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One dead in truck-train collision

Residents say crossing scene of other crashes

By: Jenny Ford

Posted: 07/9/2012 3:18 AM | Comments: 0

Barry Sigurdson sits at the crossing where he witnessed a pickup truck run into a CN freight train west of Anola early Sunday morning. (JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS) Photo Store

NEAR ANOLA -- One man is dead after a pickup truck collided with the side of a freight train early Sunday morning at a railway crossing in the RM of Springfield, police said.

The Ford truck was heading northbound on Edgewood Road south of Highway 15 when it collided with the side of a CN freight train going west at around 2:30 a.m. The crash took place about eight kilometres west of Anola.

Police have not released the name of the man pronounced dead at the scene, while another man who was driving and a female passenger were sent to hospital with undetermined injuries. RCMP Cpl. Miles Hiebert said police investigators believe alcohol was a factor.

A resident who lives beside the train tracks said he saw truck lights driving quickly towards the tracks as a train approached. "I saw headlights and then I saw the train lights. And then I saw the headlights not stopping and I heard the whistle blowing and the lights weren't stopping," said Barry Sigurdson.

Sigurdson said the impact between the train and the truck must have been intense. "I saw headlights flipping above the train," he said. "It was chaos."

Oakbank RCMP are still investigating.

Residents living close to the train tracks said this is not the first time this has happened. In the last few years, there have been at least two other vehicle-train collisions at the crossing, said Sigurdson.

Sigurdson and his wife have put up "slow down" signs near the tracks, but said someone has since taken them down. The crossing is marked by a stop sign and crossing signs.

"How many more people have to die?" he said. "Something has got to be done."

Shelby Holowaty, who lives a few houses away from the train tracks, said she sees vehicles blow past the stop sign all the time. "Everyday people are flying over the tracks," she said.

Springfield RM Reeve Jim McCarthy said these sorts of incidents have happened in past.

"Regretfully, there have been other incidents similar to that," he said. "If there is something we can do, we will look into it."

jennifer.ford@freepress.mb.ca

Deadly weekend on Manitoba roadways

POLICE are still not certain how a 23-year-old man from the RM of Lac du Bonnet died after apparently hitting a moose Friday night.

The man was heading northbound on Highway 304 about 20 kilometres north of Powerview when his car struck a moose, left the roadway and rolled over at least once, and then came to rest upside down in a water-filled ditch.

Cpl. Miles Hiebert said it is not known yet if an autopsy will be conducted to determine which of the factors led to the man's death.

The moose ran off, but evidence at the scene was consistent with a collision with a moose, Hiebert said.

Police are not releasing the man's name.

-- -- --

RCMP are continuing to investigate a rear-end collision late Friday afternoon that killed a 48-year-old Winnipeg woman on the Trans-Canada Highway near Portage la Prairie.

The woman was a passenger in the rear seat of a westbound Toyota, which was turning off the highway when it was struck from behind by a Ford Ranger driven by a 17-year-old female from the RM of Portage la Prairie.

A man and woman in the front seats of the Toyota received minor injuries.

RCMP are also investigating a collision on Highway 59 that sent three people to hospital Sunday afternoon with what are believed to be non-life-threatening injuries.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 9, 2012 A4

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