(The following story by Marie Szaniszlo appeared on the Boston Herald website on May 16.)
BOSTON — The family of an Amtrak employee who died of an apparent heart attack this month when a Boston-bound train hit a forklift yesterday called for answers to questions surrounding his death.
Stephen M. Parker, 50, of Raynham was a flagman on duty May 3 when the train collided with a forklift working on a railroad track; the MBTA has said the forklift did not have permission to be on the track.
“There’s a lot of questions we want answered, but no one’s telling us anything,” his sister, Mary Doiron, said.
An Amtrak foreman at the scene told MBTA police a work order granted the Cashman Construction crew access to tracks 2, 3 and 7, according to the MBTA. The forklift was on track 5, said the MBTA, which owns the tracks.
Nearly two weeks after Parker’s death, Amtrak has yet to explain why it did not have a third flagman on duty that day, Doiron said. This is despite the fact, she said, that Parker had asked for one because he considered working on the tracks with only one other flagman too dangerous.
Yesterday, an Amtrak spokeswoman said: “We plan to (answer the family’s questions), but right now the incident is still under investigation.”
Cashman Construction’s public relations firm, Regan Communications, could not be reached last night for comment. In a prior statement, however, George K. Regan said Cashman’s preliminary review of the collision indicated that its crew “took all safety precautions as required by Amtrak and positioned equipment as directed by Amtrak.”
The accident occurred less than an hour after the Cashman crew attended a safety meeting conducted by Amtrak, Regan said. At 1:30 a.m., Parker and another Amtrak flagman allowed the crew onto the tracks, he said, and 26 minutes later, a crew member spotted the train and yelled for everyone to get out of the way.