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Train crossings
Soon Port Edward residents won’t hear the trains coming ’round the bend anymore. Upgrades to the train crossings will reduce train whistles at all hours of the day.
Bob Payette, the district’s chief administrative officer, said the upgrades to all four crossings in the town are on schedule to be completed by the end of November. Two are being installed at the Small Craft Harbour Port Authority, while two more will be at the Aero and Tenerife fish plants. The work, Payette said, is not interfering with the daily routine in Port Edward.
In December, the work will be presented to council, then submitted to the Federal Department of Transportation and the users of the track. CN will follow the resolution that once the crossings are in place, trains won’t be required to whistle on their way through town.
“That should all be ready for the next year. Council is pretty excited. It’s been a long haul to get to this point,” Payette said. “Three years of a lot of hard work to get engineering approved, engineering done, finances in place, CN support, council support and approval and then stakeholder support and approval. It’s three years until you can get to that point to get the shovel in the ground — and that’s fast actually.”
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Sewers and stormwater pipes
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The detour in Port Edward was part of an upgrade from the Small Communities Grant to the stormwater system pipe being replaced under the highway. The work began in early October and, despite work delays due to asbestos in some of the old pipes, is expected to be completed by early December.
“With this work, we are able to get all of them, our water, sewer and storm systems completed,” Payette said. “Our only issues are things that could possibly go wrong in a period of 10 to 15 years from now. So this really sets us up into a good situation as far as our infrastructure goes in this district.”
Trailer park cleared
All of the trailers in the trailer park have been removed. There are a few items left on the property, but removal is approximately 90 per cent done, Payette said.
Some items took longer to clear because there was too many items that needed to be towed, such as derelict cars and other debris, and it couldn’t removed all at once.
“We’re going to put up a couple of barriers so people can’t drive in there and dump things anymore,” Payette said.
The property is still zoned as a trailer park, and development is dependent on the owner.
