This is prime real estate for a slide detector fence. If CN wants to spend as little as possible on MOW in this area- so be it. If CN wants to spend as little as possible on it's employee's safety, there's something wrong with thier management's way of thinking and should be terminated. Having driven the route many times in a car on this particular canyon, I thought CN's tracks were protected by fences, especially in this area.

What irks me the most is that CN's public affairs guy said to the media that "slides are very rare on this track. There hasn't been a slide in this area that has affected our operations since the railroad was put through. We never saw this kind of event as a possibility where it happened, so there was no fence." What bull$&@t. Anybody that has seen the general area notices the sheer, almost 1000' gravel banks above the tracks. There are the heaviest-duty snowsheds i've seen peppered along the mainline here. Many of the promotional pictures for CN's advertising department are of this canyon, and many people can appreciate the quest to "conquer nature" in this area.

almo