Amtrak train kills 2 teens south of Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA — Two teenage girls were struck and killed by an Amtrak train about nine miles south of Philadelphia on Thursday.

A southbound high-speed Acela train, the 2151 running between Boston and Washington, D.C., struck the girls about 10:30 a.m. EST near the Norwood Station in Delaware County, Pa., an Amtrak spokeswoman said.

The two girls were Interboro Senior High School students who were supposed to be in class at the time of the incident, Superintendent Nancy Hacker said. She said she could not provide details of the girls’ deaths or
their names, but said she believed the girls were sophomores from Glenolden, Pa.

Norwood police chief Mark Del Vecchio spoke to reporters Thursday afternoon.

“There was a witness,” he said. “A third girl was there.”

The girl reported to school after the incident and spoke with counselors and teachers, Hacker said.

Del Vecchio said officers had recovered the girls’ cell phones at the scene.

Bruce Wright, a ticket agent at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s Norwood station, said he stepped out of his booth for a cigarette shortly before the accident.

“I saw two girls on the southbound side,” Wright said, adding that one was on a cell phone.

He did not see the train strike the girls.

Minutes after he returned to his booth, he said emergency workers began to swarm the area.

About a dozen investigators were at the scene combing the southbound tracks. Families of the two victims gathered at the Norwood police station.

Because of the fatal accident, Amtrak put “a hold” on the four tracks at 10:38 a.m. near the scene of the accident. By 11:26 a.m., one of the four tracks had reopened allowing some trains to move through at restricted speeds, the spokeswoman said.

Service on SEPTA’s R2 Regional Rail line south of 30th Street Station was temporarily suspended, said SEPTA spokeswoman Jerri Williams. Trains resumed running shortly before 1 p.m.

Three northbound Amtrak trains were delayed by the incident.

The authorized speed in the area is 110 mph for the
Acela, but it was snowing at the time and there was no indication that
the train was running that fast at the time.

Interboro school officials learned of the incident at about 11 a.m. Hacker said counselors would be available to talk with students.

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