Death on the tracks: Chilliwack's rail fatality rate is among the worst in Canada

Over the last four decades, trains have killed an average of three people a year in the Fraser Valley. They died while driving over crossings, while walking on the tracks, or in suicide attempts with an oncoming train. Almost half of the fatalities happened in Chilliwack, according to an analysis of 40 years of train fatality data.

Some of the fatalities were well-publicized in the community: the 2018 death of Matthew Jarvis, whose wheelchair became stuck on the tracks on Broadway, for example; or the 2016 suicide of Thomas Hudson, who stepped in front of a train at Young Road. But many, many others died with little recognition, only the screeching of the train’s airbrakes marking the moment they passed.

No other place in British Columbia is as deadly as Chilliwack when it comes to trains. In fact, Chilliwack has the fourth-highest number of train-related fatalities in the country, exceeded only by Toronto, Montreal, and London, Ont., according to the data reviewed by The Current.

This story discusses train fatalities, including death by suicide. If you or someone you know are thinking of suicide, help is available. Call or text 988 for Canada’s suicide crisis hotline. Call 911 if you are in immediate danger.

This story uses data from Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s Rail Occurrence Database System, which includes information on reportable accidents and incidents on federally regulated railways from January 1983 to the present. The data is updated on the 15th of each month. Data used for this story is accurate up to Aug. 15, 2024.

The information available for each incident is dependent on the details provided by the railway or the Transportation Safety Board at the time of the occurrence. As such, data for certain incidents may be unavailable. The information presented in the story is as accurate as possible, within the limitations of the dataset and human analysis. If you find an error, you can email us here.

Where the accidents happen

The Fraser Valley has a long-standing culture of people interacting with railways, and vice versa. It may be illegal, but people have long used train right-of-ways as trails between disconnected areas. In Chilliwack, the rail bridge over the Vedder River is a commonly used connection between Yarrow and Greendale. That rail bridge is also a prime location for photoshoots, despite the many no trespassing signs. In Abbotsford and elsewhere around British Columbia and the world, rail corridors are often used by pedestrians in lieu of convenient footpaths.

But the tracks can be deadly, whether a person is in a car or on foot. Since 1983, 123 people have died on tracks operated by CN and CPKC in the Fraser Valley, according to the Transportation Safety Board data.

The majority of train deaths have occurred in Langley, Chilliwack, and Mission—all of which have major railway routes through their downtown cores.

At least 18 people have been killed on Langley’s tracks since 1983. Former township engineer Gordon Lovegrove identified the crossing at Glover Road near the Jacob Haldi bridge as a particular area of concern until the Albion Ferry closed in 2009. (Lovegrove is also a regional rail advocate, current UBC Okanagan professor, and Kelowna councillor.)

Although there was only one death—a motorcyclist who failed to stop at the crossing in 1983—the pedestrian use of the crossing made the area a high priority for engineers, who would have been looking at the potential challenges of maintaining public safety on the high-use crossing.

“In Fort Langley, this was a huge issue, because there you've got a lot of people taking the old Albion ferry,” Lovegrove said. “That now is a bridge, so people aren't necessarily walking there as much, but there's two sets of tracks, and … they're looking one way, but the trains are traveling like 50 miles an hour” in both directions.

In Mission, at least four people have been killed at or near the West Coast Express station, where 88,000 people board the train annually. Mission was also the site of one of the Fraser Valley’s deadliest rail accidents, when four people were killed at a crossing near the city’s waterfront Via Rail station in 1984. That single incident accounts for more than one-third of Mission’s total deaths; trains have killed 11 people in the city since 1983.

But it is Chilliwack where trains have killed the most people. And many of the deaths have occurred on one short, particularly deadly section of track running through the centre of town.

The nearly two-kilometre stretch of rail largely passes through the city’s commercial areas, from Young Road (near the Shandhar Hut restaurant, the Fraser Valley Regional District building, and many social support services) to Squiala First Nation (near the Eagle Landing shopping complex).

Twenty-two people—roughly one for every 100 metres of track—have died on that single section of track since the mid-1980s, with most of the fatalities occurring next to or on the Young Road crossing. (That section of rail is double-tracked, with the main line and a siding running parallel to each other.)

Another 10 people died on a short stretch of double track to the immediate east of the Young Road crossing. Those include one high profile death in 2018, when Matthew Jarvis was killed after his motorized wheelchair became stuck at the crossing. The data does not include injuries, like those suffered by Julie Callaghan while trying to rescue Jarvis.

