Walking on tracks, man is the third killed by train since 2015

The mother of a Middletown man killed while walking on railroad tracks called his death “absolutely horrible.”

Thomas “Tommy” Pennington, 35, of Roosevelt Boulevard, was struck and killed by a train Sunday night while he was walking on the tracks near Wildwood Road and Manchester Avenue, according to police.

He was pronounced dead at the scene around 8:25 p.m., according to a Middletown police report.

Tina Pennington said she was sleeping in her apartment when there was a knock at the door. She thought it was her son because he had lost his key.

Instead, it was a Middletown police officer, an investigator for the Butler County Coroner’s Office and a local pastor.

When Pennington looked out the peep hole in the door and she saw a police officer, she thought: “Oh what has Tommy done?”

Then she was told her son was hit and killed by a train.

Pennington, a 2001 Edgewood High School graduate, leaves behind a wife, a daughter and son, a stepdaughter, father and brother, his mother said.

She has “no idea” why her son was walking those tracks because he has no friends in that area, she told this news outlet.

When police arrived, Pennington’s body was lying on the east side of the railroad tracks just south of Manchester Avenue.

The three people on the train — the conductor, a trainee and an engineer — told police the train was traveling north on the railroad tracks approaching Manchester when they saw a man walking in the middle of the tracks with his back to the train.

The conductor told police he sounded the horn multiple times, but Pennington continued walking on the tracks..

The Norfolk Southern train was traveling about 37 mph, according to the conductor.