The issue of purchasing and installing no-trespassing and no-dumping signage on the town-owned railway has been deferred until the next Orangeville Council is in place after the Oct. 25 election.

The decision was made recently by the councillors sitting as the board of directors of the Orangeville Rail Development Corporation (ORDC).

The ORDC is in place to oversee operation of the townowned Orangeville-Brampton Railway.

The signage issue was brought up by Councillor Sylvia Bradley in March after her 11th-hour decision to vote against a proposed railside trail swung council’s vote to kill a project that the Town’s Trailways Committee had been working on for three years. She is council’s representative on the committee. At the same March 29 council meeting, after the vote was cast, Ms. Bradley forwarded a motion that no-trespassing signs be placed at all the rail crossings in Orangeville and that “enforcement of legislation related to trespassing be requested.”

Town planning director James Stiver, who also serves as the railway’s general manager, later pointed out that such a measure, if adopted, should apply to the entire 55-kilometre length of the railway, and its 38 crossings, and not just to Orangeville and its 10 crossings.

It was then decided to defer the matter to the board, who decided to not to make a decision until after a new council, and subsequently a new board, is in place.

“We deferred it in order to get a proper costing done,” explained Mayor Rob Adams, who is also the short line’s president, in an interview Tuesday. “We haven’t had any real issues with rail safety. So, before we spend a lot of money on signs, we’ve got to think long and hard about it.”

Mayor Adams was one of three council members – the others being Deputy Mayor Warren Maycock and Councillor Gary Kocialek – who voted in support of the trail March 29.

“The best way to promote public safety was to build the trail so people would have a positive option. I really don’t know if putting up a bunch of signs will have the same effect some people hope it will.”

Councillor Gail Campbell, who joined Councillors Bradley, Scott Wilson and Mary Rose to defeat the rail-side trail project, has a different opinion than the mayor.

While prior commitments prevented her from attending the board meeting, Ms. Campbell said in a Tuesday interview that the board should have “dealt with it then and there and had the signs put up.

“We have a situation on the railway that is potentially dangerous and we should be putting up the signage to say so.”