40 years of fatalities

Throughout the last four decades, there have been consistently more people dying on railway right-of-ways than at train crossings. But the gap has gotten even wider in recent years.

Between 1983 and 1992, 10 people died in incidents at crossings, while trains killed 16 people on the railway right-of-way. Between 2014 and 2023, however, the balance shifted. In that 10-year period, 26 people died while standing or walking on right-of-ways in the Fraser Valley, while only eight people died at crossings.

Historically, many rail crossing deaths happened when vehicles drove over the tracks as a train was approaching. Many involved drivers going around crossing gates, or trying to beat the train over the tracks. In 1993, two people died in Glen Valley when their truck was hit by a train on a second set of tracks after the first set had cleared.

According to Lovegrove, the decline in crossing fatalities mirrors the trend across Canada as railways and communities have upgraded crossings to make them more responsive to incoming trains.

“More consistent detection devices will know the train’s speed, and trigger the crossing warning to make noise and be activated in time, well before the train is at the crossing,” Lovegrove said. “People are warned about it.”

Across Canada, these detection devices and other safety measures and campaigns have helped halve the number of train fatalities happening each year. But that has not been the case in the Fraser Valley, where crossing fatalities have decreased while overall train-related deaths continue to rise.

In 2024—only including data for the first eight months of the year—there have been no deaths at crossings. But, there have been more fatalities on right-of-ways than at any other point in the last 40 years.

In June, the death of a man at Eagle Landing Parkway prompted Transport Canada to force train operators to resume whistling as they approached every crossing in Chilliwack. That hadn’t happened across much of the city since 1984.

(Whistling was still relatively common, as people living near the tracks can attest. Engineers use their whistle to warn people and animals on the track, especially when weather made it hard to see, and in response to a stop signal, among other reasons. But, in 1984 it was no longer a requirement at most crossings in Chilliwack, thanks to infrastructure upgrades and Transport Canada’s blessing.)

The return of the crossing whistle was intended to stop trains from hitting more people. It was also a terrible headache, Chilliwack Mayor Ken Popove said.

The Chilliwack problem

After a person died on the tracks near Eagle Landing, Transport Canada ordered CN to slow its trains to 30km an hour through Chilliack and whistle at nearly every crossing. Residents were not happy.

Popove said his email was flooded every day with complaints from people living near the tracks.

“The mental health and anguish [the whistling] put on to families that live near the tracks was immense,” he told The Current. “Transport Canada, in their infinite wisdom, was under the impression that blowing whistles and slowing the trains down would stop folks from trespassing in their area, which it won’t.”

Whistling is required at all crossings in Canada, under almost all conditions. (Sometimes bells are acceptable instead.) If a municipality wants the whistling to stop, it can send a request to the railway, and work with it to ensure crossings are up to certain Transport Canada standards. (You can learn more about this in our freight train mailbag.) In general, municipalities must pay for upgrades if the railway predates the road that crosses it.

After the introduction of the slow order, Chilliwack and CN worked together to strengthen safety measures along the line, as per Transport Canada’s instruction. CN removed blackberry bushes and other vegetation from the right of way to improve sightlines. They also removed encampments near the railway right-of-way. The city’s operations department built new fencing at the end of Rowat Avenue, at Garden Drive Park, near A.D. Rundle Elementary, and elsewhere to reduce pedestrian access to the main lines.

The result: trains were able to stop whistling all the time, and resume their previous speed. The improvements were also a step to address some of the infrastructure issues that made that section of track so dangerous.

Preventing deaths

Satellite and ground-level imagery shows that pedestrians frequently cut across the tracks to the west of the Young Road crossing. (One common access point is located not too far from Ken’s Tire, Popove’s long-time business until he sold it to his partner earlier this year.) That spot was one of the areas “hardened” by Chilliwack after the June slow order.

Hardened might be an understatement.

Drag the slider to see the change.

Where there had once been a chain link fence there are now barriers roughly 10 feet tall. On Railway Avenue, a fence has been replaced by stacks of cement blocks. At the end of Rowat Avenue, access has been blocked by a fence similar to those used for suicide barriers on bridges. And behind a new supportive housing building currently under construction, access to the tracks is now blocked by a tall sound barrier-style fence.

