Rover the Rabbit and his internet pals have been given an important job: Selling railroad safety to Canadian kids on a website launched Friday.

Operation Lifesaver, a railroad safety organization set up by the Railway Association of Canada and Transport Canada, set up the site, titled "Train Your Brain," to make kids more aware of the dangers involved in taking shortcuts across train tracks.

"We said "let's target kids [with the website)" — they like to go places they shouldn't go," said Dan Di Tota, Operation Lifesaver's national director.

Besides Rover, the site features a porcupine named Penelope, Rosco the raccoon, a talking crossing signal and Abbey, "a smart girl who got a lesson in railroad safety from Rover the day she almost took a shortcut across the railway tracks."

As well, the site has games, an online colouring book, and questions and answers about why children should not play in rail yards or along train tracks.

By getting kids to play the games and fiddle around on the site, Di Tota's group hopes youngsters will grab the underlying message that train tracks are not playgrounds.

"It's about attitudes — sometimes kids think nothing can happen to them," Di Tota said.

But rail areas are dangerous places, Di Tota said.

Fatal mistake

For example, Canada had 214 crossing collisions and 73 trespassing incidents — where someone went into a rail yard or along a railway track — in 2008 at a cost of 120 lives, according to Operation Lifesaver.

There were 49 serious injuries arising from train-pedestrian mishaps in 2008.

As well, last year showed improvements in most categories versus 2007. For instance, 140 people died in train-related incidents two years ago.

Better still, the number of accidents has plunged in the past 28 years, Di Tota said.

Since 1980, the number of collisions in Canada have fallen by 75 per cent and the number of trespassing situations have tumbled by 58 per cent.

In fact, some provinces have eliminated deaths and injuries altogether from people wandering along train tracks or in rail yards, Di Tota said.