Man identified in train accident

By Mark Mahoney, Missouri Valley Times-News

The man who died Monday afternoon, May 20, after a train hit him in Harrison County near the Blair Bridge has been identified.

According to a press release from the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office in Logan, Iowa, Alan C. Nelson, 59, of Lawrence, Kan., was the man the Union Pacific Railroad train struck near the Blair Bridge that crosses over the Missouri River. The death has been ruled a suicide.

“There were no suspicious circumstances,” Harrison County Sheriff Patrick Sears said of the nature of the man’s death.

At 2:06 p.m. Monday, May 20, the Harrison County Communications Center received a 911 call about a train that hit a pedestrian. The incident occurred on the Iowa side of the Missouri River – just east of the Blair Bridge – on the railroad tracks that run parallel to Highway 30.

Union Pacific officials, Harrison County sheriff’s deputies, the Missouri Valley Volunteer Fire Department and the Blair Police Department responded to the scene. The investigation had been hindered because the accident was so severe and the fact that the man had no identification on him, Sears said.