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People urged to stay off the tracks

CP Rail officials are warning people to stay off the train tracks in Okotoks after a train was forced to stop to avoid hitting several teens in the Riverside Park area last week.

CP Rail officials are warning people to stay off the train tracks in Okotoks after a train was forced to stop to avoid hitting several teens in the Riverside Park area last week.

Salem Woodrow, CP Rail spokesperson, said the train was passing through town on the afternoon of July 19 when the teens were spotted and the train operators were forced to apply the brakes, forcing the locomotive to a full stop.

The train stopped short of the teens, who Woodrow said ran off on paths in the area.

“The train did stop and then proceeded after they left,” she said.

Woodrow said CP Rail Police weren’t dispatched to respond.

She said playing and walking on the tracks poses a real danger.

Trains can require a long distance to stop and, she said it doesn’t take much for people to risk significant injury around train tracks.

“Incidents like these serve as a reminder that railway tracks are not an extension of a public pathway, nor are they a safe shortcut,” she said. “Any route that includes illegally crossing railway tracks or using railway tracks as a short cut is the wrong route.”

Not only is it dangerous, it’s also illegal.

Anyone who walks along or across the tracks is trespassing.

In most cases, she said, people are issued tickets for trespassing and the standard fine in Alberta is $287.

It is considered a federal offence under the Railway Safety act and can be dealt with through criminal charges with potential fines ranging between $5,000 to $10,000 for serious incidents.

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