A 79-year-old Genoa Township woman died Wednesday after being struck by a train along railroad tracks near Chilson and Brighton roads in Livingston County. Police believe she had been walking from her home toward a nearby party store when she may have fallen onto the tracks and could not get back up before the train arrived.
Michigan State Police troopers were dispatched to the scene around 10:30 a.m., according to WILX. The train’s conductor saw a person lying on the tracks and tried to stop the train, but it struck the woman before it could come to a halt, per WDIV ClickOnDetroit. Troopers initially could not identify her because she did not have identification with her, as reported by wilx.com.
Investigators were eventually able to put a name to the victim — at least internally — after Livingston County Central Dispatch received a missing-person report for the area and troopers followed up at a nearby residence, the station notes. That lead led Michigan State Police troopers to identify her as the 79-year-old Genoa Township woman found on the tracks.
What Police Believe Happened
Investigators believe she was walking along the railroad tracks when she may have fallen and been unable to get back up before the train approached, according to the same report. It remains unclear why she was walking on the tracks in the first place, and the investigation into the circumstances was still ongoing as of the initial reporting.
Michigan State Police troopers closed the intersection for several hours to investigate the scene before reopening it around 7 p.m. that evening, per WDIV ClickOnDetroit. Separately, WHMI reported that a CSX train blocked traffic across parts of Genoa Township that day because of an incident at the Coon Lake Road railroad crossing, just south of Chilson Road. That outlet said the crossing had been blocked since around 10 a.m. and was expected to stay closed until later in the evening.
A Troubling Statewide Pattern
The Genoa Township death adds to a broader trend researchers have flagged in Michigan. The Federal Railroad Administration reported 118 railroad-related deaths in Michigan from 2010 through 2019, according to The Detroit News. U.S. railroad-related fatalities overall increased since 2013, peaking at 901 deaths in 2019, the newspaper reported.
Michigan Department of Transportation official Michael Frezell told the paper that “vehicle-train collisions have actually been declining — it’s been the trespassing deaths that have been increasing.” In a review of west Michigan fatalities between 2015 and 2019, accident-related deaths made up 79% of the 14 incidents studied, which included nine pedestrian cases and five involving motor vehicles. Recordings existed in only 21% of those crashes, and investigators reviewed footage in just one case, per the Detroit News report.
Under Michigan law, a person is barred from walking, riding, driving, or otherwise being on or along a railroad company’s right-of-way or yard — or crossing it outside a designated public or private crossing — without first getting written permission from the railroad’s owner or occupant, according to the Michigan Legislature. Nationally, there were 651 trespasser deaths in 2025.
For now, Michigan State Police have not said why the Genoa Township woman was on the tracks that morning, and the investigation remains open.
