Two people were struck and killed by a passenger train in separate collisions, which occurred several hours apart during a trip from New York City to Toronto.
In Buffalo on Friday around 4 p.m., the Maple Leaf train struck a woman who was in her 30s. Investigators are piecing together what happened.
"It's too early to tell what she was doing on the railroad tracks," Buffalo chief of detectives Dennis J. Richards told The Buffalo News.
As the train rolled through Toronto several hours later, a 30-year-old man was struck around 12:40 a.m. Saturday.
The train was travelling backward at the time of the collision, which occurred near Dunn Avenue south of King Street.
It isn't known why the man was at track level, but Toronto police Sgt. Tim Burrows said the man may have been wearing headphones at the time.
"It's just a recipe for disaster," he told CTV Toronto's Jim Junkin. "It's another case of (why) there's a reason you don't come down to the tracks."
Toronto police Duty Inspector Richard Hegedus confirmed the train was reversing at the time of the collision.
"The train was only moving at approximately 40 kilometres per hour, I've been told."
The train, which is operated by Amtrak in the U.S. and Via in Canada, had been backing up to enter a cleaning facility shortly after dropping passengers off downtown.
Hegedus added that detectives from 14 Division and Traffic Services are investigating.
The death is the second such incident in the Toronto area recently.
On Thursday morning, a man was killed by a CP freight train near Finch and Sheppard Avenues. The man was reportedly wearing heavy-duty headphones at the time.
