A northbound Amtrak train struck and killed a man near Main Street and Reeds Avenue in Red Bluff at about 6:05 a.m. Thursday. The man's identity has not been released, and the crash remains under investigation.
The Red Bluff Police Department confirmed the collision, according to Action News Now, which first reported that the train hit a pedestrian early Thursday morning in Red Bluff. The crash was reported just after 6 a.m. near the tracks at Main Street and Reeds Avenue, and the Amtrak train was stopped for about an hour and a half afterward as crews responded to the scene.
Police have not identified the victim, saying only that he is a man, with his name withheld pending notification of next of kin. Red Bluff police dispatch could not confirm the man's condition when asked, and the outlet's report leaves several basic details of the crash still unresolved, including why he was on or near the tracks.
A Second Fatal Amtrak Strike Hundreds of Miles South
The Red Bluff crash came the same morning a pedestrian was fatally struck by an Amtrak train near San Pablo and Cambridge avenues in Fresno, according to GV Wire. Fresno police said that incident was reported at 10:28 a.m. and that one person died, though the two crashes, more than 150 miles apart, were reported separately and nothing in the record ties them together beyond the shared morning and the same rail carrier.
Red Bluff has seen fatal and near-fatal train strikes before. In June 2024, a man was fatally struck by an Amtrak train near South Main Street and the Interstate 5 overpass at about 3:20 a.m., with Amtrak identifying the train involved as Train 11, traveling south from Seattle toward Los Angeles, according to KRCR. That outlet reported the fatality as the fourth pedestrian-and-train collision in recent months, while a separate KRCR report on an earlier incident in which a woman survived being struck near South Main Street on a Tuesday afternoon quoted Red Bluff police describing that case as the third such collision in recent weeks — two differing counts from police and reporters that have not been reconciled in the record.
Other Recent Incidents Near Red Bluff's Tracks
Not every recent incident on Red Bluff's rail corridor has been fatal. In January, a 51-year-old Tehama County man was arrested after allegedly driving a Ford F-150 onto railroad tracks near Main Street and Walton Avenue, where a train struck the vehicle, the Redding Record Searchlight reported. Police said the man was not in the truck when it was struck and was not injured.
Thursday's collision remains under investigation, and authorities have released no further details about the man killed or the circumstances that put him near the tracks. Hoodline will update this story as more information becomes available.
