Amtrak employee struck, killed
Amtrak train strikes lookout near the Bowie State MARC station
An Amtrak engineering worker was struck and killed by an Amtrak train about a half-mile north of the Bowie State University MARC station Tuesday.
The incident happened near the west end of the university campus. Crews from Prince George’s County Fire/EMS responded to the call about 9 a.m., said Mark Brady, a department spokesman.
The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that the victim was an Amtrak employee and sent a pair of investigators to survey the scene. The identity of the deceased worker had not been released as of Tuesday evening.
“We are deeply saddened by the death of an Amtrak engineering employee this morning in Bowie,” Amtrak spokeswoman Beth K. Toll said in a statement. “We are working closely with the [Federal Railroad Administration] and NTSB to thoroughly investigate the details of this incident.”
The employee was a lookout for a crew doing track work, according to NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson. At the time of the incident, a 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.
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. A full investigation is expected to take one to two years.
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.
The train was traveling on an Amtrak route that is part of its Northeast Corridor service between Richmond, Va., and Boston.At the time of the incident, there were 251 passengers aboard the train. Those passengers were transferred to another train after a delay of about 90 minutes, Amtrak officials said.