for it! Lynn Valley residents can catch up on their neighborhood news with the Lynn Valley Echo, delivered today with the North Shore News. The next Capilane Chronicle will be published Wednes- day, April 5, and the West Vancouver Villager will hit the streets ox Sunday, April 3. = 4 N98 Rail patrolmen move nion outcry March 19, 1989 News 985-2131 Classified 986-6222 Distribution 986-1337 56 pages 25¢ causes BC RAIL SAFETY CONCERNS RAISED THE IMPENDING elimination of BC Rail'’s North Van- couver department of rail patrolmen will jeoperdize rail safety along a line used to carry botl. passengers and dar- gerous goods, according to a union official. Six full-rume North Vancouver patralmen, the men who = are assigned to patrol! track from speeder cars and inspect for rail safety between the north portal of the rail tunnel at Horseshoe Bay and the Garibaldi area near Squamish, will have their Nerth Shore jobs abolished by June 25. But the railway company plans to reassign the jobs as four full- time patrolmen positions and two temporary positions in Squamish effective June 20, leaving the stretch between North Vancouver and Horseshoe Bay without regu- lar inspection. Ear! Fisher, local secretary of the Canadian Union of Transpor- tation Employees Local No. 6, charges that the Joss of the locally-based jobs will result in compromised safety for the 11.5 mile section of track running from Horseshoe Bay to North Van- couver. Said Fisher, a relief patrolman based in North Vancouver: ‘I wonder if the people of West Van- couver are aware that this safety link is being taken away?”’ But BC Rail spokesman Noel Van Sandwyk said there would be no layoffs as a result of moving the jobs. Relocation assistance and help from the company’s job secu- rity fund will also be provided to those affected. And according to a company press release, patrolling the area is redundant and unnecessary because it is ‘‘not an area consid- ered subject to rock slides or washouts.”’ BC Rail considers the trip the patrolmen make from North Van- couver to Horseshoe Bay as “‘deadheading"’, the equivalent of By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter the trip one would take to a job site. Basing the patro{men in Squamish, according to the press release, would make more efficient use of manpower by climinating the deadhead run and would elim- inate the operation of speeders running over level crossings in North and West Vancouver. Because the speeders do not trigger the crossing signals as they pass by level crossings, there have been a number of accidents and near misses involving speeders and traffic at the crossings over the years, the company says. But Fisher maintains the deadhead run involves visual safety checks of the track. ‘*Patrolmen see rocks on the track and toss them out of the way," he said. *‘On March 3, after seven checks on the same day, a four-inch piece of rai] was found missing just north of the Keith Road overpass. It could have caused a derai!ment.”’ One Halloween night four years ago, Fisher said he found a drunk- en man lying across the tracks near the Burkehill Road crossing in West Vancouver. **T shook him awake," he said. “A train was really close behind me. The guy could have been kill- ed.”’ Last year over 2,300 cars carry- ing dangerous goods, including caustic soda, chlorine and liquid propane, moved along the BC Rail line. The two sides were meeting Fri- day to discuss the job relocations. EARL FISHER, focal secretary of the Canadian Union of Transportation Empivyees Local No. 6, charges. that the loss of the entire department of rail patroimen based at the North Vancouver headquarters of BC Rail will resuit in compromised safety of 2 11.5 mile section of track.