Friday, January 28, 2011 A musician is selling T-shirts to raise money and awareness about suicides among queer teens.
Page A18
ary Annivers 1985-2010
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Accident
Train and truck collide in Ruskin
This story first appeared as breaking news at www.mrtimes.com
West Coast Express customers were bused home Wednesday night, following a crash that blocked the tracks near Hayward Lake.
by Roxanne Hooper
rhooper@mrtimes.com
Peter Christensen, who lives close to where the cougar attacks occurred, cuddled his golden retriever Torque. Troy Landreville/TIMES
Wildlife
Cougar sightings continue
Neighbours in a rural area where a horse was killed by a cougar have mixed feelings about wildlife. by Troy Landreville tlandreville@mrtimes.com
Residents in northeast Maple Ridge are on high alert this week, as more cougar sightings are reported. The most recent cougar spotting occurred at about 10 p.m. Wednesday, reported Ridge Meadows RCMP. This time, police attended a property on 264th Street, escorting the owner from her barn back to her house after she heard noise she believed to be a cougar. Officers didn’t see the cougar, but police are asking residents in the area of the Whispering Falls subdivision to be very attentive. In the meantime, people living in a rural Maple Ridge area – where a number of cougar attacks and sight-
Troy Landreville/TIMES
Tony Scorgie spoke about wildlife encounters in his rural Maple Ridge neighbourhood. ings have recently taken place – say wildlife is common in the area. “A lot of coyotes, a lot of bears,” said Tony Scorgie, who has lived in the 25700 block of 128th Street since 1972. “I haven’t seen any cougars.” He said he recently saw a conservation officer up the road and “heard a bunch of gunshots, so I figured something was going on.” Scorgie lives with his girlfriend and his two teenaged sons stay with him on the weekends. He said the attacks
that took place over 10 days, which have claimed the lives of seven farm animals and on Sunday left one horse dead, are concerning. “It’s not a good thing, that’s for sure,” he said. He said there isn’t much you can do, save for being aware of your surroundings. The B.C. Conservation Officer Services and Ridge Meadows RCMP are continuing their efforts to locate the cougar. If or when they do, Scorgie hopes the animal will be trapped and relocated. Peter Christensen lives a couple of properties down from Scorgie and said cougars are a part of the neighbourhood. “We’re not too concerned about it,” said Christensen, who has lived there since 1974. “We’ve lost dogs and cats and chickens, and our neighbours have lost goats, but that’s part of life out here. If you can’t live with that you shouldn’t be here, I guess.”
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It took several hours for emergency crews to just dislodge a tractor-trailer wedged onto the front of a freight locomotive during a crash in Ruskin late Wednesday afternoon. And the collision between the semi and train forced a few hundred West Coast Express passengers on the last two eastbound trains of the night to take a different mode of transportation for the final leg of their Wednesday night’s commute. According to TransLink, arrangements were made to bus passengers from the Port Haney station to the Mission station, with the tracks cleared in time for Thursday morning’s commute. The crash occurred at about 5 p.m., when an eastbound grain train was approaching the Maple Ridge-Mission border, parallel to the Lougheed Highway. It struck the trailer of a semi that was straddling the tracks, said Canadian Pacific (CP) Rail spokesman Mike LoVecchio. There was no one injured in the crash, confirmed CP Rail and the Mission RCMP. But the collision caused the tracks to be shut This story first down much of the appeared as night, LoVecchio explained. breaking news at Once the entanwww.mrtimes.com gled machines were pried apart, the train was moved aside and the track and crossing gear thoroughly inspected. “An accident like this is absolutely preventable,” LoVecchio said. Early indications are that the safety arms and bells that alert people of an oncoming train were activated and functioning at the Ruskin crossing, giving anyone in the area ample warning, he said. “So far as we know, they were functioning at the time,” LoVecchio said, adding that it’s still unknown if the driver was in the vehicle at the time of the crash. This is a level crossing where the driveway that’s used to access a cedar mill sandwiched between the tracks and the Fraser River. “It is a spot where we frequently have these incidents,” he said. “It has all the precautions in place; there’s no reason to stop across the tracks.” He used the crash as another opportunity to drill home a safety message to all drivers. “Look, listen, and live,” he said. “Before any driver proceeds onto a level crossing, they should stop, check both ways to make sure no trains are coming, before crossing… It’s common sense.”
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