It never fails, you're late for an appointment and you get stuck at a train. Now imagine if you were racing to put out a fire, or to the scene of an accident. How do trains affect emergency responders in Estevan? 

"Trains do not really bother us at all," shared Fire Chief, Dale Feser. "I know a lot of people think it may hamper us a bit, it may add an additional minute in our response time, however, it's not too terribly concerning.

"The reason being we have three rail crossings. Both the Deputy Fire Chief and myself, we carry radios at all times so if something happens and we are responding to a scene and the east rail crossing is blocked, we'll just communicate that over the radio and they'll just go the west crossing."

In fact, because the response time is so good, around ten minutes, it actually keeps insurance rates down for the city.

They also take into consideration whether the train is long or how fast it is going.  

As for what the train is hauling, the fire department does not get a heads up whether or not dangerous goods are coming through Estevan. 

"Quarterly they have to report the top 10 dangerous commodities coming through the community so that information is provided."