BUFFALO, N.Y. — Evans police were trying to determine why a hearing-impaired hunter from Angola was walking along railroad tracks near Gowans Road when he was hit by a freight train and killed Sunday afternoon, the Buffalo News reported.
Police officials said Joseph G. Gajkowski, 41, of Center Street, was pronounced dead at the scene when the westbound train, heading to Cleveland from Buffalo, struck him on the tracks, just west of Eden-Evans Center Road at 12:44 p.m.
Evans police said the Norfolk Southern train operator saw the man on the tracks and sounded the horn as the train approached, but Gajkowski failed to move from the railroad tracks.
The operator tried to avoid hitting him but could not stop the train in time, officials said.
“Typically, trains travel 50 miles an hour and it takes 1 to 11/2 miles just to stop. The operator brought the train to a safe stop, but it was too late to avoid hitting the man,” said Rudy Husband, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern’s police unit.
“We hit an individual who was trespassing on our property. If the individual wasn’t trespassing, the incident wouldn’t have happened.”
Police said Gajkowski was hunting in the area before the incident occurred. The area near the accident scene was described by police as a wooded neighborhood, with homes nearby, that is frequented by hunters.
“Hunters only have to be 500 feet away from a residential area, so they can hunt in this area legally,” said an Evans police official.
Traffic on a mile-long strip of Gowans, between Route 20 and Mill Street, was closed for a few hours by the Evans Fire Department so that police could investigate the accident scene.