Pedestrian killed by train in Ashland

ASHLAND M.A. - A man in his 60s is the latest to die from being struck by a train along railroad tracks in the state.

Since July 1, more than a dozen people have been killed on train tracks in Massachusetts.

The man was struck and killed by Amtrak train 134 near Front Street around 1:50 p.m., authorities said. Foul play is not suspected. The death comes less than a day after a person was struck and killed by a commuter train in Chelsea.

Several other people in the region have died after being struck by trains, including a 16-year-old boy in February in Ashland and two adults who were struck in Natick in September. One of the people struck in Natick was killed.

The Amtrak train stopped just before the tracks cross Main Street in Ashland.

“All of a sudden I just looked up and I saw the train there,” Mary Siniawski, manager of the nearby Pizza Mine said. “I was like ‘why is the train still there?’”

Charlie Bond, who has lived in a house near the tracks for 50 years, knew something was amiss.

“I was sitting at the kitchen table, and (the train passing) sounded strange,” said Bond.

Bond and his wife Janis said they see people crossing the tracks in Ashland all the time. Once, Janis said, a woman navigated her way across the tracks with a baby stroller on Patriots Day. As the Bonds yelled at her to get off the tracks, the woman insisted the trains were stopped for the Boston Marathon. Almost as soon as she had crossed, they said, a train came through.

Since July 1, trains struck and killed at least 13 people on MBTA commuter rail tracks, according to the transit agency. In fiscal 2017, there were 19 fatal train strikes statewide, more than double the nine fatalities in fiscal 2016. Many of those deaths are likely suicides, some are accidental.

Based on preliminary 2016 data from the Federal Railroad Administration, Massachusetts ranked 15th nationally in the number of pedestrian deaths resulting from trespassing on train tracks.

MBTA Transit Police and and the Middlesex District Attorney’s office are investigating the latest fatality.

“I feel bad for whoever this person is, their family,” Janis Bond said. “Someone is not going home tonight.”