An Acela Express train struck and killed an Amtrak track inspector near New Carrollton Wednesday morning, halting all rail traffic between Washington and Baltimore for an hour and a half and sending heavy delays cascading down the lines for hours afterward.
The track inspector, an Amtrak employee in his 30s, was taken to the hospital in critical condition, according to a spokesman for Prince George’s County Fire and Emergency Medical Services.
He died later Tuesday, Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero said.
His name was not released.
Amtrak train 2150, heading for Boston, left Washington at 5 a.m. Wednesday and struck the worker at 5:08 a.m., Romero said.
None of the 25 passengers on the train was injured, she said.
Amtrak put a hold on all rail traffic between Washington and Baltimore, including MARC trains, which use Amtrak’s tracks, until 6:42 a.m., at which point one of the tracks was opened.
All tracks were opened at 8:13 a.m., but significant delays continued into the early afternoon.
Romero said she did not know further details about the accident, including the nature of the wounded employee’s assignment.
“It could have just been routine maintenance,” she said. “We often have inspectors that walk along the tracks.”
Amtrak is undertaking an investigation of the incident that could take “days or weeks,” Romero said.
An Amtrak Acela train killed a contract employee and injured two Amtrak employees near Providence, R.I., March 13.
A week earlier, an Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train struck a contractor doing work for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway in La Mirada, Calif.
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, a federal agency charged with investigating transportation accidents, said the board was not planning to investigate Wednesday’s incident.
