Rail-loving MP trains his sights on LCVs

PETERBOROUGH, Ont. — It was only a matter of time before somebody decided they didn’t like LCVs.

Dean Del Mastro, the Conservative MP for this central Ontario town is, according to the Globe and Mail, leading a "public awareness" campaign called "Trains Belong on Tracks."

Among his targets are Long Combination Vehicles (LCVs) — twin 53-van trailers that are approved, under extremely restrictive conditions, on parts of the 401 in Ontario, and the Trans Canada through Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

"I’m not anti-truck," he told the paper, "but I have yet to meet a constituent that wants to share the road with them."

The Globe goes on: "The weight of these double trucks, he believes, puts a lot of pressure on the roads as well as creating new challenges for drivers."

Del Mastro didn’t appear to have an opinion on the fuel-saving benefits of LCVs or that long combination equipment logically means less individual heavy truck units that his constituents have to "share the road with."

When todaystrucking.com tried to get more information from Del Mastro, the self-proclaimed rail buff was unavailable.

His comments appear just days after a report from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation that stated the first year of the province’s LCV pilot project has been a great success.

Earlier in the week, though, he was in Craigellachie, B.C., to help celebrate the 125th anniversary of the legendary “last spike."

According to Wikipedia — oops, we mean according to our grade-school history teachers — on November 7, 1885, a director of the CPR, Donald Smith, drove the last spike into the CPR Rail line, "marking the end of a saga of natural disasters, financial crises and even rebellion that plagued Canada’s first transcontinental railroad."

Meanwhile, in a more easterly part of the country, Del Mastro’s fellow Tory colleague Dave Van Kesteren (MP, Chatham-Kent Essex) has been busy trying to revitalize the trucking and manufacturing sectorsin his region.

With the likely loss of Chatham’s Navistar plant, Van Kesteren is lobbying his government to focus on boosting new advanced power technologies such as natural gas powered trucks.

Should make for interesting conversations at Tory caucus meetings.