The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) and the CN Police Service are investigating a truck-train collision earlier this week in Saint-Alexandre-de-Kamouraska, Que. Which involved two transport trucks.
Sûreté du Québec (Provincial Police) said the collision happened at around 1:30 a.m. on Monday when a Via Rail passenger train collided with the trailers of two transport trucks. Sûreté du Québec spokesperson Audrey-Anne Bilodeau told CBC the two trucks had pulled into a parking lot near Highway 289 but somehow parked too close to the tracks. Bilodeau told the CBC that the truck drivers would have had to go over the railway to access the parking lot.
“We need to let the Transportation Board of Canada and CN Police to conduct a comprehensive review before commenting on the specifics of this collision, but this incident no doubt highlights the difficulty drivers have finding safe places to park their vehicles and allow them to get the rest needed to operate a commercial vehicle safely,” said CTA president and CEO Stephen Laskowski. “The lack of safe truck parking space across Canada is a serious problem.”
Addressing this is critical to driver wellbeing and also affects public safety and supply chain efficiency, which were highlighted by the trucking industry in CTA’s report on interprovincial trade barriers in both 2023 and it’s 2025 report, says CTA.
“The Government of Canada and the provinces have been examining this issue for the National Highway System because of the discussions on interprovincial trade barriers, and the industry expects some announcements in 2026 regarding this issue.”
In investigating truck-rail collisions at railway crossings, the TSB will examine physical and infrastructure issues, environmental and seasonal factors as well as human factors and driver behaviour.
“CTA will be interested in reading this report, particularly around the human factors that may have led to this event. We encourage the TSB to reach out to safety experts in the industry and through associations during this investigation to further inform their findings. There could be more industry and governments can learn from, examine and implement as effective solutions to ensure collisions like this are mitigated to the greatest extent possible,” said Laskowski.