on CPR trains.
 
But she hoped that information might be shared with other town administrators and council as a whole on an annual basis in the future.
 
"If we knew what was going through our town, that could also help us decide on future design on how close you're going to put buildings to the train tracks. I think that would be an important addition if we were able to get that historical information," she said.
 
Mayor Rick Mousseau said in an interview that he had no problem with not knowing what chemicals specific train cars contain, so long as the director of disaster services knew that information.
 
Salem Woodrow, spokesperson for CPR, said the company has no involvement in regulating how or when municipal officials are informed of what chemicals trains are carrying.
 
She said that is regulated by Transport Canada.
 
Maryse Durette, spokesperson for Transport Canada, said previous to last summer's train derailment in Lake Megantic companies were not required to share information with municipalities about what types of dangerous goods they were transporting through communities.
 
Following the disaster, the federal government made it mandatory that the information is shared with first responders.
 
The new rules took effect in November 2013.
 
"It was created following last summer. There was no sharing before," she said.
 
Information on dangerous goods is shared yearly with emergency officials.
 
A 24-hour emergency response centre is available to consult with emergency responders in case of an emergency.
 
McCoy said she spoke with a CPR official while at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in June.
 
The official indicated to McCoy that studies on the length of trains, how long the whistles are being blown, and other factors, would have to be conducted to determine potential mitigation strategies.
 
"Hopefully down the road we'll educate our residents as to how to complain to CP Rail about it so that the more we complain about it, the higher up we are on their needs assessment," she said.

Paul Frey.