A 22-year-old Pampa man is dead after he was hit by a train on Thursday night.

He is Joaquin Salcedo.

City officials say police were called to the train intersection at Starkweather around 8:30 p.m.

The call came from BNSF Railroad and the caller stated that a pedestrian had been hit by a train.

Investigations revealed that the train conductor saw the pedestrian walking near the track and used the horn.

However, the train was unable to stop before it hit the man.

Judge Ogle pronounced Joaquin Salcedo dead at the scene.

The accident remains under investigation.

According to Federal Railroad Administration Statistics, 34 people died and 46 were injured in pedestrian-rail accidents in 2018. Texas was second only to California which recorded 118 deaths and 88 injuries.

Every year, about 500 pedestrians are killed by trains in the United States. Almost as many suffer non-fatal injuries. Accidents involving pedestrians are the leading cause of death on the country’s railways. They account for more deaths than derailments and other train accidents combined.

These collisions tend to occur in residential neighborhoods with a high density of residents.  They are also more likely to happen when tracks have a speed limit of 70 miles per hour and support both freight and commuter rail.

Pedestrians tend to use railroad tracks as shortcuts through their cities and neighborhoods. They sometimes do this to avoid going miles out of their way to find designated crossings as they run errands or go to school or work.

Disclaimer: The Accident News article you just read includes information obtained from numerous sources. These sources include, but are not limited to, websites and press releases from law enforcement, the county coroner, fire departments, and other news outlets. While we strive to provide readers with the most accurate information, sometimes the information received is not entirely accurate. For complete details, please refer to an official police report.

The articles published contain sensitive subject matter that may be hard to read by some. We understand that losing a loved one is hard and devastating. Accident News’s decision to share the stories is to help others who may be facing the same situations by providing appropriate resources to the general public.

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