The hope is that the barriers will stop people from using the tracks. But much of the track, particularly behind businesses, remains only protected by a small chain link fence. And the new barriers don’t address other infrastructure issues that may be encouraging people to trespass on railways.

“For people who are walking, the default is to take the shortest path,” Lovegrove explained. Rail tracks frequently provide direct crossings over creeks or other barriers. “[If] the municipality hasn’t built enough active corridors, active trails, connections for the most vulnerable users, then rail becomes the default.”

In central Chilliwack, it is possible that people use the tracks as a transportation route between several older residential neighbourhoods in the west, near Squiala First Nation, and the Young Road area, which is home to a number of services used by vulnerable residents in Chilliwack. Establishing other walking and cycling corridors to reduce the attractiveness of the railway is one of the important things municipalities can do to prevent deaths, Lovegrove said.

Lovegrove said rail companies should also ensure there is space on either side of the tracks so people have space to get out of the way if they do find themselves on the rails at the same time as a train.

“Some of the solutions for these things are to build a convenient alternative,” Lovegrove said. “It’s pretty straightforward.”

Another solution is to prevent access entirely, although that comes with its own obvious challenges.

In the past, people have suggested building an overpass at Young Road—like what the city did at the parallel Yale Road in 1989. (That construction project cost $7 million, or roughly $18 million in today’s dollars.)

The city currently has a rail overpass listed in its five-year capital plan. The cost is listed at $14.5 million, with construction slated to begin in 2029. Young Road, Lickman Road, and Eagle Landing Parkway have all been identified as possible locations. But city staff say the $14.5 million earmarked for the project would likely only cover a third of the cost and is based on a 2017 pre-feasibility study. The remaining funds would need to come from provincial and federal governments. Recent overpass projects, like the Vye Road crossing in Abbotsford, suggest the cost could be far higher.

The overpass is mostly wanted as a solution to the frequent traffic delays caused by the many trains running through central Chilliwack. Even if an overpass does get built at Young Road, Popove doesn’t think it would stop the rail deaths along the stretch of track.

“It’s really going to be impossible to completely stop [deaths] because you can’t totally block off the tracks,” he continued. “If somebody is … at a point in their life where they want to cease living, they’ll find a way.”

Suicides on the track

Popove’s statement assumes that most of the Fraser Valley’s train-related fatalities are suicides—and a significant number of them certainly are.

In August, a woman was hit by a train at Young Road while trying to help someone attempting to end their life, Popove said. (The woman struck by the train survived with multiple injuries that required critical care.)

The Current’s analysis of all Fraser Valley fatalities found that about one-fifth of all deaths were described in ways that are consistent with suicide (for example, a victim laying down on the tracks or walking towards the oncoming train).

That is likely still a significant undercount of suicide deaths in the Fraser Valley. A vast majority of train fatality reports did not have enough information in the description of the incident to identify what had put the victim in front of the train. Lovegrove estimated that half of all train fatalities in Canada could be related to suicide.

In the risky stretch of track through central Chilliwack, suicides accounted for at least one-quarter of all train fatalities.

The volume of suicides is not surprising, SFU researcher and clinical psychologist Julian Somers said, particularly given that area of Chilliwack is an important hub for the city’s homeless community.

“Thoughts of suicide, prior attempts at suicide, are much higher among people who experience homelessness than in the general population,” Somers said.

The section of track near Young Road bisects a part of the city that houses a number of important resources, including Chilliwack Community Services, Chilliwack General Hospital, the Ministry of Children and Family Development to the north of the tracks, and Chilliwack Bottle Depot, the Chilliwack Wellness Centre, and the Trethewey Modular Supportive Housing to the south. The area will eventually house the Rowat Avenue supportive housing project, which has been delayed but could finally be completed next year.

It’s likely that many of the more than 400 homeless residents of Chilliwack spend time in the area around the tracks.

“If we’re building a hierarchy or scaffolding or risk factors [for train deaths] the most obvious factor, right off the bat is: do you live adjacent to railway tracks?” Somers said. ”After that, we might focus on state of mind, are you there all the time, do you have to cross the tracks for various reasons?”

State of mind also includes substance use, Somers noted, something that significantly increases the risk of being hit by a train due to both the heightened potential for suicidal thoughts and lowered awareness.

There are a variety of “obviously compelling risk factors that don’t really involve suicidal ideation or any intention,” he said. “Just those things added together could simply create a high risk of people being killed by trains, one could say, innocently.

