Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Engineer Danny Buck keeps a lookout Wednesday while driving a train near Roanoke. Norfolk Southern Corp. conducts Operation Lifesaver, a program to prevent accidents, injuries, and deaths at highway and rail crossings.

Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Vehicles stop at a crossing for a Norfolk Southern train near Roanoke. The train is part of Operation Lifesaver.

Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

A train traveling at 55 mph can take a mile or more to come to a stop, according to railroad personnel.

Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Operation Lifesaver traveled from Roanoke to Lynchburg and back Wednesday to emphasize the importance of safety around trains, especially for motorists and pedestrians.

As the officials of Operation Lifesaver, a program for railroad safety, rolled in the four-car train they use to spread their annual message of being careful near trains, they encountered the very reason for their group's existence.

A man was killed when he was struck by the Operation Lifesaver train late Tuesday night near the Williamson Road overpass in downtown Roanoke. The man, whose identity was not released by authorities Wednesday, was found by police officers lying on the tracks under the train, which had stopped.

"This just reinforces that we have to continue educating people for when they're crossing railroad tracks in vehicles, and when they're walking near railroad tracks," said Susan Terpay, a spokeswoman for Norfolk Southern Corp.

Crossing a railroad track is a dangerous maneuver. Between January 2007 and April of this year, seven people have been killed and 105 injured in railroad-related incidents in Virginia.

It's because of those numbers that Operation Lifesaver takes its special train -- with a locomotive, two passenger cars and a last car with a conductor cabin simulator -- to about a dozen cities with railroads to teach motorists, public officials and business owners the three L's.

"We always tell people, look, listen and live," said Nicky Strok, a train conductor and NS veteran of 34 years. "If every driver just took the time to stop, look and listen, we would save a lot of lives."

Strok is a conductor based in Radford, who became an instructor in Virginia with the national nonprofit Operation Lifesaver 12 years ago. He was in a train that struck a silver pickup truck on the railroad tracks. The truck flew for 175 feet before touching the ground again, Strok said.

"Two months after that, I got involved with Operation Lifesaver," Strok said. "That was my therapy."

Strok and other instructors in Operation Lifesaver's train ride to Lynchburg on Wednesday regularly give free presentations to any organization that will have them -- high schools, driving schools or other businesses. One talking point is about common misconceptions about trains, cars and pedestrians.

Trains cannot stop as quickly as cars, they say. A freight train traveling at 55 mph can take a mile to come to a stop, they say. This means that if someone in the train's cabin can see a car or a person on the tracks, it may be too late to stop the train.

The passenger cabins of the Operation Lifesaver train are lined with posters with similar messages. "Make it all the way home. Stay off the tracks," one says. "Think, driver. Think," another says. A third one: "No matter what you drive, look [at the tracks]."

In the Roanoke and New River valleys, there are more than 100 miles of tracks, more than 50 road and rail intersections, and -- in the past six months -- a handful of the same type of accidents that cause injuries or deaths at railroad tracks elsewhere in the country.

In February, a man driving a Lincoln Town Car in Northwest Roanoke County got stuck between crossing gates at a railroad track and collided with an oncoming train.

In early June, a man drove a Ford F-150 truck into a moving train in Salem.

In July, a man slipped off an empty well car in downtown Roanoke, losing his left hand and right foot under the Louisiana-bound train.

A conductor -- or at least a conductor with Operation Lifesaver -- never forgets.

"For about two weeks after I struck a concrete truck in Waverly [Va.], the image was burned in my eyes," said Rai Wilson, a locomotive engineer from Lynchburg.

"Physically and mechanically, the train may win. But people on the locomotive have to live it."