A pedestrian was struck and killed by a train Friday morning near Rocky Hollow Road in East Greenwich, disrupting MBTA and Amtrak service as police and the state Medical Examiner’s Office worked the scene. The pedestrian had not been publicly identified as of Friday.
According to Patch, East Greenwich police were investigating the death of the unidentified pedestrian, and the Medical Examiner’s Office responded to the scene to conduct its own inquiry. The crash happened at around 6:30 a.m. near Rocky Hollow Road, per East Greenwich News.
An Amtrak official at the scene told the outlet that trains were being held to speeds of no more than 10 mph in the aftermath, as crews and investigators worked along the right-of-way. The incident delayed MBTA trains by roughly 20 to 30 minutes and affected Amtrak commuters.
Morning Commute Disrupted Across the Providence Line
The ripple effects hit commuters almost immediately. The MBTA said Providence Line Train 6008, which had been set to depart Wickford Junction at 6:02 a.m., was canceled because of the incident, according to WPRI. As the morning wore on, additional trips were altered: the transit agency said on its schedule page that Train 6009, scheduled to leave South Station at 9:25 a.m., would terminate early at T.F. Green Airport because of Amtrak train traffic.
Riders stranded by that shortened route were told they could catch a RIPTA bus or wait for Train 6015, set to depart South Station at 12:15 p.m. A later trip, Train 6022, originally scheduled to leave Wickford Junction at 11:57 a.m., was instead set to originate from T.F. Green Airport because of both a signal issue and continuing Amtrak train traffic, the agency said. The disruptions were significant enough that the MBTA posted a temporary schedule for the Providence/Stoughton line covering both Friday and the following Monday.
Separate reporting from WJAR described trains operating between T.F. Green Airport and South Station as delayed roughly 20 to 30 minutes, according to the authority, while the agency advised commuters at Wickford Junction to take RIPTA buses into Providence. WJAR noted that Amtrak commuters were affected by the delays as well, and that authorities had not identified the victim.
Rhode Island's Troubled History With Train Fatalities
Friday’s death adds to a string of fatal train strikes that have occurred in East Greenwich over the past decade. In 2016, an Amtrak regional train traveling from Boston to Washington struck a person on the tracks near King Street, according to Turnto10. WPRI later reported that a 16-year-old girl was killed by an Amtrak train on elevated tracks near the same King Street location, noting that a 26-year-old had died in a similar incident at that same spot less than a year earlier.
Massachusetts Saw Two Fatal Strikes Days Earlier
The East Greenwich death comes just days after two fatal commuter rail collisions in Massachusetts. Two separate MBTA commuter rail trains fatally struck pedestrians in Boston and Abington 15 minutes apart on Monday afternoon, Nov. 2, 2026, according to MBTA Police as reported by Boston.com. A train struck a man near Readville station in Hyde Park around 3:55 p.m., while another struck a woman near Abington station at 4:10 p.m.; both were pronounced dead.
The outlet reported that those incidents caused significant delays on the Kingston, Providence/Stoughton and Franklin/Foxboro lines that were expected to stretch into the evening commute. As of Friday, neither the identity of the East Greenwich victim nor the circumstances that led the person onto the tracks had been disclosed by investigators.
