Woman on Walk Along Tracks Killed By Train: Victim May Have Been Wearing Headphones As Train Rounded Curve

By Venice Buhain, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash.

May 01–A Centralia woman died Sunday afternoon when she was struck by an Amtrak passenger train near the Thurston-Lewis county line, the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office reported.

The woman, identified by the county coroner’s office as Kristina Sabin, 33, was walking along the tracks when she was struck from behind about 2:45 p.m., just after the northbound train rounded a curve, said Thurston County Sheriff’s Sgt. John Price. Books and notebook paper from her backpack were strewn for several hundred yards along the track between Centralia and Bucoda. There is no pedestrian path nearby.

Pedestrians are not permitted to walk along the tracks, which are the private property of BNSF Railways.

“It is against the law to trespass on the tracks,” Price said. “This is one of the reasons why.”

The train conductor blew the whistle and pulled the emergency brake after seeing Sabin, said Gus Melonas, BNSF Railways spokesman.

Initial reports indicate that she was wearing headphones, he said. She died at the scene.

The train, carrying 235 passengers from Portland to Seattle, was delayed 2 1/2 hours as BNSF closed all traffic on the tracks in both directions, Melonas said. Amtrak replaced the crew, and the train continued on its northbound course, Price said.

Some customers at Olympia’s Amtrak station off Yelm Highway waited out the closure, according to a Centennial Station volunteer.

The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office was investigating the death as an accident, Price said. BNSF also was continuing to investigate, Melonas said.

Sabin’s death is one of several fatalities on area train tracks in the past few years:

— July 2004: A 74-year-old Centralia woman died after being struck by a southbound Amtrak train in Centralia as she tried to walk across an intersection while the crossing arms were down and the lights were flashing.

— February 2004: Two men, ages 16 and 20, were struck by an Amtrak train in Centralia. They had avoided a southbound train when they were struck in the northbound tracks.

— April 1999: A 31-year-old pedestrian was struck and killed in Lacey, and in a separate accident later that month, a 50-year-old pedestrian was struck and killed in Lacey.

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