Two Virginia Pedestrians Killed by the Same Train in Separate Incidents on Buckingham Branch Railroad Tracks
(Waynesboro and Crozet, Virginia – March 31, 2019)
Two male pedestrians died in separate incidents involving the same train along a 12-mile stretch of the Buckingham Branch Railroad Sunday afternoon in Waynesboro and Crozet, VA.
The Buckingham Branch, a 275-mile privately-owned short line railroad operates over leased CSX tracks and carries CSX and Amtrak trains in addition to its own trains. The Buckingham Branch Railroad made national news last year when an Amtrak special passenger train traveling on Buckingham Branch rails carrying Republican members of Congress and other political dignitaries to a retreat at The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia struck a trash truck, killing one person and injuring two more, at a crossing near Crozet, VA. One of Sunday’s tragedies occurred at that same crossing on Lanetown Road in Crozet. In the first incident, a westbound Buckingham Branch train hit and killed Sebastian Herrera, 39, of Waynesboro, VA.
About 3 PM, EDT, the same westbound Buckingham Branch train struck and killed another pedestrian near the 900 block of West Broad Street in Waynesboro, VA. The location was behind the Oak Plaza Shopping Center and near the Florence Avenue Bridge, which has been closed for structural safety concerns to both vehicle and pedestrian traffic. That situation may have forced the unidentified pedestrian to use the route he took because of the bridge’s closure and resultant inaccessibility to the shopping center.
