Amtrak Train Kills Toddler Playing on Railroad Tracks

ENCINITAS —  An 18-month-old toddler playing on the railroad tracks was hit and killed Saturday morning by a southbound Amtrak train that had been traveling at 88 m.p.h.

The engineer saw Geraldo Santiago Andreas and applied the emergency brakes, but the train still struck the child at 60 m.p.h. and dragged the body for about 300 feet before coming to a halt, according to authorities.

“He was killed instantly” upon impact, said George Dickason, a San Diego County medical examiner inspector.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Roy Stamper said the unidentified engineer “tooted his horn and (the child) stood up,” but the passenger train was going too fast to stop in time.

The boy had apparently wandered away from his home several blocks from the tracks and was dead by the time his mother, Guadalupe Reynoso noticed that he was missing.

Stamper said the child was killed at 9:55 a.m. and “his mom called us about 11 minutes later saying she didn’t know where her son was.”

The incident, which remains under investigation, occurred near the Leucadia Boulevard crossing and on a section of track where other fatal accidents have occurred in recent months.

The train, Amtrak’s San Diegan, was en route from Union Station in Los Angeles to San Diego’s Santa Fe Depot, with stops in Orange and San Diego counties, when the accident occurred.