CN, Canadian Pacific debut French version of emergency responder app

CN and Canadian Pacific on Tuesday unveiled a French language version of the AskRail™ mobile app, which provides emergency responders with real-time information about a train’s contents.

Developed by the Association of American Railroads and its members, AskRail allows emergency responders to use mobile devices to view the contents of a rail car, access emergency contact numbers and reference resources to support incident response, Railway Association of Canada (RAC) officials said in a press release.

"We know that access to this information can help emergency responders at the outset of an incident to make informed decisions about how to respond to a rail emergency," said Michael Bourque, RAC's president and chief executive officer. "Providing this application in both official languages is just one more way that Canada’s railways are working with communities across the country on emergency response training and preparation."

Emergency responders in 255 Canadian municipalities have signed up to use the English language version of the app since it launched in Canada in May. More than 1,700 responders across North America are currently using the app, RAC officials said.

To read more about the app, take a look at this Progressive Railroading online feature from July.