A man died late Tuesday night after a northbound BNSF Railway train struck him near Wood Avenue in Kelso, Washington, a city about 48 miles north of Portland. Police and medics found him dead on an embankment east of the railroad tracks, and the Cowlitz County Coroner’s Office is still working to identify him.
Police responded to reports of the train striking a pedestrian just after 9:15 p.m. Tuesday, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. The collision happened near the 1100 block of Wood Avenue, close to Donation Street, as KATU reported, noting that the crash was reported at about 9:15 p.m. in that stretch of the city. KGW similarly identified the location as near Wood Avenue and Donation Street.
Kelso police officers and Cowlitz 2 Fire & Rescue crews located the man deceased on the embankment on the east side of the tracks, the station's report states. The coroner’s office said it will release his name once his relatives have been notified of his death, per the same account. As of Tuesday night, no further details on how he ended up near the tracks had been released.
A Second Deadly Train Crash In the Region That Night
Tuesday's crash was the second deadly train collision in the region that day, following a fatal crash involving a woman in Salem, Oregon, KATU reported. The station did not provide further specifics on that incident. Coming just weeks after another tragedy involving a train in the area, the Kelso death adds to a grim pattern regional responders have confronted repeatedly this year.
In August, two 16-year-old boys from Vancouver were struck by a freight train on BNSF tracks in North Portland, killing one and injuring the other, according to The Columbian. Police responded to that incident in the 6900 block of North Willamette Boulevard just before 9 p.m., the newspaper reported. Investigators believe the teens had climbed onto the locomotive as it idled in Vancouver and were injured trying to get off once it reached Portland.
Cowlitz County Has Seen Fatal Train Strikes Before
Kelso has recorded at least one other fatal train strike in recent years. In September 2018, 40-year-old Alissa Marie Brech was struck and killed by a train at about 2:45 p.m. on railroad tracks just north of Cowlitz Way, KATU reported at the time. The Cowlitz County Coroner’s Office ruled her death accidental, attributing it to blunt force trauma, and police said Brech was homeless and trespassing on private property when she was hit.
The Cowlitz County Coroner’s Office also lists an unidentified person who died after being hit by a train while walking along railroad tracks in Woodland in April 2022, according to the office's own records. As of Jan. 27, 2026, the coroner’s office listed two cases that remained unidentified, per that same page.
Trespassing Deaths Remain a Persistent Problem Nationally
Washington state has reported six railroad-crossing fatalities and 11 railroad-trespassing deaths so far in 2026, according to The Oregonian/OregonLive. As of Tuesday night, this week's fatality had not yet been recorded in the state Utilities and Transportation Commission's data system, the outlet reported. Separately, that state agency's own crash-data page lists a Feb. 4, 2026 fatality in Kent involving a BNSF freight train and a July 22, 2026 fatality in Kent involving a Union Pacific freight train.
Nationally, the scale of the problem is significant. There were 1,317 pedestrian rail-trespass casualties across the United States in 2025, including 793 fatalities and 524 injuries, according to preliminary Federal Railroad Administration statistics cited by the Operation Lifesaver tracking page. Roughly 86% of all 2025 trespass casualties occurred in the 25 states ranked on that page, the organization noted. It remains unclear whether the man killed in Kelso this week was trespassing, using a designated crossing, or walking along the tracks when the train struck him.
