Matthew Thompson and his wife Alyssa warned each other for years about a railway crossing near their home in Churchbridge, Sask.
When the two started dating, Thompson recalls heading home after visiting Alyssa in the small town located just over 200 km northeast of Regina and taking note of the risks of going through the intersection.
“I said, ‘Hey, that train intersection down there is very dangerous, right?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, I know. I’ve lived here for seven years and there’s been numerous accidents,’” Thompson told Global News of the first time he brought it up to her.
But on Dec. 29, just weeks after their wedding, the unimaginable happened when that risk turned into reality.
That morning started off like any other — Alyssa heading out to work in the early-morning hours in her red SUV.
“I gave her a kiss and a big hug and I looked her in the eye and told her I love her and sent her on her way to work,” Thompson said.
But just minutes later, Thompson received a text from Alyssa’s stepmother about a crash at the railway crossing.
“As soon as I got that text, I threw on my shoes and I ran out the door,” said Thompson.
When Thompson arrived at the intersection, he asked a man at the scene what sort of vehicle was involved.
“He said it was a red SUV and I said, ‘I think that’s my wife.’”
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Esterhazy RCMP responded to the collision between the vehicle and a train in Churchbridge where an adult woman was declared deceased on the scene, Saskatchewan RCMP told Global News in a statement.
In the weeks following the crash, Thompson said he is still left with many unanswered questions, including why additional safety measures such as barriers or crossing lights were not added following a similar accident just years before.
In January 2023, a man and two children were involved in a crash when travelling through the same crossing, according to an RCMP release at the time. The man died as a result of his injuries and the two children survived.
“Everybody who’s from here knows that that intersection is dangerous because they’ve been affected by it in one way or another,” said Thompson, adding that he grew up with the man involved in the previous fatal crash.
“I was actually pretty close friends with him in high school,” he said.
After that crash three years ago, residents pushed for physical barriers and signal lighting to be added to the crossing, said Churchbridge Mayor Jared Melnyk.
But instead, a stop sign with lights flashing at all hours of the day was added.
Before Melnyk was on his town’s council, he said they considered adding lights to the crossing, but the costs were too high for the small town with around 900 residents.
“The cost was in the neighbourhood of $400,000 for flashing lights and arms at that location,” said Melnyk.
For Thompson, there is no price he isn’t willing to pay for his wife’s life.
“For provincial, federal governments, multi-billion dollar corporations, that just seems like a flash in the pan. It’s pocket change,” Thompson said of the costs associated with adding safety infrastructure to the crossing.
In a statement to Global News, a spokesperson from CPKC said that one of its trains was involved in the crash and that the company has previously engaged with the town to “discuss and provide options” for the crossing.
“Those options available to Churchbridge included installation of an automated crossing warning system that could potentially be supported with funding from Transport Canada’s Rail Safety Improvement Program (RSIP) or other federal or provincial infrastructure funding contribution programs that may be available to municipalities and road authorities,” the statement read.
“We would like to express our deepest sympathies and condolences to the family of the individual fatally injured in the December incident,” CPKC added.
On Tuesday, Thompson launched a petition demanding the federal government and railway operator add safety apparatus, such as lighted crossbucks, to the intersection.
“Further delays or refusal to act on such vital issues should not be an option when the cost in human life is so high,” Thompson wrote in the petition.
The petition garnered hundreds of signatures within just hours of its posting, something Thompson owes to Alyssa’s legacy.
“Everybody who knew her loved her and anybody who encountered her knew … how good of and great of a person she was,” he said.
“She had a laugh that nobody will ever forget.”
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