Photos by MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Nelson Starkey, 63, looks at the railroad tracks behind his Elliston home Monday. Starkey was upset by Sunday's accident, which occurred near his home, and said he once had a close encounter with a train on a bridge at age 13.

Derek Price, 16, of Elliston looks up as a train passes on the tracks on Monday. Price was good friends with the two victims of Sunday's accident, Grayson Hoops and Steven Robertson. He accompanied his father to the scene of the deaths — also the scene of some close calls.

Wayne and Maria Fitzgerald of Elliston talk about Sunday's train accident Monday. The couple, who live nearby, said it can be very difficult to hear a train approaching.

Photos by Matt Gentry The Roanoke Times

Big Spring Mill sits beyond the railroad bridge over the south fork of the Roanoke River, where two teens were killed by a train Sunday. The speed limit for trains on the section of track is 50 mph.

Grayson Hoops

Steven Robertson

ELLISTON -- A day after two Eastern Montgomery High School students were struck and killed by a train, some Elliston residents said they often see people walking on the tracks and talked about their own near-misses.

"I hate it about them boys," said Nelson Starkey, who has lived on property that backs up to the Norfolk Southern Corp. tracks near Big Spring Mill since the 1960s.

"I hate it that kids get on there. It's too dangerous. Them trains can't stop on a dime."

Grayson Hoops, 17, and Steven Robertson, 16, were killed about 1 p.m. Sunday as they walked on a railroad trestle that bridges the south fork of the Roanoke River.

As they walked on the structure, they encountered a westbound train that consisted of two locomotives and 67 empty grain cars. The track speed is 50 mph, though the actual speed of the train has not been made public.

Investigator Brad Roop with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office said the boys tried to run to the other side of the trestle but didn't make it in time. He said they were alone.

Jumping would have required a significant drop. Bob Long, an executive at the flour mill, estimated the distance from the rails to the water below at 20 to 25 feet.

Roop said the boys had reportedly left in the morning to go hiking. It is unclear where they were headed when the accident happened.

"Probably just part of their hike took them through there," he said.

He said he doesn't expect the sheriff's office to have any more information to release.

The railroad released no new information on the incident Monday, but said in response to questions that there is no room on a railroad trestle for people when a train is passing. The train overhangs the tracks by 3 feet on both sides, spokeswoman Susan Terpay said.

Each end of the train bridge is marked with a "No Trespassing" sign posted by the railroad, Terpay said. She said a freight train moving at 55 mph can take more than a mile to stop.

As for the engineer of the train, counseling is always available to employees involved in such an incident, she said.

The Federal Railroad Administration does not investigate trespasser incidents, but will review a report that Norfolk Southern will be required to file by the end of March, spokesman Walter Flatau said. The investigation is left up to the railroad, police and medical examiner, he said.

Flatau said he hopes the incident opens more eyes to the perils of trespassing on railroad property.

"People of all ages hopefully understand or will otherwise learn that railroad trespassing is not only illegal but, as demonstrated by a terrible incident like this, is extremely hazardous," he said.

Michelle Powell described her cousin, Steven Robertson, as "a wonderful straight-A student" who loved to play the guitar and was learning to play the banjo as well.

"He could draw so good," she said.

Both boys were in the top 10 of the junior class at Eastern Montgomery and had lettered in academics, school system spokeswoman Brenda Drake Bowdel said. Both boys were members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, the Spanish Club and the Beta Club.

Robertson was also a member of the Social Studies Mountain Academic Competition Conference.

Arrangements for both teens are under the direction of Horne Funeral Home in Christiansburg.

Workers at the mill said Monday they don't often see anyone on the tracks. But, they noted, they close at 5 p.m.

Several residents who live near the tracks in Elliston said using them as a shortcut is simply a way of life there.

"You can walk the tracks to get anywhere," said Wayne Fitzgerald, who lives across U.S. 460 from the bridge.

"Never thought tracks would be dangerous," Fitzgerald said, until he and his wife were nearly struck by a train about a month ago.

Wayne and Maria Fitzgerald said they always assumed they would be able to hear a train from far away enough that they wouldn't be in danger.

"You don't hear them coming. You don't feel them vibrate. I think it's safer to walk on that road right there than to walk on the tracks," said Maria Fitzgerald, pointing to heavily traveled U.S. 460.

"They slip up on you," Starkey said of the trains.

He said he stopped using the tracks as a cut-through when he was about 13 years old and was almost struck as he stood on a trestle in Elliston.

He had been fishing, he said, and stopped to look at some people swimming in the Roanoke River below when he saw a passenger train coming his way.

"Couldn't go frontwards, couldn't go backwards," he said. Starkey has no explanation for how he escaped, other than to say "an angel picked me up."

"I can't tell you to this day what happened," he said.

Starkey said he often sees young people walking on the tracks near his home in sight of Big Spring Mill.

"I hate it. It's a shame," he said. "But I don't see how you're going to keep people off the tracks."

Norfolk Southern has no record of any similar incident at the location where Hoops and Robertson were killed, spokesman Robin Chapman said.

But others have died along the railroad tracks in eastern Montgomery County.

In October 2005, David Wayne Hale, 45, of Elliston was struck and killed along Old Roanoke Road. Hale was the owner of Hale's Mobile Home Park.

In September 1998, Jeffrey Thomas Williams, 17, of Shawsville was struck at Stoneskeep Road in Elliston.

And in August 1994, 17-year-old Kenneth Johnson, who lived in Hale's Mobile Home Park, was struck near Matz Oil Co. and milepost 276. Johnson's legs were amputated and he suffered head injuries; he died several days later.