Medicine Hat Alberta - As national rail safety returns to the headlines, local authorities say they have already stepped up their readiness to deal with potential accidents, and will continue to push for greater information sharing between the industry and emergency responders.
 
"For us, the critical point is our relationship with Canadian Pacific," said Ron Robinson, regional manager of Emergency Management.
 
"Rail safety is federally regulated and they take it very seriously. Good information helps our ability to secure the scene and get the community back on its feet."
 
This fall officials and workers with CP and Methanex took part in training exercises with local fire officials regarding tanker care safety and identification.
 
Robinson said those sorts of discussions and exercises with other industrial partners are taking place.
 
In November, the city will move ahead with a large-scale mock disaster exercise to study response strategies to a chemical spill in central Medicine Hat.
 
That will run through responsibilities of the various agencies, re-establish contact points with company officials with specialized knowledge of cargo, and lay down a chain of command.
 
Most of the exercise will take place at a bureaucratic level within the Emergency Response Centre, though it will also examine evacuation scenarios and ground-level response.
 
"Mock disasters are designed to measure levels of preparedness and identify gaps in response," said Medicine Hat Fire Service Chief Brian Stauth.
 
He says his department has put a greater concentration on training to specifically deal with railways incidents.
 
Plans are also in the works to increase the number of firefighters who have specialized hazardous material response training.
 
The issue comes to the fore again this week as a Canadian National Railway train derailed in east-central Saskatchewan, causing two cars containing petroleum to ignite and forcing the evacuation of a nearby hamlet.
 
Also, on Wednesday the Teamsters Rail Conference, the union representing 12,000 rail workers, including those in Medicine Hat, launched a national ad campaign calling for tougher standards and more safety inspections.
 
Both Robinson and Stauth said their departments are kept up to date on all serious response situations through professional associations.
 
"We watch all of those events as they unfold," said Stauth.
 
"We look for lessons learned by the responding agencies as well as the rail companies and see how those lessons could be applied here."
 
Measures were brought in after the 2013 Lake Megantic disaster requiring rail companies to provide municipalities a list of dangerous goods that passed through a community in the previous year.
 
Medicine Hat has a historic materials list, though local chief Brian Stauth said the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs is currently in talks to make specific train manifests available as derailments happen.

Collin Gallant.