(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Emergency Planning

City has plans in place in case a serious derailment happened in local area

Feb 6, 2020 | 4:35 PM

The City of North Battleford has a comprehensive emergency preparedness plan to follow in the event a train derailment emergency situation were to occur in the local area.

A CP crude oil train derailment near Guernsey Thursday led to an evacuation of the community.

North Battleford Mayor Ryan Bater said the city has a plan if a serious incident were to occur here.

“We have procedures and protocols in place,” he said. “If there were to be a risk to public safety we would expect CN to notify us and we would notify the public.”

“We are a rail community,” Bater said. “The rail line comes right through the city and right through our downtown. So that communication is really important between CN and the city.”

Freedom and Flexibility

How App-Based Work Creates Economic Opportunity

Dec 12, 2025

Riderville

Now for the Hard Part

Dec 10, 2025

Seniors Scene

Christmas is Coming

Dec 09, 2025

North Battleford had a minor derailment in the area in 2013 when three tanker cars left the rails. According to reports, two of the cars contained crude oil and the other one carried asphalt, but there was no spillage and no danger to the public or environment. CN was reported to have said it did not immediately advise the city’s fire department during the 2013 derailment because there was no danger to the public.

North Battleford Fire Chief Lindsay Holm said the city’s firefighters continuously train as part of a comprehensive response plan already set out in case of a derailment emergency.

“We’ve got our city’s emergency plan that we would activate in the event of such an emergency that would happen within the city,” he said. “We would also activate our Emergency Operations Centre [EOC] that’s located out at the [North Battleford] airport as well to accommodate anything that would arise through an event of that magnitude.”

Experts would command the entire response effort from the EOC, which serves as a multi-agency command centre in the event of any large-scale emergency situation.

“We would have an on-scene commander that would be looking after the incident-site itself, but we would also have the Emergency Operations Centre active to accommodate any other needs of the city and also supply resources to the incident itself,” Holm said.

The North Battleford fire department can also access mutual aid from the Battleford fire department.

“Any time an incident were to get bigger than what the local [fire] department could handle we would be looking to facilitate extra resources through other departments,” Holm said. “The Town of Battleford would be the first point-of-call for that.”

While a derailment could impact road access routes into North Battleford that cross rail lines, Holm said a number of alternative routes are also available.

“Realistically, we would have other means of being able to try to facilitate that as well,” he said.

As a last ditch effort, he said officials might consider the possibility of reopening one of the old trestle bridges as a short-term solution as an access route for emergency responder personnel.

“It wouldn’t be traffic for regular vehicles or anything like that; it would be strictly for our purposes only,” Holm said.

The fire department also collaborates with other partners and stakeholders depending on the nature of the incident.

Residents would also be evacuated if a derailment posed an environmental risk to ensure “any type of exposure was not going to harm” anyone.

“That would be one of the first things we would be looking at – what areas we would need to evacuate to facilitate a response in that area,” the fire chief said.

–

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW