When Mountain View Publishing photographer Noel West and I met at White Rock Crossing last week the first thing we did was exchange photos of our new born.
Noel and his wife just celebrated the arrival of a new son. I became the proud grandfather the week before to a new granddaughter. We had reason to rejoice. And then we went to do our assignments, researching and shooting for a story where there could never be any rejoicing.
White Rock Crossing, an unregulated spot where scores and scores of children illegally cross the train tracks every day of the week, is today the most terrifying place in town.
It's a spot where children, some as young as seven-years-old, play chicken with moving trains. Others, we now know, will also play a dangerous game of tag with passing trains. There are also other children who crawl under seemingly still trains and race on their hands and knees to the other side. Other children watch, horrified at the thought the train will start moving. So far no one has been hurt, or worse killed.
This terrifying phenomenon with the town's young had been on the radar of law enforcement officials since last fall. It has since escalated to the point where children are just doing it because "everybody else is doing it."
In other words, damn the consequences, thy thrills must be done.
Such cavalier attitudes with the young have been around since time immemorial. We can't change that. But we can change our adult selves in the way we respond to it.
The town, through the RCMP and school officials, has known about the escalating dangers at White Rock Crossing for a good chunk of this year. They knew about Canadian Pacific Railway Police visiting the schools campus in early May to give a rail safety presentation to elementary and middle school students. And yet, the dangerous games on the track still went on. These children, their innocent naivety recklessly running to the extreme, have come perilously close to being killed.
The town is considering ways to fence off the entire track area in and around White Rock Crossing and install a regulated pedestrian rail crossing. Of course, there will be financing to consider as the town will have to foot the bill alone, one that could be as high as $500,000.
But really what is there to consider? What price is too high for the safety and lives of the community's children? None.
Council must immediately order remedial action at White Rock Crossing. The time for dithering has passed. The community's children are owed nothing less.
Johnnie Bachusky is the editor of the Innsifail Province.
