Saskatoon's fire department is renewing calls for action after a truck responding to a house fire Tuesday night was delayed at a railway crossing.
The unit from fire hall No.1 on Idylwyld Drive was dispatched just before 10 p.m. to a house fire on Avenue P South but got stuck at a rail crossing on 20th Street West.
A second unit was called in from No. 2 hall in on Confederation Drive was called and arrived seven minute and 35 seconds after the initial emergency call, exceeding the response time standard of just over six minutes.
“We looked at the numbers and we were a minute and 15 seconds beyond that standard. This is not a regular occurrence for the fire department,” said assistant fire chief Morgan Hackl.
But trains have delayed emergency crews before. This past summer crews were delayed heading to a scene where a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle in a hit-and-run.
Fire chief Dan Paulsen is reiterating the call that it is time to look at separating rail from road.
"When you consider train lengths now at six to seven thousand feet, and potentially moving towards 14,000, there are going to be long duration blockages,” Paulsen said.
The idea of moving the railway tracks out of the city’s centre has come up before but costs could rise into the billions. However, the railways are discussing alternatives
"We're working with them to come up with what’s called a data link, where we will be able to be pre-alerted at our central dispatch of when a train is crossing,” Hackl said.
The fire department says it will continue to be strategic about emergency planning in the future and continue to keep train crossings in mind but there are challenges
“We have to identify, what are the major choke points,” Paulsen said. “How do we move around that and look to the future?”
