Four flaggers have been posted at the railway crossing on 3 Avenue in downtown Kamloops.

(DANA REYNOLDS / iNFOnews.ca)

KAMLOOPS - Canadian Pacific Railway and the City of Kamloops came to an agreement after Transport Canada rescinded an order to have 24-hour flagging services at the railway crossing on 3 Avenue by the Sandman Centre in the city's downtown. 

The order was rescinded today, Dec. 4. 

The measure came after Canadian Pacific contacted Transport Canada with the request to close railway crossings on 2 and 3 Avenues. Representatives for the railway cite safety concerns as the reason for the request, and say business development in the area led to increased foot traffic near the crossing.

The city's chief administration officer David Trawin says administrators with Canadian Pacific have agreed the railway will no longer stop eastbound trains west of the 2 Avenue crossing.

Trawin says the trains normally stopped at the 3 Avenue crossing for a crew change, which would then block both vehicle and pedestrian traffic. The safety concern arose after people started crawling through the parked trains, he said. 

"The city will be putting up train signs on each side of the crossing as well as we will be doing an assessment of the crossing," Trawin says. "Not having the train (parked) there fixes a lot of issues."

In its assessment, the city will be looking at whether flaggers should be posted at the crossing during special events. Transport Canada is also looking at possibly installing a gate which would block the crossing as trains run through. 

Transport Canada became involved in the matter in September of 2015. At the time, Kamloops mayor Peter Milobar said discussions between the railway had been ongoing for a number of years with no resolution.

Milobar said the city was not in favour of closing the crossings.

"We’re more than willing to try and work with CP, but it seems their only response is to want a closure,” he said at the time.

Requests for information from Canadian Pacific and Transport Canada have gone unanswered.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Glynn Brothen at gbrothen@infonews.ca, or call 250-319-7494. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

— This story was updated at 11:38 p.m., Friday, Dec. 4, 2015 with new information from David Trawin.

News from © iNFOnews, 2015