Keeping level crossing on unused rail line ‘silly,’ St. Clair Township says

Mornings and afternoons, school buses stop before they cross railway tracks on Broadway Street in Port Lambton that trains can’t use.

There are no trains because the tracks between French and Holt lines, just north of the St. Clair Township community, were removed some time ago by the line’s owner, CSX Transportation.

Township officials want the Florida-based railway officially to abandon that southern section of the rail line so crossings like the one in Port Lambton can be removed for good.

Ontario law requires school buses to stop at all railway crossings even, it appears, if there’s no chance of a train ever rumbling by.

“Thus far, CSX has taken the position that, as far as it’s concerned, it’s still an active track even though part of the track was removed, and they’re not prepared to abandon it,” said John Rodey, the township’s chief administrator .

The rail line, which travels south from Sarnia, is still in use as far as Holt line, where there’s an industrial plant on the former Chinook Chemical site, Rodey said.

“They still generate a couple of cars a week and CSX has still maintained” the tracks to that point, he said. “But once you get south of that, the line isn’t being used.”

This month, Lambton County council backed a St. Clair Township motion calling for the crossing on Broadway Street – part of the county road system – to be removed.

“It has been ongoing issue for a long time,” said St. Clair Township Mayor Jeff Agar.

Port Lambton residents complain about the crossing, the need for school buses to stop there and the condition of the railway signal lights.

“It’s a dead crossing,” he said. “It’s just silly to stay there.”

Agar said he worries about traffic accidents.

The crossing sits at Broadway and McDonald streets in Port Lambton.

“You get your buses lined up in the morning and you get people wanting to pass,” Agar said.

He hopes the county’s motion, which will be sent to the railway and Transport Canada, may lead to action.

CSX didn’t respond to a request from Postmedia for comment on the rail line’s status and the township’s concerns.

The township and county were part of a meditation process with Transport Canada within the last year over the condition of CSX crossings in southern St. Clair.

While the railway agreed to upgrade crossings on county roads, “they don’t seem to want to upgrade them” on local municipal roads in the southern part of the township, Agar said.

“They’ve done a good job, generally, in the northern section,” he said.

Jason Cole, general manager of Lambton County’s infrastructure and development services division, said the county had concerns with two crossings on county roads, on Broadway Street in Port Lambton and at Bentpath Line near Sombra.

“We were able to co-ordinate some repairs (with CSX) which we had been after for a long time,” Cole said. Those repairs, done in 2022, “brought them back up to a reasonable condition.”

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