Two women were hit by a CSX train and killed in Germantown, Maryland, Wednesday night as they walked along the tracks, police say.
Daianne Peralta, 25, and Cristina Segovia, 30, were struck just before 8:30 p.m. Peralta lived in Germantown near the tracks; Segovia was a Gaithersburg resident.
Montgomery County police say the train operators saw the women, sounded the train's horn and applied the brakes, but it was too late.
Neighbors say they heard the operators trying to warn the women near Waring Station Road and Peach Crest Drive.
"There was a loud train horn and it kept going, and it was more than the usual, resident Erik Diaz said.
Then, a teenage girl ran toward nearby houses screaming, "They're on the tracks! They're on the tracks!"
Peralta was good-natured, her friend Sulman Ramirez said.
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"She was always willing to help someone. She was so kind and so sweet," Ramirez said.
Investigators are still trying to determine why the women were on the train tracks.
Neighbors said they often see people walking there. As News4 reported Thursday evening, a woman walked her dog right in the trackbed.
