Amtrak Train Kills Person on Santa Fe Springs Tracks, Snarls Metrolink Lines

A person was struck and killed by an Amtrak train Thursday morning in Santa Fe Springs, prompting a multi-agency investigation and hours of delays across two Metrolink commuter lines. Whittier Police Department officers responded around 8:30 a.m. to reports of a person on the tracks near Lakeland Road between Bloomfield Avenue and Shoemaker Avenue, where the person was found dead.

The Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train came to a stop at the scene after striking the person on the tracks, according to aerial footage reviewed around noon by CBS News. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner attended to the deceased at the scene. As of Thursday afternoon, no further information had been released about the victim's identity or the circumstances that led them onto the tracks, and the investigation into the fatal strike remained underway.

Metrolink Riders Face Hours of Delays

The train involved has been identified by Metrolink as Amtrak Pacific Surfliner Train 765. The strike forced the closure of tracks between Commerce and Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs, causing widespread morning delays across Metrolink's Orange County Line and 91/Perris Valley Line, both of which share BNSF trackage through the area and together serve more than 2,600 daily weekday riders between Los Angeles Union Station and inland counties. Track 1 reopened later that morning with speed restrictions in place while investigators from multiple agencies continued their work at the scene.

Whittier Police Department officers responded to the call because Santa Fe Springs contracts with Whittier PD for law enforcement services, an arrangement that dates back to 1995 and currently costs the city more than $18 million annually. The city announced in April that it will terminate the 30-year agreement and stand up its own municipal police department by March 2028.

A Corridor Built for Speed, Not Safety

The stretch of track near Lakeland Road runs through BNSF Railway's San Bernardino Subdivision, a main artery of the company's Southern Transcon route that carries more than 100 freight and passenger trains a day across multiple at-grade crossings shared by BNSF freight, Metrolink and Amtrak. That volume has made trespassing incidents an ongoing concern in the region. California led the nation in rail-trespassing casualties, according to Federal Railroad Administration statistics cited by Operation Lifesaver, with 182 trespass deaths recorded in 2024 and the state contributing to 792 nationwide trespass fatalities in 2025 — a rate nearly 2.5 times higher than any other state.

Under California Penal Code Section 369i, trespassing on railroad rights-of-way without authorization is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in county jail and fines as high as $1,000, with repeat offenders or those who obstruct train operations facing additional penalties, per the Shouse Law Group. It is not yet known whether the person killed Thursday was determined by investigators to have been trespassing.

Past Fatality and Future Fixes Along the Line

Thursday's death echoes a 2017 fatality just a few miles away, when a 14-year-old Whittier girl was struck and killed by an Amtrak train in Santa Fe Springs along the 11300 block of Rivera Road while sitting on the tracks listening to music, a case police investigated at the time as an accidental trespasser death, according to Patch.

The Lakeland Road crossing has been identified in federal environmental and transportation studies as a candidate for a future grade-separation project to eliminate at-grade hazards for both pedestrians and vehicles, alongside similar proposals for nearby Pioneer Boulevard and Norwalk/Los Nietos. Transportation authorities have already completed one such fix nearby: a $156 million bridge over BNSF tracks at Rosecrans and Marquardt avenues finished in 2025, replacing what had been evaluated as California's most hazardous at-grade crossing, where 45,000 vehicles and 135 trains once passed through daily at grade, per BNSF California.

The Pacific Surfliner, managed by the LOSSAN Rail Corridor Agency, has seen ridership climb sharply this year. The line expanded to 13 daily roundtrips between Los Angeles and San Diego in January and logged a historic monthly high of more than 300,000 passengers in July, making it the second-busiest intercity passenger rail route in the country, according to edhat. As investigators continue working the scene in Santa Fe Springs, officials have not released additional details on the case.