A man was fatally struck by a southbound Amtrak passenger train Sunday at about 7:30 p.m. on the other side of the fence from Dwight Murphy Park, near the construction area.
Santa Barbara Police officers, the fire department, and paramedics responded to the scene and attempted to save the pedestrian’s life for “some time,” but he was ultimately pronounced dead on the scene. Train service was paused for a few hours following the incident and was back moving by just after 10 p.m., with normal train schedules resuming Monday morning. The man’s identity is being withheld pending notification of his next of kin.
This incident comes after a string of train-related pedestrian deaths on the South Coast earlier this year. Three men were killed in unrelated train strikes this past February, one being struck by an Amtrak train at the Milpas crossing, another hit by the Santa Barbara Cemetery, and one left dead in a collision on the tracks near Lookout Park in Summerland. Just a few weeks before, another man sustained major injuries on the same stretch of tracks.
In Santa Barbara County last year, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) reported three fatalities, not including suicides. This number is up from two deaths in 2024 and down from a spike of seven deaths in 2023. Zero deaths were recorded in 2022. This year’s fatalities already exceed the number left dead by train strikes last year, with February alone meeting 2025 totals…