ROUND ROCK, Texas — Two teenage girls were killed Sunday as they walked on railroad tracks in eastern Round Rock, the American-Statesman reported.
The incident occurred about 5:45 p.m. near the 2100 block of Palm Valley Boulevard (U.S. 79), just east of Brushy Creek. Late Sunday, police withheld most details, including the identities of the victims, but said they were both 15 and were not residents of Round Rock.
The girls were apparently walking on the track when they were struck by a Union Pacific freight train, said Will Hampton, a spokesman for the Round Rock Police Department. The train was headed east en route to Chicago from Laredo.
Authorities with the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Williamson County sheriff’s department were interviewing the train’s engineer and two teenage boys who were with the girls at the time of the incident, Hampton said.
The boys were not injured, he said.
“We’re still trying to determine what happened,” Hampton said.
The deaths occurred in a sparsely populated area of Williamson County, near the Round Rock city limit. Why the girls were unable to avoid the train was unclear, but authorities said they might have been walking on a trestle overpass, where a dirt road runs beneath the track.
Officials at Union Pacific said Sunday that they will conduct their own investigation and are cooperating with law enforcement.
“We’ll work with local authorities to try to find any witnesses and interview the train crew, if they can talk right away, and see what they saw,” said Mark Davis, a Union Pacific spokesman.
Travis County helicopter paramedics were called to the scene but canceled after it was determined that the girls’ injuries were fatal, police said.