Nearly every train fatality is caused by trespassing, whether intentional or the accidental result of a distracted or disoriented pedestrian. In most cases, little information is released about the circumstances or the person’s identity.
Now, a team of doctors, scientists and researchers at UC San Diego are undertaking a three-year study of railroad right-of-way trespassing and ways to prevent it using a $3.9 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration.
“This is a big issue,” said Dr. Linda Hill, a physician and professor preventative medicine at UCSD who will lead the study. “Southern California has the highest number of train strikes in the United States.”
When a train hits a pedestrian, which railroad agencies call a “strike,” it’s almost always fatal. Each incident can have a number of disastrous and far-reaching consequences, Hill said.
For the locomotive driver and emergency workers, there is the indelible sight of a body mangled by a massive, unstoppable vehicle. Hundreds of transit passengers also are affected, if not emotionally, at the least by the inconvenience of a long delay in their travel.
Trespassing is an increasing problem for the state’s passenger train operators. As the population grows, along with the number of trains, so do the chances of strikes.
Sometimes it’s someone walking along the tracks while wearing headphones, talking on a cellphone, or trying to take a photo. Years ago, a man was killed while trying to save his dog that ran onto the tracks in Del Mar. An unknown number are suicides.
California had 310 train strikes of which 194 were fatal in 2021, Hill said. The next year, 2022, there were 343 strikes including 221 fatalities, and in 2023 there were 405 strikes with 251 people killed. Most of the incidents were in Southern California, where the population is greater and more dense.
About half the fatalities were suicides, she said, though it’s impossible to know the exact number. The estimate is based on the limited details available from sources such as security and bystander videos, and police and coroner’s reports.
So far this year, there have been 23 fatal strikes on the 60-mile coastal rail corridor in San Diego County, according to North County Transit District officials. That’s more than double the 11 strikes reported in 2023.
NCTD determined based on reviews of each case by the county Medical Examiner’s Office and relevant law enforcement agencies that about two-thirds of those deaths were intentional.
Hill is finishing up a pilot study of passenger rail trespassing in Los Angeles.
“We approach rail safety from the human aspects,” Hill said, by studying problems such as railroad employee fatigue from working long hours.
“One of the things that contributes to employee stress and fatigue is this trespassing,” she said.
Researchers will study trespassing on NCTD’s Coaster, Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner and San Joaquins, the Bay Area’s Altamont Corridor Express, Caltrain near San Francisco, and the Capitol Corridor between San Jose and the Sacramento Valley “to develop a toolkit to understand how, where, and why trespassing occurs and to propose preventative measures,” states an announcement from the federal Department of Transportation.
“The proposed project was selected .. to better understand the environment, track structure, station areas, and rail-highway crossing attributes related to areas of high trespassing activity along six rail lines in California,” it states.
Bringing more rail agencies into the project will achieve a better understanding of the widespread trespassing factors, Hill said.
The tool kit will use common factors such as the location of nearby sidewalks, schools, roads, bridges, bars, restaurants, homeless camps or shelters, posted warning signs and more, she said. All the factors will be combined in an algorithm that any agency can use to show solutions such as places where more work or community education is needed.
“We hope to save lives as well as improve transportation,” Hill said.
“Trains are an important component of the U.S economy,” she said, and their use is increasing as an alternative mode of transportation and one that reduces the greenhouse gases that pollute the atmosphere and contribute to climate change.
NCTD released a trespasser risk reduction study in 2020 that identified three “hot spots” for trespassing in Oceanside, Encinitas and Del Mar. The study recommended the installation of fencing along the railroad right-of-way to reduce access in those areas.
The fencing was installed in Oceanside and Encinitas, but not yet in Del Mar. The section of tracks in Del Mar crosses a blufftop at the edge of the ocean, and residents there have said a barrier would impede beach access, ruin ocean views and lower property values.
The California Coastal Commission sided with the residents, and so far the bluff is fence free.
“The prevention of railroad trespassing and rail safety are top priorities for NCTD,” said Mary Dover, the district’s chief of staff in an email.
“NCTD places great importance on mitigating trespassing in the railroad right-of-way and is continuing to work with jurisdictions in its service area to implement safety measures along the rail line and at grade crossings,” Dover said.
The district works with Operation Lifesaver, a national nonprofit rail safety program, to promote rail safety education and patrols the right-of-way to address trespassing incidents, she said.
District officials supported UCSD’s application for grant funding and will work closely with the researchers to help educate communities and create the mitigation toolbox, Dover said.
