2 Women Die When Hit by Train at Depot

As more than two dozen commuters watched in horror, two women died after they were struck Wednesday by a freight train as one tried to rescue the other, who had stumbled while crossing the tracks at the Del Mar Amtrak station.

Usha Waney, 47, of La Jolla fell as she rushed to cross the tracks after hearing a warning signal at a nearby road crossing and mistakenly thought it marked the arrival of her Los Angeles-bound passenger train. She was killed instantly when the 2,000-ton train hit her.

Roberta Halpern, 44, of Encinitas died of her injuries in a hospital Wednesday afternoon. She and her husband were frantically trying to pull Waney from the train’s path when the women were struck.

Waney was among half a dozen people who began running toward the tiny red-brick depot from a parking lot on the west side of the tracks about 6:35 a.m. when they heard the crossing bells warning of a coming train, San Diego County sheriff’s deputies said.

Waney, a clothing designer on a business trip to Gardena, tripped while carrying her loaded briefcase across the tracks at an unauthorized but heavily used shortcut, less than 6 feet from the platform area, witnesses said.

Then she rose briefly to her knees as Halpern and her husband, Lee Kaiser--who were among the group rushing from the parking lot--dashed back to the tracks to help.

“She was crouched there on the tracks, and they ran out to help her,” Deputy Carlos Medina said. “But they only got her halfway off. The train just came by and cut her in two.”

Witnesses say that Halpern fell toward the train as she attempted to assist Waney, while Kaiser fell away from the tracks.

Joel Volsky, a 43-year-old Del Mar real estate agent who stood on the platform, said several commuters witnessed the split-second drama but were frozen by the rush of the oncoming train.

“We all saw her fall,” he said of Waney, who only recently had expressed concern to her husband about the dangerous crossing. “You wanted to dash out and help her, but the train was coming. You just froze, you just froze.”

Waney’s body was pulled beneath the braking locomotive, which hit Halpern before coming to a stop about 150 yards up the tracks.

Halpern was flown by Life Flight helicopter to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where she died about 4:40 p.m. of massive internal and head injuries. Kaiser was not seriously injured.

Volsky recalled watching Waney fall as the lumbering train struck.

“The lady who was killed was wearing a white blouse and blue pants,” he said. “When she fell under the train, the white blouse turned to red from her blood. It was just terrible.”

The train dragged parts of Waney’s mutilated body across a 100-yard section of track--scattering her shoes, purse, clothing and papers from her briefcase--as witnesses dressed in business suits cried out and turned their heads in horror, he said.

Moments later, the air was filled with the victim’s blood-spattered papers, apparel samples and the sound of the big engine’s brakes. The briefcase was sliced in two by the wheels of the train.

“All you could hear were the horrible screams from people on the platform,” Volsky recalled. “After the woman was hit, people got down on the platform and started to pray instead of doing anything to help her. Those screams are still in my mind.”

Allan Royster of Poway, who also stood on the platform, said of Waney: “I will never forget her face. She realized it was too late but the other people stuck right by her. . . . They were trying to help her.”

The accident delayed northbound rail traffic for three hours and the next southbound train for 30 minutes, authorities said. Northbound-bound commuters at the scene were taken to their destinations by bus.

The deaths of Waney and Halpern were the fifth and sixth involving trains and people on foot in San Diego County since early October.

On Oct. 5, a Carlsbad grocery clerk was killed by an Amtrak train as he carried a bicycle along a trestle near Basilone Road in the North County.

On Oct. 13, a woman was struck in Encinitas by another passenger train as she sat on the tracks smoking a cigarette. Eight days later, two migrant workers were killed by an Amtrak train in Leucadia as they reportedly sat on the tracks playing cards.

Mike Martin, a spokesman for the Santa Fe Railway in San Bernardino, said that the company’s freight train had just rounded a blind curve just south of the depot at about 45 m.p.h. when the engineer saw a woman on the tracks about 250 yards ahead and blew his whistle.

“You’ve got four powerful locomotives and 43 freight cars traveling down those tracks--the whole train weighs more than 2,670 tons,” he said. “The engineer tried to stop the train--did the best he could.

“But you’ve got steel wheels on a steel rail. You can’t stop a train like that on a dime. Still, he’s very upset about what happened.”

A cabdriver who was parked at the station said he heard no train whistle before the accident. “I didn’t hear any whistles at all. I’m sure of it,” said the driver, who identified himself only as Greg.

