A 52-year-old man was killed at about 4:45 p.m. Tuesday by a Sounder (Sound Transit) passenger train while crossing on foot the BNSF Railway tracks near South 266th Street and Ives Avenue in south Kent, just north of the Green River.
It was a northbound Sounder train, said Gus Melonas, BNSF Railway spokesman in a phone interview Tuesday. Nobody on the train was injured. As of Wednesday morning, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office had not yet released the identification of the man.
Initial indications are that the collision appears to be the result of intentional actions on the part of the pedestrian, according to a Kent Police news release.
Police are trying to determine where the man lived.
“He had a California ID, so at this point we are unsure if he resides here or was visiting,” said Kent Police Cmdr. Robert Hollis in a Wednesday email.
A Sounder train also struck and killed a pedestrian at about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday between Sumner and Puyallup. Both collisions closed tracks and caused delays of trains. Sound Transit sent buses to Kent for people heading south on trains Tuesday evening. The agency sent buses in the morning to Puyallup to take passengers to Federal Way to catch buses to Seattle.
A third incident Tuesday involved a Sounder train going to Seattle from Everett at about 8 a.m. when a person standing near the tracks near Carkeek Park in northwest Seattle either lost his footing or was hit by the train, injuring the pedestrian.
On Sunday, a 20-year-old man was fatally struck by an Amtrak train in Puyallup. A person also was injured by a freight train Sunday in Kent, Melonas said.
Nineteen people have been killed this year on BNSF Railway tracks, Melonas said.
Kent train deaths
Four pedestrians have been killed in the last five months on the tracks in Kent. Two in July and one in September were considered suicides based on witness reports, according to Kent Police.
• A 20-year-old Seattle man was hit by a Sounder train on July 23 near South 212th Street
• A 55-year-old SeaTac man was struck by an Amtrak train July 24 near West Willis Street
• A 19-year-old Bonney Lake woman was hit Sept. 20 by a Amtrak train between West Willis Street and South 259th Street
• A 52-year-old man struck by a Sounder train Dec. 3 near South 266th Street
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