After 17-year-old Akilah Boddy was killed crossing the train tracks on her way to Aberdeen High School in May, Aberdeen Police Chief Randy Rudy began aggressively lobbying Amtrak to fence off the popular shortcut.
It took time, but the effort succeeded.
“We?re actually constructing a fence as we speak,” said Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero. She said the fence would be completed next week.
“It was a safety issue,” said Aberdeen Police Department spokesman Sgt. Fred Budnick, who confirmed that Amtrak had begun building a fence in Aberdeen after Rudy worked with the transportation giant to make it happen.
Budnick said Rudy was pleased with the outcome of the situation.
Akilah?s father, Leon Boddy, said he appreciates Rudy?s efforts, but for him, it is too late.
“I just wonder, where was the fence back then?” he said Tuesday.
Boddy said his daughter is gone, and the construction of a fence around the Amtrak rail line will not bring her back.
But he recognized that it was needed. Children who live in the nearby Washington Park and Center Deen communities use a path leading to the tracks as a shortcut to school, he said, and he hoped the fence would be maintained to prevent further accidents.
Amtrak is also working to prevent future accidents, Romero said, through an educational program called Operation Lifesaver. Run through the Amtrak police, Operation Lifesaver teaches people that train tracks are “extremely dangerous,” Romero said.
