The railroad worker was talking on a cell phone while walking across the tracks in a quiet zone, an area in a Coon Rapids neighborhood where trains don't sound their horns.

Andrew Kim Weaver, 53, having stepped off an inspection train that was testing tracks, "was walking and talking at the same time," apparently oblivious to an eastbound Northstar commuter train approaching at approximately 80 miles per hour, said Lt. Paul Sommer of the Anoka County sheriff's office. The Fridley resident, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe roadmaster lauded recently by BNSF for his work on the Northstar line, was struck and killed, becoming Northstar's first fatality.

There were no witnesses to the 6:45 a.m. accident, between the Coon Rapids and Fridley Northstar stations. But a video recording taken from a camera attached to the Northstar locomotive showed that Weaver was walking across the tracks while conversing on his phone when the accident occurred, Sommer said.

Like other crossings in the area, there is a warning sign by the crossing gate at Egret Boulevard, saying that approaching trains don't sound horns.

Without seeing or hearing a crash, neighbors realized immediately that something was wrong.

"The engineer was tooting his horn, which they usually don't do," said Clarence Bahr, 76.

Vanessa Peterson, 56, had just returned home from walking her dogs when she heard the train's horn. She assumed the engineer was trying to "get somebody off the track or saying 'hi' to another train passing by.

"Then I heard the sirens."

Crossed behind train

Weaver apparently had just completed tests on repairs on the westbound track. According to BNSF spokeswoman Amy McBeth, he had just stepped off a track geometry car of a westbound inspection train. He crossed the track behind the train when he was struck by the eastbound train on an adjacent track.

The engine of the three-car inspection train was running and Weaver, who worked 31 years for the railroad, may not have realized that the rumbling vibrations from the track were from an approaching train. A Burlington Northern truck, which pulled up nearby to pick up Weaver, may have also distracted him, Sommer said.

The engineer needed more than a quarter-mile to stop the train, said Metro Transit spokesman Bob Gibbons.

The exact speed of the Northstar train will not be known until the event recorder within the locomotive is examined. But Northstar trains are not supposed to exceed 79 miles per hour, Gibbons said.

Seconds after the first accident in Northstar's nine-month history, the train was stopped adjacent to the old Coon Rapids police headquarters. Between 150 and 200 passengers got off the train, some waiting nearly an hour, before getting rides from 15 buses that took them to various stations. Afternoon trains ran as scheduled.

"Andrew was a vital part of our team," said John Cech, BNSF general director of line maintenance. Weaver was among the BNSF employees singled out in the railroad's most recent employee magazine for upgrading 42 miles of track for the Northstar line.

BNSF provides crew members and dispatching for the Northstar line, which Metro Transit manages.

Nearly two dozen orange-clad BNSF workers joined the Coon Rapids police and fire department, Metro Transit officials, and representatives of the Anoka County sheriff's medical examiner's offices at the scene of the accident.

Weaver, who was not married, is survived by his father and a sister.

Paul Levy • 612-673-4419