“But then there’s the overlap with despair,” Somers continued. “All of the things that I mentioned that are risk factors are also correlated with the likelihood of despair in one’s own future … It’s despair associated with declining hope that one’s circumstances could improve, and so literally, why go on?”

Preventing suicides

“We can’t be everywhere, helping everybody. It’s impossible,” Popove told The Current when he was asked about what the city could do to prevent deaths on the line. “It’s unfortunate that the train tracks are right through our town, but that’s what we’re going to deal with.”

Popove said he didn’t want to “put money before safety,” but felt that installing barriers like an overpass wouldn’t prevent suicides on the tracks. Research about suicide barriers on bridges shows that is not necessarily the case: many studies over the years have found barriers can immediately prevent suicides—and that they don’t simply move them to other places. A similar argument could be made for barriers around train tracks as well.

Research has also shown that the lasting economic benefits of keeping people alive could outweigh the cost of barrier construction. One Australian study estimated that every dollar spent on physical barriers for suicide prevention had a return of $2.40 over 10 years.

However, as Popove noted, building suicide prevention infrastructure can be incredibly costly—and something a single municipality may be unable to afford. Somers also said he believes municipalities can’t solve the problem on their own, although for different reasons.

He noted that the situation in Chilliwack is akin to pushing people to the edge of a cliff.

“We segregate people together in positions of disadvantage,” he said. “People can’t camp anywhere … But we say, okay down by the railway tracks, we’re going to tolerate you … So that is a really harsh social message.”

When encampments are removed from railway right-of-ways, he added, that is another disparaging message.

“We see this in other settings, of experiencing the powers-that-be, the government seeming to identify and disrupt the only things that are going well, or the only sources of strength that people are experiencing,” Somers said.

(He also noted that, although social bonds like those developed at encampments are important, they can also contribute to a sense of despair, because they are not part of what he calls an “upwardly mobile” community.)

The support services located near the tracks—like the modular housing, the wellness centre, and community services—are useful tools to help people who have been alienated from other supports. But Somers believes people need to be assisted earlier, and that municipalities shouldn’t be the ones to do it, saying it could encourage “inappropriate offloading” from the provincial government to communities.

Reducing suicide deaths on railways requires municipalities to band together and demand more supports for people before they enter a crisis, Somers said. Work creation programs, assistance for youth in care, and other broad social initiatives are among the things that he believes would reduce homelessness, hopelessness, and despair.

“We’ve already solved it, and the governments are now the bottleneck.”

Be aware

The systemic issues that have led to Chilliwack’s central tracks becoming one of the deadliest in Canada will take effort from railways, municipal infrastructure planners, and higher levels of government to solve entirely—if it can be at all. But there are also actions that individuals can take to ensure their own safety when interacting with trains.

Operation Lifesaver, Canada’s rail safety organization, recommends some basic actions that people can take to keep themselves safe around trains. Don’t use cell phones or headphones around trains, which are faster than people expect and can arrive with little warning. Use designated crossings to pass over the tracks, both as a pedestrian and as a driver. Leave a vehicle if it becomes stuck at a crossing, and do not trespass on the railway right-of-way.

The last recommendation is common sense—trespassing is, as the name suggests, illegal. And the data show how dangerous it can be. But people will continue to walk on rail tracks as long as they remain accessible and potentially more convenient than other paths. And that means they will need to remain aware when on the tracks.

Trains are deceptive. Their size can make it seem as though they are moving slowly when they are really speeding down the tracks. And although a locomotive may seem extremely loud to people beside the tracks, its sound waves won’t reach people in front of the train with the same intensity.

One Chilliwack rail enthusiast, who spent many years walking on the SRY tracks in Yarrow and trespassing on lines elsewhere in BC, knows firsthand how quickly a train can sneak up from behind.

He and a friend were on a track in northern BC, deliberately looking for trains. The area was flat, with space for them both to get off the rails, but the line curved through the landscape, obscuring views. In the distance, he thought he heard a train whistle.

The group couldn’t decide if the whistle was coming towards them or leading away from them. By the time they got off the tracks and saw the train coming around the corner, it had nearly snuck up on them.

“It didn’t even feel loud until it was right on top of you,” he said.

The moment underscored the danger that can lurk on railways, even for people who are hyper-aware of the trains. A moment of daydreaming, a slip in vigilance, could mean the difference between making it off the tracks safely or not.

“You can’t be in another place, you’ve just got to think about what’s going on around you constantly.”