Once again there is a very broadly painted story with few actual details on the news wire.
Somebody needs to check the real location and compare it with maps, before running out with a story.
Andrew
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Your correct, I typed 59 meaning 95…(got the East Tex freeway way up there?)
Again looking at the overhead, it appears to be easy to get confused driving into the complex and one could very easily end up in the parking lot of the building at the far east.
The possibility she was walking for the cedar street bridge or what every that covered bridge building is looks like a choice also.
Until definitive statements that she was hit by a train are published…
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edblysardWe are assuming she was hit by a train, but what if she was hit by a vehicle, either an automobile or tractor trailer, while crossing 59 and the crew simply reported the body in the street?
An excellent point. All of the reports are that the victim was hit by a train but nowhere is the possibility of being hit by another vehicle ruled out. And clearly there is some confusion about the direction.
Ed,
I was at Sandpoint, including the former NP depot that ATK uses for the one time in my life last summer and I found it to be a confusing place.
The highway is 95, I think that is what you meant when you typed 59. This is a new road and it is elevated to about the same level as the railroad for at least 500 feet in each direction. The railroad is transitioning from ground level to a fill as it goes railroad westward.
If you go south of the depot you will see Bridge Street. It comes from downtown, goes under 95, under the BNSF to the lakefront. Between 95 and the railroad there is a two lane road that ramps up to the depot. You can see the retaining wall on the geographic west side.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I suspect her driver missed the left turn up to the depot. We did the day we went, it was daylight and the driver was a retired BNSF conductor. I suspect the driver went as far north in the parking lot on the west side as he could and dropped her off. She then hiked up the embankment and walked geographic north, railroad east toward the depot.
I can not imagine how she did not see either the headlight or a west man, or the general area lighting up and her shadow being cast ahead by an eastward train.
Mac
Looking at the map, as was stated, 200 feet west would put her at the bridge or edge of 59.
To be struck by a train, and have the body end up where stated I can only assume either the reports are incorrect, and she was walking from a parking lot across the tracks when hit and the reported are simply using the info reported, which might include railroad geography, or her body was thrown the 200 feet from the impact point out onto 59, un-likely but possible.
There is a third possibility, as the reports say a passing train crew called in the body.
We are assuming she was hit by a train, but what if she was hit by a vehicle, either an automobile or tractor trailer, while crossing 59 and the crew simply reported the body in the street?
There are almost no details that conclusively point to being struck by a trail.
The only reason I see for her to be walking along the tracks or across them is if she was dropped off in the parking lot on the far or east side of the tracks.
The published references to "200 feet west of the depot" are based on info provided by BNSF, but in a classic disconnect between the railroad and the media (hmm, didn't we have a thread on that recently?), nobody realized this is a timetable direction. Railroad "west" of the depot is more like south-southeast on the map. If her body were truly found 200 feet west of the depot, it would have been on the U.S. 95 Sand Creek Byway, or in Sand Creek itself.
Here's some additional info:http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com/news/local/article_5ae05e64-50b9-11e2-95e3-0019bb2963f4.html
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/12/27/2393723/woman-killed-near-sandpoint-amtrak.html
http://www.khq.com/story/20432536/woman-killed-near-sandpoint-amtrak-depot
In the second story they say she was about 200 feet west of the Depot. She must have had some other problems to lose her perception of where she was going.
Well as Sad as this Tragedy is, Gus Melonas is right, she was trespassing, though some will try to trivalize that and blame BNSF anyway.
Doug
May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails
Newswire reports that at about 2:30 in the morning Erin Likkel was walking to catch her train, the Empire Builder at Sandpoint, Idaho. While walking along the track she was struck and killed by a freight train. Her body, suit case and an Amtrak ticket were found abut 2:50 am.
BNSF Spokesman Gus Melonas described her as a "trespasser" because she was not walking in an approved pedestrian walkway.
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