Following article is was posted on the Courier-News web site on 3-2-09. Now you can expect increased surveillance by both local and railroad police in this area. After a while that will taper off until the next tragedy on the tracks.
March 2, 2009
Police identify man killed by train Saturday in Manville
By PAMELA SROKA-HOLZMANN
Staff Writer
Police have identified the 23-year-old borough man killed on the train tracks near 7th Avenue before dawn Saturday as Ryan Shaw.
In what authorities are calling an apparent suicide, Shaw, who lives on West Camplain Road, was struck and killed by a freight train shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28 at the Norfolk Southern Railroad intersection with 7th Avenue. The scene is behind the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2290.
Shaw was about to celebrate his 24th birthday on Wednesday, March 4, said Manville police Detective William Yankoski. While homicide detectives from the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office, along with the medical examiner, have deemed the death was an apparent suicide, borough police continue to investigate, Yankoski said. "A lot of signs are pointed that way,'' he said about the incident being deemed a suicide.
Borough Police Chief Mark Peltack had said he believed an employee of the Norfolk Southern rail company initially reported the incident to authorities after it occurred.