Calgary teen's death on train tracks sparks calls for investigation, increased safety measures

The death of a teenager hit by a train in northwest Calgary has sparked calls for an investigation into how such situations happen.

The youth was struck by a CPKC train near the Bow River in Bowness on Tuesday afternoon. He died on the way to the hospital.

The Calgary Police Service and CPKC are investigating the incident, but the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is not investigating further.

In a statement, TSB spokesperson Liam MacDonald said the incident did not occur on or near a railroad crossing, which the agency defines as a place where a road, sidewalk , a path or path crosses a railway line. For this reason, the incident was reported as an intrusion.

MacDonald said the council's goal is to “advance transportation safety by conducting independent investigations into certain transportation events in order to draw conclusions as to their causes and contributing factors.”

“The TSB is therefore not obligated to investigate all reported events,” the statement said.

There were two other people with the teen when the incident happened, but neither were injured.

“This didn’t have to happen.”

On her walks in the area, Bowness resident Heather Shaw frequently sees people walking along the railway tracks or jumping from the nearby railway bridge into the river.

She's a mother who lives in the neighborhood and says people are climbing the broken fences near the track.

Despite calls and complaints to the CPKC main office about the fences, she says nothing has changed.

“A young man just died and it wasn’t necessary,” Shaw said.

“The trains go through this area and they honk their horns…you’ll hear it both ways and they get louder in the summer.”

In a statement, CPKC called Tuesday's incident a “tragic death” but noted there were fencing along the rail right-of-way and bridges in the area.