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Train recorder holds clues in death query

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By NEIL JOHNSON

njohnson@tampatrib.com

Published: October 21, 2009

An 18-year-old high school senior who appeared not to hear the horn of an approaching train because he was wearing headphones was killed Monday as he was walking on railroad tracks in Polk County.
Robert Lopez Jr. was walking east in the center of the railroad tracks along Lake Alfred Road in Auburndale about 6:10 p.m. when an Amtrak train came up behind him, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said.

The engineer spotted Lopez as the train neared Bolender Road and blew the horn several times, but Lopez appeared not to hear it, the sheriff's office said.

When the train was about 20 feet away, Lopez tried to jump off the tracks, but it was too late and he died at the scene, the sheriff's office said.

Lopez, of South Char Mill Road in Lake Alfred, was a senior at Auburndale High School.
Grief counselors were at the school Tuesday.

Amtrak is conducting an investigation that could be finished by the end of the week, spokeswoman Karina Romero said.

The main step will be to examine the engine's data recorder, which is similar to an airliner's black box, she said. That will determine the train's speed, whether the horn was sounded and when the brakes were applied.

The recorder was expected to be removed after the engine arrived in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday evening, Romero said.

She did not know the speed the train was traveling, but the limit for the stretch of track in Auburndale is 60 mph.

A train going 60 mph will travel 88 feet a second. At 79 mph, the top speed passenger trains travel through most of the country, it would take about a mile to halt a train.

The train, the Silver Star, had nine cars and two engines and was traveling from Miami to New York with 119 passengers. The passengers were kept on the train for nearly four hours while officials investigated before the train continued.

No federal agency investigates such incidents because they are common, Romero said.

In 2008, 26 people walking on or near railroad tracks were killed by trains in Florida, according to the Federal Railroad Administration Office of Safety Analysis.

"It's an incredibly dangerous thing to do," Romero said.

Reporter Neil Johnson can be reached at (813) 259-7731.

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