Teen on Bicycle Waits for First Train, is Struck and Killed by Hidden Second Train in Riverside, CA
(Riverside, California – October 11, 2013)
A 15-year-old Riverside, CA high school student riding his bicycle was struck down and killed by a westbound five-car Metrolink passenger train that was hidden from his sight by an eastbound BNSF freight train for which he had been waiting to pass by the Madison Street/BNSF crossing in Riverside, CA at about 5:57 P.M. Thursday afternoon.
Serafin “Angel” Gonzales, a sophomore at Riverside Arlington High School, was taking a quick ride on his bike prior to returning home for supper. The crossing was completely signalized with lights and gates, but the teenager obviously thought the signals were still operating for the freight train rather than the Metrolink train he never saw.
Riverside public safety officials said the victim was the fourth person in Riverside in the past four years to be killed after waiting for one train to pass and then proceeding across railroad tracks only to be struck by a second train.
The accident was the seventh crash and the third fatality to occur at the BNSF/Madison Street crossing, where a daily average of 77 freight and passenger trains cross daily at a maximum allowable speed of 60 mph.
