An Amtrak employee died Tuesday after being struck by an Amtrak train in Maryland.
The incident occurred about 9 a.m. Tuesday just north of the Bowie State University MARC station. The train involved was on its way north from Richmond, Virginia, to Boston, with stops along the way, Amtrak spokeswoman Beth K. Toll said in an email.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of an Amtrak engineering employee this morning in Bowie, Maryland,” Toll said in a statement.
The employee who was killed was a lookout for a crew doing track work, according to National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson. At the time the employee was struck, the crew was working on the middle set of tracks while the northbound and southbound tracks were being used, Knudson said.
“There was a southbound MARC train approaching the accident site at the same time a northbound (Amtrak) train was approaching the accident site,” he said. MARC is the Maryland Area Regional Commuter system.
After the incident, the NTSB sent two investigators to Bowie. A full investigation is expected to take one to two years. Numerous track workers witnessed the accident and will be interviewed by NTSB. Investigators will review the train’s data recorder and video footage, and conduct a mechanical inspection of the train. The train was traveling at a “high rate of speed,” but they don’t yet know how fast it was going when it struck the employee, Knudson said.
Bryan Monroe is a professor at Temple University’s Klein College of Media and Communication and was one of about 250 passengers on the train that struck the employee. He got on the train in Washington and was taking it to Philadelphia.
The train came to an abrupt stop about 9 a.m. and an announcement said the train would be delayed because of police activity on the tracks ahead, Monroe said.
Passengers stayed on the train for more than an hour after the worker was killed and were then transferred to a different train, Toll said.
Monroe praised the Amtrak staff on the train for their composure.
“The staff on the train was very professional and organized. Everyone was very calm,” Monroe said. “Prayers out to the victim and their family.”
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