Driving between the northern and southern sections of the Lambton County community of Wyoming will take a little longer next week.
The CN railroad crossing on Broadway Street is scheduled to close to traffic for repairs beginning at 6 am Tuesday, July 4, until Friday, July 7, at 7 pm, Plympton-Wyoming said in a notice to residents.
Adam Sobanski, the municipality’s director of public works, said CN is planning to carry out work on the tracks, including removing an unused siding and general repairs to the crossing at Broadway Street.
“It gets pretty bad,” Sobanski said about the condition of the crossing. “They usually have to do a fairly significant repair every two to five years.”
The last time repairs were made was at least five years ago, he said.
Broadway Street is part of Lambton County Road 21, also known as Oil Heritage Road, which was formerly a section of Highway 21 the province transferred to the county in the late 1990s.
Lambton County has posted a detour during the CN repairs sending traffic around Wyoming using London Line, Mandaumin Road and Churchill Line.
“The County of Lambton detours heavy traffic only to county roads,” Sobanski said.
Local traffic will not be able to use the crossing during the work, the municipality said.
Broadway Street, which is home to many of Wyoming’s businesses, is the only crossing over the CN tracks within the former village that merged with its neighboring township several years ago to create Plympton-Wyoming.
“Local traffic will still have to go somewhat out of town,” using either Minielly Road, which is a gravel road, to the east, or the paved Camlachie Road to the west of Wyoming, Sobanski said.
“Hopefully everything goes smoothly,” he said, “and once the work gets done, it will be a much more smooth crossing for traffic, and local residents, to drive across.”