06/27/2009

Associated Press

A young woman was hit by a freight train and killed late Friday while walking on a Burlington Northern train trestle in Tukwila.

Burlington Northern spokesman Gus Melonas says the woman in her early 20s was struck at 11 p.m. by a Union Pacific train traveling on Burlington Northern tracks near the Black River Station. The freight train was on its way to Portland. The tracks were closed until 5 a.m. Saturday.

Melonas says this was the fifth trespasser fatality on Burlington Northern property in 2009. Sixteen people were killed while trespassing on the tracks in 2008.

He says the woman was from another state, but her name has not been released.