GCSO investigating railroad pedestrian death

Gonzales County Sheriff’s deputies are trying to determine the identity of an individual who was killed by an Amtrak passenger train Saturday, July 26 in Harwood.

The Gonzales County Sheriff’s Office received a call at about 10:07 p.m. in reference to a train striking a pedestrian on the tracks near U.S. Highway 90 and County Road 279. When first responders arrived, they located the body of a subject who appeared to be deceased. Deputies assisted Union Pacific Railroad police in securing the scene and processing evidence.

Union Pacific maintains 6,498 miles of rail in Texas and responds to any incident that occurs on them, but none of their locomotives were involved in the incident, a UP representative told the Inquirer.

Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Jesse Almaraz was called to the scene and pronounced the individual dead and ordered an autopsy be performed at the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office in Austin.

The case remains under active investigation at this time, pending positive identification of the deceased by the Medical Examiner’s Office as well as toxicology and other tests. It was unknown why the individual was on the railroad track at the time they were hit and killed.

According to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), it is illegal to access private railroad property anywhere other than a designated pedestrian or roadway crossing. Trespassing is the leading cause of rail-related deaths in the United States. Nationally, more than 500 trespass fatalities occur each year. Trespassers are most often pedestrians who walk across or along railroad tracks as a shortcut to another destination. In some cases, individuals choose to end their own lives and will willingly walk onto a train track in front of a moving train.

The FRA stated a train traveling at 55 miles per hour can take more than a mile to stop and trains overhang railroad tracks by three feet or more on either side, so even when individuals are not standing directly on the tracks, they risk being hit by a train by being on railroad property. Trains can also be relatively quiet despite their size and do not always sound warning horns when approaching a crossing.

The train which was involved in the collision appears to have been the Amtrak Sunset Limited, which runs westbound from Houston to San Antonio on Saturday nights, according to the Amtrak train schedule available online. The Sunset Limited makes three weekly round trips from New Orleans to Los Angeles.

In fiscal year 2024, the Sunset Limited had a full-route customer on-time performance of 60 percent. On Friday, Aug. 1 Amtrak and Union Pacific announced a settlement regarding customer on-time performance, leading Amtrak to request the Surface Transportation Board close its investigation into the matter after UP agreed to continuous training and education opportunities to employees with responsibilities to Amtrak under federal law.

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