(The following story by Natalie Pona appeared on the Winnipeg Sun website on August 29. Will Tataryn is a member of the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference (former BLE) Division 583 in Winnipeg.)
WINNIPEG — Motorists who try to beat the 226-tonnes of steel and cast iron barreling through train crossings seldom succeed, warned a Winnipeg locomotive engineer who has seen tragedy. “If you ever get hit by a train travelling (100 km/h) and you live, you would probably wish you were dead,” said Will Tataryn, the vice-local chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
Tataryn contacted The Sun after 33-year-old Rick Livermore was killed last Monday when his tractor-trailer was hit by a freight train. The accident happened at a CN Rail crossing on Provincial Road 210 in Ste. Anne.
According to RCMP, Livermore’s truck followed an automobile through the crossing and the train plowed into the driver’s side of the truck.
The crossing lights and bells were working properly at the time of the accident.
Tataryn, who has been working with trains since 1980, said he has seen too many occasions when a driver has tried to speed through bells and lights to beat a train. He knows the engineer whose train hit Livermore’s truck. And he has been in his position.
THERAPY
In 1991 in Minnesota, he hit a woman and her two children.
It took many years of therapy to help him learn to cope with the tragedy, he said. Police ruled the death a suicide.
Tataryn said drivers — especially professionals such as truck drivers — should know better than to try to beat a train.
“They know the rules of the road,” he said.
It’s too early to say why Livermore’s truck was on the tracks, said Bob Dolyniuk, general manager for the Manitoba Trucking Association.
Most truckers are safe drivers, Dolyniuk said.
But “are there going to be some people who do things they shouldn’t do? Whether they be locomotive engineers or truck drivers, nobody’s perfect,” he said.
Tataryn said he hopes drivers learn from the crash.
“When you come to a flashing red light, stop … If it’s such a hassle to wait, there’s nothing I can do about that. It’s better to wait two minutes than never to wait again,” he said.
The cause of Livermore’s crash has not yet been released.