Posted on 11/28/2018 6:00:55 AM PST by Gamecock
A man hit and killed by an Amtrak train Monday morning in Moorpark had been placing flowers on the tracks for another man fatally struck on Saturday by an Amtrak train, authorities said.
Monday's fatality occurred around 11:33 a.m., when a northbound passenger train from Los Angeles was traveling through the city at about 70 mph, according to the Ventura County Sheriff's Office, which provides police services in the city.
The man, described as a 47-year-old Moorpark resident, was hit near Avenida Colonia and Nogales Avenue and was pronounced dead at the scene. Tracks in the area pass underneath Highway 23 east of the station on High Street.
Witnesses told police the man had been on the tracks placing flowers for 38-year-old Robert Melgoza, who was killed in the same area around 4:40 p.m. Saturday by a northbound Pacific Surfliner passenger train. Witnesses on Monday reportedly advised the man to get off the tracks before the train came through, but he failed to do so in time, sheriff's officials said.
Some 226 passengers and three crew members aboard the train, which was headed to Seattle, were not injured. The tracks were closed in both directions for about two hours and 15 minutes as Moorpark police investigated.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Deputy James Cochran at the Moorpark Police Station at 805-532-2700.
Thought it was a odd place to bury someone next to bridge railing or a culvert.
It surprised me.
Shocked me, as I didn’t think a train could move so silently.
Had we been on the tracks I don’t know that we could have jumped out of the way in time.
Freight cars that have been pushed into a switch yard can surely sneak up on you. Locomotives, well that is difficult to imagine give that the ground shakes right along with all of the other racket.
Indeed if your going to play with trains better know what they do.
“Seemed to start around the mid-1990’s”
I remember it back in the 1950’s
“Were these guy deaf, dumb and blind ? How can you not be aware of a frigging train ?”
On occasion my job had me working right next to the BNSF tracks. Lots of fast freights, Amtrak, and Metroliners. One thing I learned is that you couldn’t always rely on your hearing to warn you of an approaching train.
Sometimes you would hear them coming, but other times you’d be busy doing something and it would seem as if some huge train had appeared out of nowhere. At over 60 mph they can be on you in a hurry.
I usually interact with trains at crossings, with bells, lights, horns, etc. so my experience probably doesn’t count for much. It does make sense that a approaching train isn’t loud , the sound perhaps similar to a boat’s wake, the sound is dissappated to the side or rear. Sound is a funny thing. For the childhood house, We could hear trains plain as day, even though the tracks where, as the crow flys, a little over a mile away.
“the sound perhaps similar to a boat’s wake, the sound is dissappated to the side or rear”
That’s what I suspect too, since they are plenty loud when they are rolling past you. But I do know that they sure can sneak up on you.
Someone leave some dandelions for this one. Don’t buy flowers for a fool.
‘Same for the highways on Oahu, Hawaii, back in the 50s.
/s
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