One person was taken to hospital Friday morning following a collision that involved a train and an SUV.

Taché fire chief Allan Rau says they were called at 8:26 a.m. to the railway crossing on highway 207 by Dufresne.

“The small SUV, it struck actually the first locomotive, and the train was able to stop because they were moving quite slow,” he reports. “So, they stopped about 500 m from the incident scene. And the front end was pretty smashed in, and the engine was torn off of its mounts. So, the front end of the vehicle sustained heavy damage.”

The lone female occupant of the SUV was treated on scene and then transported to Winnipeg for medical treatment, Rau says. He does not know the severity of injuries.

Rau notes this is not the first time a vehicle has collided with a train at that crossing.

“To my knowledge, they’ve had a couple at this (crossing). I’ve only been with the department for six years,” he says. “But before my time, I guess that used to be the worst train crossing in the RM of Taché.”

And Rau says it is tough to explain why collisions happen at this particular crossing because it has bells, flashing lights and crossing arms, plus it is in an open space.

“You can see the train from left and right,” he states. “I can’t answer for what people are doing when they go across that rail line.”

When the fire department left the scene, Rau says CN Police and technicians were still there to make sure the train was fit to continue rolling.