(The following appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on March 12, 2010.)
PHILADELPHIA — Investigators believe the deaths of two men hit by Amtrak trains on the Northeast Corridor line 11 hours apart yesterday were suicides.
The latest fatalities bring to five the number of people killed by Amtrak trains in the area in the past two weeks, including two teenage girls from Delaware County who died in what officials said was a suicide pact.
The latest death was reported last night when a 25-year-old man apparently stepped in front of Amtrak train in Northeast Philadelphia.
The train, a Northeast Regional, was en route from New York to 30th Street Station when it hit the man at 9:16 p.m. near the Holmesburg Junction station.
Earlier yesterday, a man stepped in front of the Amtrak Keystone No. 642 in an apparent suicide at the Hamilton Station in Mercer County, N.J.
The Trentonian newspaper reports the man’s body “exploded” when he was hit by the train, which was going more then 100 mph, about 10:25 a.m.
On March 1, a 45-year-old Delaware fire investigator was killed by a southbound Acela train south of the Wilmington Station. There is no word yet whether the state Medical Examiner’s Office has ruled the death was an accident or a suicide.
The two teen girls were killed Feb. 25 when they were hit by a high-speed Acela a heavy snow fell in Norwood. A third girl decided at the last minute not to join in the suicide pact and screamed to her friends to get off the tracks just before they were killed, police say.