About 2,300 people are seriously hurt or killed near tracks each year, according to Canadian Pacific Kansas City, which is pressing for stronger safety measures at highway-rail grade crossings.

The Class I railroad, formed by the April 2023 combination of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern, links Canada, the United States and Mexico. CPKC used the 2,300 figure to anchor a renewed appeal to motorists, pedestrians, regulators and municipal road authorities, urging them to treat crossing safety as a shared responsibility.

What does the 2,300 figure cover?

The "near tracks" wording matters. Most North American rail-trespass and crossing fatalities occur not on board the train but in vehicles or on foot, where drivers misjudge speed or distance, stop on the tracks, or drive around active warning devices. Pedestrians who use the corridor as a shortcut account for a substantial share of the toll.

Industry safety data consistently rank trespass and crossing incidents as the largest single category of rail-related deaths in the United States and Canada, ahead of workplace incidents at yards and shops. Crossing collisions and trespass casualties, taken together, have hovered near long-term averages even as overall rail volumes have grown.

What is CPKC asking for?

CPKC has historically backed upgraded warning systems — four-quadrant gates, flashing lights, second-train arrival sensors and median barriers. The carrier has also supported public-awareness campaigns timed to the back-to-school and harvest seasons, when farm equipment and student drivers converge on rural crossings.

The company has urged provincial, state and municipal authorities to prioritize grade separations where vehicle and train counts both warrant, to enforce existing stop-and-yield laws at crossings, and to fund sight-line and surface improvements at the worst-performing locations.

CPKC has also pointed to infrastructure it controls — vegetation management around rights-of-way, whistle-board placement, and lighting at high-foot-traffic corridors — as levers within its own capital budget.

Safety advocates have argued in turn that carriers carry the primary duty to maintain those assets and to plan capital projects that close redundant at-grade intersections over time. CPKC has worked with Operation Lifesaver, the non-profit safety education group, on awareness campaigns in each of the three countries it serves, and has participated in pilot programs for wayside horns and obstacle-detection systems.

What changes for shippers and host communities?

For shippers, the appeal lands against a backdrop of growing freight volumes on the combined CPKC network. Higher train counts mean more exposure events at every at-grade intersection, even where train speeds remain unchanged.

Local communities along main lines feel the impact directly: each added train extends the window during which a crossing is occupied, and each blocked crossing draws complaints from emergency-services dispatchers and school-bus operators.

Safety investments, when they materialize, typically follow a hazard-ranking formula that blends vehicle traffic, train frequency and crash history, channeling limited public funds to the highest-risk sites. CPKC has framed the 2,300-person figure as a reminder that engineering upgrades, enforcement and education must move together — a single lever, the company has argued, will not move the casualty count.

In the United States, federal law requires locomotives to sound horns at public at-grade crossings, except where communities establish "quiet zones" with supplemental safety measures. CPKC has generally supported quiet-zone applications where local authorities fund the upgrades required.

What comes next?

CPKC has signaled continued participation in industry safety coalitions and in legislative efforts at the state and provincial level aimed at trespass prevention and crossing consolidation. The renewal of the 2,300-person figure suggests the carrier intends to keep the issue in front of the public through the next budget cycle.

Whether the annual toll trends downward will depend, the company suggested, on coordinated action by railroads, road authorities and the motoring public rather than on any single infrastructure project.