3 Train Deaths Revive Call for Safer Tracks : Transportation: Relatives of one victim ask for safeguards against further tragedies. Santa Fe Railway expresses regret, but notes victims were trespassing.

Three people were killed in just over a day when struck by trains in the North County, reviving concerns about rail safety sparked by a spate of previous deaths along the coastal tracks. One of the latest deaths may have been a suicide.

A bicyclist who apparently tried to outrun a train at a crossing was struck and killed at 7:56 p.m. Thursday in Carlsbad by a northbound Amtrak San Diegan, railroad personnel and police said. The incident remained under investigation late Thursday night, causing trains using route to be delayed.

Witnesses told Carlsbad police that the crossing arms had come down when the cyclist attempted to scoot in front of the train, said Lt. Joe Hasenauer of the Carlsbad police.

“He or she didn’t make it across,” Hasenauer said. “The body is in pieces.”

Karina Ellie Murphy, 40, of Leucadia was struck about 4:45 p.m. Wednesday by a southbound San Diegan while she and her husband were walking the family dog near the tracks at Old Highway 101 near Grandview Street, a common haunt for the couple, her sister-in-law said.

Early Thursday and about 7 miles south--at the Via de la Valle overpass in Solana Beach--a Santa Fe Railway work train ran over the body of Barbara Ann Young, 58, who authorities believe had been struck by at least one other train during the night.

Investigators with the county medical examiner’s office believe Young, who had no known address in the area and had recently moved from Glendale, committed suicide because she was distraught over her financial situation.

On Thursday, the family of Murphy--a physical therapist with three sons, ages 12, 15 and 17--struggled with the freak sudden death of a woman described as energetic and dedicated to her family.

“The dog got loose. They saw the train coming, and she grabbed the dog,” said Kelly Friz, a sister of Stephen Murphy, who was standing 10 feet from his wife when she was struck. “She apparently was hit in the head by something protruding from the train. She thought she had cleared it. That was it. My brother saw the whole thing.”

The train engineer first saw the couple from the La Costa Bridge, about a mile from the accident. Engineer David Altman sounded the horn several times, officials said.

Though walking on or next to the tracks is technically trespassing, miles of North County track--where Amtrak trains reach their maximum speed of 90 m.p.h.--are accessible to pedestrians. Accidents such as the one that took Murphy’s life leave survivors angry that more is not done to prevent them from wandering into harm’s way.

“One thing (Stephen) would like to share is that there should be some sort of protection, some preventive measures or some sort of laws to prevent this from happening,” Friz said. “It might be able to help somebody else.”

More than a dozen people have been killed by trains in San Diego County over the past two years, including two women in December, 1990, at the Del Mar passenger depot, where people would often dash across the tracks to catch their train.

Mike Martin, spokesman for Santa Fe Railway, which owns the tracks, said the rash of accidents sparked a yearlong 1991 campaign to educate the public about train safety. But as long as pedestrians walk on the tracks, accidents will occur, he said.

“This is a tragedy and we would never try to minimize the grief the family is feeling,” Martin said. “But the unfortunate fact of the matter is that these people, by walking along the right-of-way next to the tracks, were trespassing. And regardless of where somebody is, if you’re close enough to be hit by any part of that train, you’re obviously too close to the tracks.

“Virtually everyone who has been involved in these accidents lives in the area, knows there are trains traveling through, and knows they are traveling at high speeds.”

Hashu Waney, whose wife was killed when she tripped and fell in front of a train she was rushing to catch at the Del Mar depot in 1990, said something can be done. In his case, he lobbied rail officials for months to erect a fence that would prevent further tragedies. In May, the fence went up.

He regularly returns to the scene on the anniversary of his wife’s death.

“I still go there on every fifth of the month, to the Del Mar station,” he said Thursday. “And I did see a lot of people crossing. Eventually, to my great surprise, I found that they put a fence up. There is no way that people can now cross the tracks there, and that is what I was fighting for.”

Waney said he will continue working for safer tracks.

Plans to lower portions of the North County track into trenches, or raise the tracks, have been proposed but have never been fully pursued due to the cost, said Martin, and the Santa Fe Railway is now selling off all of its Southern California track to public and private agencies.

He estimates that within a year, track safety will become someone else’s responsibility.

While Murphy’s death raised questions of what could have been done to prevent it, Young’s death, on the other hand, does not appear to have been an accident, medical examiner’s investigator Charles Kelley said.

“The possibility is she heard about the one (Wednesday), and decided this was the route to take,” said Kelley, who found Young’s bag at the scene of her death. Inside, he found an extra pair of slacks, and the telephone numbers of several friends in North County whom Young knew through church.

Young was divorced and leaves a daughter in Hawaii. She had been living in Glendale, and had no known address in San Diego County, Kelley said.

“Her friends said she had just kind of dropped out of sight the last couple of days,” Kelley said.

Kelley and other county officials lifted pieces of Young’s dismembered body into a body bag Thursday morning as pedestrians looked on from the Via de la Valle overpass. Her body had been so traumatized that investigators speculate she was hit by more than one train.

A Santa Fe Railway work train headed from Fallbrook to Miramar about 7:50 a.m. ran over her body, but Young was already dead, the crew said.

But no engineer from any of the Amtrak or freight trains that passed over that stretch of track Wednesday night reported seeing the woman.

“Certainly if this woman had been out there and had been in front of a train, certainly the locomotive engineer would have seen her,” an Amtrak spokesman said. “I think some forensic pathologists are going to have to determine cause and time of death, and determine if she was dead before she was hit by a train or not. But obviously at some point, something had caused dismemberment.”

Homicide detectives from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department were called to the scene, but determined that her death was a suicide, and was caused by a train, Lt. John Tenwolde said.

Medical examiner’s investigators had not yet determined her time of death Thursday evening.

A memorial service for Murphy will be held Sunday at 12:45 p.m. at the Self-Realization Fellowship Church in Encinitas. Friz said a memorial fund has been set up for the family.

“She was a wonderful, wonderful person, very well liked in this community,” Friz said. “She did a lot with the kids in athletics and music--soccer, guitar, drum and keyboard lessons. Whatever it was they wanted to do, she was supportive.”