Passenger Trains > Northeast Regional Fatality in Mansfield, MA

At around 11 am this morning, a person was hit by  Amtrak Regional #170 heading to Boston in Mansfield, MA.  This has also had an effect on MBTA commuter operations on the Providence line.

http://www.wcvb.com/news/pedestrian-struck-by-amtrak-train-in-mansfield/34694802



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/15 14:08 by Wurli1938.

Not true 190 struck the worker God Bless him and his Family

Posted from iPhone

The person was an Amtrak track worker that committed suicide. This has been very hard on his coworkers.

This has been a very sad day for all of us on Amtrak

Posted from iPhone

MW4man Wrote:
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> The person was an Amtrak track worker that
> committed suicide. This has been very hard on his
> coworkers.

this reminds me of a sad story ... about 10 years ago a close friend of mine lost his oldest son suddenly in a car accident, one of 7 kids between 3 marriages, in the wee hours of Easter morning ... i knew his son as well ... we would all attend football games together ... my buddy was very distraught but held his composure as best as he could ... he had taken a couple months off and came back to work when he thought he was ready ... his boss was close to him as well and they grew up together and told him to take as much time as he needed to heal ...

when he returned to work i could still see the pain in his eyes ... he was a track inspector in Philly which was probably the worse possible duty someone could have, especially with his mental state at the time ... his inspection territory was North and South Penn interlocking at 30th St station, which as we all know is a very busy place ...

me and the boss both knew he shouldn't be out walking track alone (albeit with a watchman) out there and even though he had somebody to walk with him for protection, which was mandatory when inspecting track within interlocking limits, the guy probably didn't understand that my buddy needed special attention and besides the watchman's primary responsibility was to watch for trains and not shadow the inspector to make sure he wasn't going to to do anything crazy ...

i told his boss i was going to stay with him and walk with him until further notice ... the boss said to me to not let him out of my sight which i didn't, so when we inspected track i would always walk next to him or an arms length behind him ... most of the time during that period when we walked nothing would be said between us ... i figured i'd let it go until he was ready to talk ... i was doing most of the inspection and keeping an eye on him ... he needed to be active to heal but he was still in another world ...

when we walked North Penn we would clear on the 1 River side ( track closest to the Schuylkill) whenever possible ... he would scare the hell outta me and stand right up on the end of the ties as close as he could to the track without getting hit and i'm sure every engineer no doubt had to wonder what the hell was going on ... i didn't know what was going through his head but i knew he had to be thinking at times of jumping in front of a train and ending it all ... he was my responsibility and i was going to make sure that he went home in the same condition he came to work that day ...

sometimes the look in his eyes had the look like he just wanted to end it all but he never said anything or acted like he was going to harm himself in any way and i never brought it up ... none of us wanted to take the chance of leaving him without someone right there ... it took the better part of the year until he had the stability to be able to do anything where we felt he could trusted to handle things on his own ...

The engineer involved is a railfan well known on Facebook and other forums.

Roger That a great guy and friend



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/15 14:23 by mobujr.