Commuter Train Hits Man Repairing Tracks : Fatality: The San Diego-bound train appeared out of a fog bank, too quickly for anybody to react.

A railroad employee who was working on fog-shrouded tracks was struck and killed Monday morning by a commuter train as his co-worker watched in horror, authorities said.

Benjamin Duarte, 41, of Pomona, an employee of Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Co., was killed instantly in the 8:15 a.m. accident near the Beach Boulevard railroad overpass, Buena Park Police Sgt. Terry Branum said.

The accident forced closure of the track to commuter service while federal and state investigators examined the area.

A preliminary investigation showed that the accident was most likely caused by human error, officials said.

“It was a case of hitting somebody who got in the way,” Amtrak spokesman Art Lloyd said. “He (Duarte) should have known better.”

A Santa Fe spokesman said that because of limited visibility caused by the fog, the train engineer did not see Duarte in time to stop.

The fog, which blanketed the California coast from Monterey to San Diego, was so thick in some areas of Orange County that it reduced visibility to zero. Stephanie Hunter, a meteorologist for WeatherData Inc., which supplies weather information to The Times, said the fog was caused by an extremely strong inversion layer.

No disruptions in service were reported at John Wayne Airport, airport officials said.

The fog burned off by midmorning and was replaced by sunny skies and warm weather. Temperatures ranged from the mid- to high 80s, Hunter said. The fog should not be as widespread today, she said.

There were no other fog-related problems reported in Orange County, police officials said.

In Buena Park, police said that Duarte, who has worked for the railway company for the past seven years, had begun spot-welding a portion of the track about 8 a.m. with his 40-year-old partner, Thomas Dominguez. Dominguez was acting as his spotter, the person who watches for oncoming trains.

There were no bends to obscure views, but the fog cut visibility to about a quarter-mile, officials said.

Duarte had just completed the 15-minute job and had loaded the welding equipment back into his truck parked nearby when he turned around and walked back to the tracks, Branum said. Dominguez, meanwhile, remained at the truck and had his back to the tracks, Branum said.

In an instant, the San Diego-bound Amtrak train appeared out of a fog bank, too quickly for either Duarte or the on-board engineer to react in time, Santa Fe spokesman Mike Martin said.

The train was estimated to have been traveling at speeds reaching 80 m.p.h., Martin said. The locomotive was in the rear of the six-car train, pushing it to San Diego, but an engineer was sitting in a front control car.

Because the locomotive was in the rear of the train, Dominguez told police that neither he nor Duarte heard anything until it was too late.

Martin said that, with limited visibility, the engineer had no time to brake the train, which would have taken about half a mile to come to a stop, he said. He did not know, however, if the engineer had applied the brakes before striking Duarte.

“There’s a lot of mass and weight to those things,” Martin said. “It’s not like jumping on the brakes on your automobile.”

All 250 passengers on the Amtrak line were put on buses and taken to their destinations after it was clear the train was to be delayed for more than an hour, Lloyd said. A Los Angeles-bound commuter train was also delayed about 45 minutes, he added. By the afternoon commute, he said, trains were running on schedule.

Duarte’s partner, who was uninjured but badly shaken, was taken to the Santa Fe headquarters in Los Angeles for mandatory drug testing and for treatment of shock, Branum said. “He was pretty bad off,” he said.

Miguel Goycoa, vice chairman of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Ways Employees, the union that represented Duarte, said union officials would join an investigation already under way by Santa Fe Railway, National Transportation Safety Board and California Public Utilities Commission officials.

Goycoa said he wondered if there was a lack of communication between his union workers and train operators, saying it should have been known Duarte was working in a dangerous area.

Bob Campbell, rail investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board office in Lawndale, said that he would not speculate on how the accident could have occurred or have been averted.

“There is a lot yet to develop,” Campbell said.