Man Lying on Tracks Is Hit, Killed by Train

A 40-year-old man lying on the railroad tracks in the dark was struck and killed by an Amtrak train, investigators said Monday.

The Anaheim man, whose name was being withheld pending notification of his family, was “curled up” on the tracks about 9:30 p.m. Sunday when a train engineer saw him near Lincoln Avenue and Sycamore Street, Lt. Dave Severson said.

The crew of the passenger train hit the brakes but could not stop in time. The man was crushed under the train and died instantly, according to the coroner’s office.

Investigators are looking into the possibility of suicide, but said the man could have been “sleeping or passed out,” Severson said.

The train had stopped at the Anaheim station and was on its way to Fullerton, then to Los Angeles. The locomotive had rounded a blind curve at 79 mph, which is within the speed limit, when the engineer saw the man in the train’s path, Amtrak spokeswoman Dominick Albano said.

The train’s whistles were blowing and the bells were ringing at the time and the engineer did everything he could to avoid the accident, authorities said.

“You have to understand, a train can never stop as quickly as a car can,” Albano said. ‘A train needs at least a mile and a half.”

The victim was not carrying any identification, and authorities identified him through fingerprints.

Police said they were trying to contact the man’s relatives in Northern California.

The accident caused a delay of almost two hours for 350 passenger on board, about a dozen of whom were taken by bus to their destinations, Albano said.

The man was the second to die recently in Orange County when struck by a train. On May 22, Brea Det. Terry Fincher was looking for a weapon near railroad tracks when he was struck and killed.