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Train fatally strikes woman near her W. Newton home
S.C. Spangler/For The Valley Independent
Richard Gazarik can be reached via e-mail or at 724-830-6292.
The Westmoreland County Coroner's Office said Keck died of head injuries suffered when a handrail on the side of the train struck her in the head. She had already crossed the tracks when the metal rail struck her.
Her home at the intersection of Riverside Drive and Water Street is located a few feet away from the tracks.
Dennis Friend saw the victim leave the Rite Aid as he was leaving a nearby store after buying chewing tobacco.
"She was 200 yards behind me, and all of a sudden the train stopped and a woman got hit," said Friend, who did not witness the accident.
The victim had crossed the tracks almost directly in front of her residence when she was killed. She crossed at Riverside Drive by the Youghiogheny Ballroom, which is operated by the West Newton Volunteer Fire Department.
The train came to a halt as police officers and firefighters roped off both ends of the street. The victim's body lay beneath a blue tarp while police and a coroner's deputy investigated the accident, questioning the train's crew and nearby residents.
Graffiti-covered rail cars parked in the middle of the borough forced firefighters to reroute traffic that normally crosses a bridge over the Youghiogheny River.
West Newton is a busy railroad hub with freight and Amtrak passenger trains rumbling through town every 20 minutes, said Friend, who lives along the tracks. Friend's brother was killed by a train in 1980 while riding a bicycle at a different location along the same tracks.
Amtrak's Capitol Limited, which runs from Washington, D.C., to Chicago, travels through Pittsburgh, Connellsville and West Newton.
The Federal Railroad Administration lists 15 railroad crossings in and around West Newton. The agency said there have been 10 crossing accidents in West Newton since 1976, none of them fatal. This particular section is part of the Keystone district, which is part of the Cumberland and Baltimore divisions.
But there have been two fatal accidents along the CSX line in the area since last October.
Joseph Hermann, 24, of Lowber, was killed in March when a train struck him as he was walking along the tracks in South Huntingdon. Joseph Hesson, 21, of West Newton was killed while walking along the tracks in October.
In a report issued earlier this month, the Federal Railroad Administration said train accidents have declined by more than 23 percent over the past three years.
The two largest contributing factors - human error and track flaws - have decreased, according to the report.
Accidents involving human error decreased by more than 27 percent. There was nearly an 11 percent decline in accidents at rail crossings and a nearly 10 percent drop in fatal crossing accidents, according to the report.
