Train collides with van near Oxford Mills Local curling team heading to the nationals

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A relatively rare type of accident took place near Oxford Mills on Sunday, January 22. Around 7:30 pm, a Canadian Pacific freight train collided with a minivan at the County Road 18 crossing, near Dennison Road. The Ontario Provincial Police and other first responders were on scene, and thankfully no injuries were reported. A spokesperson for the

OPP confirmed that the vehicle had become stuck on the tracks at the crossing, and that the three occupants of the van had managed to escape the vehicle before it was hit by the train. A photo of the damages posted by the OPP on Twitter showed the rear end of the van smashed significantly. The train was left blocking two miles of track after an emergency stop, and the scene took several hours to clean up.

Officers were posted at affected crossings to help direct traffic and ensure safety. There were no reports of crossing signal malfunction. Railway crossing safety has been a topic of discussion locally in recent months. During the October municipal election, candidate Mitch Bloom suggested that “quiet neighborhoods” could be achieved by designating some local crossings as “no train whistle” crossings if enough locals wanted this. The railway crossing at County Road 18 poses a specific danger in that the tracks cross the road at an angle. New level crossings are not supposed to be constructed like this since it restricts visibility and creates a greater risk of a vehicle accidentally turning off onto the tracks. This is a situation that could have ended much worse. Thankfully tragedy did not strike.

A local curling team is getting ready to take on the challenge of competing nationally after a stellar performance at the U-18 Ontario Provincial Championship. After several successful qualifiers over the last several months, Team Padbury earned berth into the Canadian champions at the CurlON event held January 12-15.

Team Padbury consists of Emily Padbury (skip –from Kemptville), Kaitlyn Dumoulin (third – from Kemptville), Megan Zwolak (second – from North Gower), Sydney Anderson (lead – from Greely), and Brooklyn Ideson (fifth – from London, a skip of her own team who is joining Team Padbury just for the nationals). The team’s manager is Sydney’s mom, Heather Anderson. The team’s coaches – Doug Johnston and Kim Cooper – joined the team in the summer after observing the curling performance of the girls in action.

The girls who make up Team Padbury previously knew each other from various youth leagues and events. Each player brought unique past accomplishments and experience to the team. They quickly warmed up to each other’s personalities and curling styles. At the U-18 Ontario Provincial Championship, the team suffered an early loss, but was able to bounce back and end the round robin in a became the team to watch out for which is something I always wanted,” said Megan. “I feel so privileged to get to curl with these amazing girls who have become so much more than teammates.” “Being a new team, our goal for this season was to make the U-18 provincials which many would say is impossible in your first year together,” added Sydney, who is one of the youngest competitive curlers at just 13 years old. “However, each of us put in the hours and the dedication each week hoping to be successful. Now, I am on my way to the U-18 Canadian Championships with not only my team but my good friends. I can’t wait to see what more we can do together.” tie-breaker situation. Next, they played four games in 24 hours – a demonstration of their physical and mental stamina both individually, and as a team.

The parents of all the girls on the team are very proud of what they have accomplished. “Their ability to make games interesting to the very last rock has left all of us with more gray hair than we had at the start of the season,” joked Heather. “As parents we are very invested in the girls’ success and ready to step into any support role that is asked of us, be it chauffeur, manager, nutritionist, broadcaster, or substitute coach. We are sometimes a superstitious group, and if the girls start doing well, we don’t change a thing – even if it means watching the livestream from a park bench in the cold.”

Tim Dumoulin, father of Kaitlyn, explained that she has been curling for at least eight years now. “On her part, there’s been a lot of work, a lot of dedication between practice, game situations, and balancing school and home life,” said Tim. “She’s really devoted to the sport and she still maintains high grades.” Tim further explained that Kaitlyn is both nervous and excited about the upcoming nationals, since it will be “uncharted waters” for her.

The players themselves were eager to express their excitement. “As we started to find some success as the season progressed, we

Emily also weighed in. “Going into nationals, we plan to not only play but compete,” she said. “We never thought we would get to nationals, so we want to enjoy every moment. Furthermore, after our performance at provincials, we feel we can accomplish the goals we set by staying focused, but most importantly by having fun.”

“Let’s go compete!” added Kaitlyn. “We played three back-to-back games, two of which were must-wins to get to nationals. And we did that. We did something that no one expected from us as it is our first year together. Let’s keep going and have so much fun doing it!”

Speaking of having fun, Team Padbury has many ways to stay motivated. The front end sings songs as they sweep in order to keep things enjoyable and light. Each pair also has a special high five to show support. Coach Doug showed his commitment to the team by promising to let them dye his hair if they made it to the nationals. Sounds like it may be time to choose a colour!

Anyone interested in helping Team Padbury with the financial aspect of going to the nationals is encouraged to visit the team’s GoFundMe page. It is anticipated that going to the nationals will bring expenses of about $10,000. Please visit https:// gofund.me/30263f61. Good luck at the nationals, girls!

The Weather with Connor

Hello, everyone! It’s nice to meet you. I’m Connor Mockett, a new columnist for the North Grenville Times. My columns will specifically focus on the weather, whether it be talking about events that have happened in the weeks before the paper is released, or talking about potential weather events that could happen in the future. And in the summer months, I’ll talk about my storm chasing adventures, because I do chase a lot in the summer!

Some of you may already know my name. Yes, I am the same Connor from the “Connor Mockett, Storm Chaser & Photographer” page on Facebook. For those of you that don’t know me, let me further introduce myself.

I’m based out of the wonderful town of Winchester in Eastern Ontario, and I’ve lived here for my entire life. I’m an old man at the age of 22. I’m completely self taught in terms of all my knowledge about Meteorology and storm chasing, which I started teaching myself around 2018, when I really started to get into the weather and storm chasing. My first storm chase was actually in 2015, when a tornado warned supercell came through the Winchester area in July (thank you Dad for being my driver that day). I’ve traveled across the Country of Canada to chase storms, whether it be all the way to Alberta both in 2021 and 2022, or to Nova Scotia last September to chase the historic Hurricane Fiona. Enough about me though, let’s talk about the weather.

As I’m writing this, we just had a minor snowstorm move through the Eastern Ontario region on Friday, January 20. Anywhere from 8cm to 14cm fell across the region, specifically 9cm in Winchester. Most of it fell in the middle of the night, however snow continued throughout most of the day. It was just light and fine snow during the day, and didn’t accumulate too much more.

The next snow opportunity will be Sunday, January 22, where it looks like 4-8cm is expected as the region will get grazed by the northern tip of a Colorado Low. This one will not be the main problem of the week though, as another snowstorm is certain to happen on Wednesday the 25th and Thursday the 26th.

The mid-week storm looks like it’ll be a doozy, with 15-30cm potentially on the way as I type this on the 21st. It also looks like wind will once again be a factor, with models hinting at wind gusts potentially up to 60-70km/h during the heaviest snowfall, which would create some huge snow drifts and awful travel conditions. By the time you’re reading this, you’ll already know how this storm played out, so I’m excited to see what happens with this one.

Temperature wise, the rest of January will be above normal, with a few opportunities for above 0°C daytime highs. The beginning of February will be a different story, as very cold air from Northern Canada will stream down to Eastern Ontario (and the rest of the province for that matter), making daytime highs very cold, and overnight lows extremely cold, with windchills being even worse.

In my next column, I’ll go over what happened with the upcoming snow storms, temperatures, and anything else that happens weather wise. You’ll hear from me in a couple weeks, but until then, good luck with the snow and cold!