Three people have been taken to hospital after they were struck by a train on the city's north side. Few details have been released thus far, but the collision happened Wednesday morning at a crossing on Hayter Road near the Highway 16 overpass. (DAVID BLOOM/QMI Agency)

EDMONTON -- Two CN Rail contract workers are in critical condition and another was taken to hospital after they were struck by a train.

The collision happened around 9 a.m. Wednesday when the workers were performing routine maintenance on the tracks at a crossing in the Cloverbar area, in the northeast part of the city.

According to police, the train was travelling at about 25 miles per hour when it approached the area the workers were in. The engineer blew the train whistle but didn't get a response from the workers because they were wearing hearing protection and had snow blowers going.