“You knew it was a freight train coming, though. It had this heavy rumble. There’s no mistaking a freight train.”

Martin said the one freight train running daily between San Diego and Barstow usually makes its run during the night, but a recent renovation project had forced the trains to run during the day.

The $45-million LOSSAN Rail Corridor Rehabilitation Project is in the fourth and final phase of a four-year plan to replace worn tracks in San Diego and Orange counties, he said.

“The crews do their work at night, when the passenger trains aren’t running,” Martin said. “As a result, we’ve had to run the freight trains when we had the best window of time. This one was running about 13 minutes in front of a northbound passenger train.

“It’s tragic, there’s no doubt about it. But this is a main rail line that’s been open for 108 years. And trains run up and down it 24 hours a day. People just shouldn’t be surprised that there are trains on that line. So, no, we don’t plan any scheduling changes because of this incident.”

The danger at the tiny depot, which overlooks the ocean in downtown Del Mar, lies instead at an unsanctioned track crossing used by scores of passengers each day to reach the station from a private parking lot nearby, Martin said. (There is also a parking lot next to the depot on the east side of the tracks.)

“It’s a crossing right in front of the depot that sits on the end of a long fence,” he said. “People use it out of convenience to get from the private parking lot to the public depot.”

Several regular train commuters said the crossing is used by scores of passengers each morning, many of whom park their cars and must run to the depot when they hear the whistle of the approaching northbound trains.

“I hate that crossing,” said one train traveler. “I’ve seen dozens of people run a foot race to get across the tracks in time. Because they know, if they don’t make it, you can’t get on the train.

“If they just put a door on the west side, people wouldn’t have to rush.”

Volsky added: “It really scares me because I knew I had just crossed the tracks at that crossing only 10 minutes before. We all do it. And now this happens.”

Santa Fe’s Martin said rail passengers who use the informal crossing do so at their own risk: “It’s like speeding on the freeway--you’re not supposed to do it, but people so it all the time.

“But this thing is not a public crossing in any way, shape or form. If people are going to use it, good luck to them. The present alternative is to walk around to the nearest crossing just south of the platform. That is still the safest thing to do.”

John King, owner of the adjacent Seagrove Parking, acknowledged that the crossing is extremely dangerous.

“It’s not our crossing,” he said. “We just have a bicycle rack there for people to use. We don’t tell them to use it, so it’s not our problem. It belongs to the railroad or the city of Del Mar.

“I think someone should put a fence up there, or this is going to happen again.”

Del Mar Councilman Rod Franklin said the sticky issue remains as to who bears responsibility for the crossing. “Obviously, this issue is going to go to court someday soon,” he said, “and the question is going to come up: ‘Who created this path?’

“The answer is the people who used it day after day rather than walking around to the official crossing. The city owns the sidewalk people are supposed to use. I just can’t answer the question of liability.

“It’s just something two lawyers and a jury are going to have to hash out sometime.”

Critics have long claimed that something needs to be done to protect pedestrians along the rail corridor--which now sees 16 passenger trains and one freight each day, a number that may rise to 26 by 1992.

Officials, however, have resisted proposals to fence off the 44-mile stretch between Oceanside and San Diego.

The Del Mar station was the site of an accident in the mid-1970s when a train struck a bus that had stalled on the tracks in the fog. The bus driver and a small girl were killed.

But there will be an eventual solution for the Del Mar station, officials say. The depot, built in 1906, is scheduled to be closed and replaced within the next couple of years when a commuter rail station is built along the tracks north of Del Mar in Solana Beach.

On Wednesday, Waney, a production manager for San Diego-based Beeba’s Creations, was to have taken the 6:49 a.m. Amtrak train on her way to Gardena to inspect a production facility there, according to a company official.

Linda Maskovich, a corporate officer, said Waney had worked for Beeba’s for more than 13 years and had coordinated international and domestic production of the firm’s sportswear garments.

Her husband, Hashu, who is also employed at the firm, said late Wednesday that his wife had recently mentioned the crossing as a dangerous place.

Maskovich added: “We all thought that depot was such a pretty place with its ocean view.”

She said Waney apparently did not know the couple who tried to save her life. “They were strangers who were all crossing the track at the same time,” she said.

“This woman just jumped out in front of an oncoming train to try and save Usha’s life. It’s just unbelievable.”

Halpern’s organs were being removed Wednesday night, a hospital spokeswoman said. Halpern, who had a Ph.D, was a researcher at the Regional Cancer Center in La Jolla, Deputy Coroner William Leard said.