Boy Killed as Four Try to Outrun Train : Brothers, Friend Escape Santa Ana Tragedy on Trestle

A 10-year-old boy was struck and killed Wednesday as he and three other boys, including his two brothers, tried to outrun a train on a railroad trestle in Santa Ana, authorities said.

The victim, identified as James Boyle of Orange, was struck by the Amtrak passenger train as it approached the end of the narrow, 80-foot-long bridge, according to Orange County Deputy Coroner Rick Plows. The boy died instantly of multiple injuries. An autopsy was planned today.

His brothers, Danny Boyle, 13, and Kevin Boyle, 8, were not injured, authorities said. A neighbor boy, Jeremy McDaniels, 11, was with them and was not injured, a neighbor said. Plows said the boys were running south on the trestle, which is over the dry bed of Santiago Creek, and were trying to outrun the southbound train.

Two boys were able to jump off the trestle onto a dirt embankment and a third leaned against the steel bridge railing and avoided the passing train, police said. The impact forced James Boyle off the bridge and he landed in the grading below the tracks.

“They saw a train coming and figured they could beat it. So they were running down the middle of the track. . . ,” Plows said. “It’s the exact scenario as in the movie ‘Stand By Me.’

“There was no way off the trestle other than (at) either end. One (boy) was toward the end of the trestle and had almost made it and the train caught up with him.”

The accident occurred about noon near Santiago Park in a residential area near Fairhaven Avenue and Lincoln Street, about two miles north of the Santa Ana Amtrak station. The train, the No. 774 San Diegan, had originated in Los Angeles and was bound for San Diego.

The train, which was traveling in reverse (with the engine pushing the cars), consisted of seven cars and one engine and was carrying about 425 passengers, according to Amtrak spokesman Clifford Black. The passengers remained on the train for 1 1/2 hours while police questioned the engineer and conducted an initial investigation.

The train, which normally travels at speeds of up to 90 m.p.h. during stretches of the route, was going about 34 to 40 m.p.h. as it approached a deep curve just south of the trestle, authorities said.

The victims’s stepfather, Jerry Smith, said that, according to Danny Boyle, one of the surviving brothers, the engineer blew the whistle when he saw the boys.

The engineer, who was not identified, was given a routine blood test, but there was no indication that he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, police spokeswoman Maureen Thomas said.

“He did stop the train about 400 feet from the impact where he hit the child. He asked a neighbor to call 911 and the neighbor did,” she said.

After questioning, the engineer was allowed to reboard the train and continue to San Diego, she said.

Black said there is no indication that the engineer could have avoided the accident or that the train was operating improperly.

“The authorized track speed at that particular location is 40 m.p.h. Trains obviously cannot take evasive action and they cannot stop in the manner that motor vehicles can. Normally, in situations like this, the engineer is extremely remorseful because there is very little he can do to avoid striking a person on the track,” Black said.

“Therefore, it’s a double tragedy. If the children had not been on the track they would not have been hit. It’s a point we try to make whenever we can, because it is an extremely dangerous place to be and today’s tragedy bears that out.”

Smith, however, said Wednesday night that the railroad company “has to be held responsible. . . .”

“For the life of me, I don’t see how they can have a train going through a public park at 40 miles an hour with no signs, only a vague attempt at a fence and no warning. . . ,” Smith said.

He said children use a 6- to 8-foot opening in a fence to get from Santiago Park, a public park, to the tracks. A dirt path that begins at the street crossing also runs alongside the tracks.

“Kids are kids” and will be attracted to play in dangerous places unless they are kept out, Smith said. Evidence of the easy access to the tracks can be seen in the graffiti covering the trestle “inside and out,” he said.

“Nothing can bring Jimmy back,” Smith said, adding, “If they don’t come up with something better, there are going to be other Jimmys.”

According to residents in the neighborhood, children frequently ride bikes and practice bike maneuvers along the dirt path that runs parallel to the railroad tracks. And the trestle is a favorite hangout for children and transients.

Michael Martin, a spokesman for Santa Fe Railway, said Wednesday that there were at least two serious accidents last year in the same general area, but details on those accidents were not immediately available.

But in June, 1981, a 20-year-old Santa Ana man sitting on the railway tracks was struck and killed by a freight train several blocks south of Wednesday’s accident.

And in August, 1973, a 9-year-old girl was seriously injured on the same trestle when she was struck by a Santa Fe Railway passenger train as she and her younger sister and two other boys tried to outrun the train.

“Yesterday, kids had a shovel and were digging holes, making lumps so they could play with their bikes there,” said Jesse Martinez, who lives nearby. “They got between the tracks yesterday and I said, ‘Hey, get away from there.’ They said no train was coming.

“I’ve seen them there a couple days in a row playing around there. I don’t know if they were the same kids, though,” Martinez said.

Another neighbor, Dina Oliver, said she was in the laundry room at her apartment complex when she realized there had been an accident.

“The train was blowing the horn, so I couldn’t hear any screams. I heard the brakes screech and I came over and they told me a young boy had been killed. I don’t think anybody saw what happened,” Oliver said.

His friends in the neighborhood said Jimmy loved baseball and had played second base for a youth baseball team called the Dodgers.

Ian Hardwick, 10, a classmate of Jimmy’s at Palmyra Elementary School, said the two of them were leaders of a neighborhood group that sought out adventure in special hide-outs under bridges and in storm drains.

Once, Ian went with the group to the tracks but said he didn’t go back because it was too dangerous. “I told them they shouldn’t ever go back there,” he said.

“I know his mother will miss him,” said neighbor Jan Aguirre of Jimmy. “He was her little helper.”

Times staff writer Andrea Ford also contributed to this article.