Many intended to take their own lives, often to the horror of train engineers, passengers, and bystanders. Others were crossing or walking along tracks, apparently oblivious to approaching trains.
(Those 91 deaths of people railroads described as "trespassers" don't include seven people killed in train crashes with motor vehicles.)
Last year, 11 people were killed by SEPTA trains, the most in years. "The thing that jumped off the page was the number of suicides," said Jim Fox, SEPTA's director of system safety and risk management. Nine deaths were confirmed or likely suicides, investigators concluded.
The most recent was that of Yvonne M. Cephas, 65, of Lansdowne, struck Jan. 11 by a SEPTA train near the Lansdowne station.
Her death followed an especially grim month on area rails. In December, at least five people were killed.
Just before Christmas, two young men died three days apart on SEPTA's Warminster line near Hatboro, one ruled a suicide and the other an accident. (Their deaths brought to five the number of people killed since June by SEPTA trains on the Warminster line near Hatboro.)
A week earlier, Brendan Seward of Havertown died eight days before his 19th birthday when he jumped in front of a Norristown High-Speed Line train at the West Overbrook station.
On Dec. 13, Luis Buonacore Jr., 26, of Wrightstown, was killed by a NJ Transit River Line train as he walked the tracks north of the Florence station in Burlington County.
Two days after Christmas, Troy Murphy, 25, of New York City, was killed by an NJ Transit train in Pennsauken at the Church Road crossing.
Such deaths often receive scant public notice; victims can go unidentified for months. Sometimes, though, they shatter a community.
