Toronto Ontario - They're Canada's other national police service.
 
Duly sworn, armed, and empowered to enforce the law, railway police hold a unique place in Canada's system of law and order, unlike other services commissioned by government, railway police are private entities owned by private corporations.
 
On Sunday, CBC's The Fifth Estate broadcast a stunning report on last year's deadly runaway train crash in Field, BC, alleging Canadian Pacific (CP) derailed a criminal negligence investigation underway by their own police service.
 
Former CP Police officer Mark Tataryn told CBC he was ordered to cease his investigation into the crash that killed engineer Andy Dockrell, conductor Dylan Paradis, and trainee Daniel Waldenberger-Bulmer.
 
Neither Postmedia or the Toronto Sun have verified CBC's claims.
 
Calls for an independent investigation are growing, including the union representing CP running trades employees.
 
"It's absurd that CP was able to criminally investigate itself with its own police force," Christopher Monette of Teamsters Canada told the Sun.
 
"It should be an outside police department that should come in, rather than the company's privately-owned police."
 
As the crash occurred on their property, CP Police has jurisdiction over the investigation.
 
Media reports Wednesday suggest the RCMP is looking at stepping in, but no official announcement has been made one way or another.
 
The concept of railway police was born during the heady days of confederation, fuelled by the desire to link east with west with a Canadian transcontinental railway.
 
As colonization, and CP, moved west, railway cops protected company property and freight, and the railway towns that sprouted along the way.
 
Today, the idea of railway police seems anachronistic, and when tasked with investigating criminal allegations against itself, a dangerous conflict of interest.
 
Maintaining transparency and accountability in law enforcement is sacrosanct in Canada.
 
That's why we have Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, Alberta's Serious Incident Response Team, and BC's Independent Investigations Office (IIO), civilian oversight agencies probing allegations of police wrongdoing.
 
CP Police are no strangers to this.
 
After a CP constable was involved in a 2017 shooting in BC, questions regarding a use-of-force investigation arose.
 
After the IIO determined they had neither authority nor jurisdiction over railway police, the investigation ended up with the RCMP's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, even though the armed suspect shot by the railway cop wasn't seriously injured.
 
But here's the elephant in the room, what do railway police actually do?
 
First and foremost, I'm not anti-cop, police have a dangerous, thankless, job and deserve far more respect than they get.
 
Outside rail safety initiatives and major incident response, it gets a little hazy.
 
Their investigative mandate includes their own employees, something I experienced first-hand a decade ago as a CP rail traffic controller trainee when I was summoned to a very uncomfortable meeting after some rather innocuous blog posts I'd made referencing my training was deemed a security risk.
 
Then there's the speed traps.
 
Living in Calgary I'd often see CP police doing speed enforcement on city streets, particularly along Ogden Road outside CP corporate headquarters (railway police authority extends 500 metres from railway property).
 
  That's probably incorrect as I believe they have the same peace officer authority as the RCMP and provincial police forces. It's just they don't particularly operate outside CP property. If they were chasing a container thief out of a rail yard do you think they'd stop at a 500 metre boundary?
 
A former Calgary Sun colleague worked hard digging into how many traffic tickets were handed out by railway police.
 
While CN police were helpful, he hit a brick wall with CP, even provincial and federal transportation ministries were unable to get information, he told me.
 
Clearly, it's time for the feds to reexamine the role of Canada's railway police.
 
Teamsters Canada wants to see them abolished.
 
"Private corporations simply don't need their own police forces," Monette said.
 
"In cases like this where we see private police forces having jurisdiction over the companies that employ them, there's an obvious question of impartiality, fairness, and justice."
 
Bryan Passifiume.