This is very sad. I wish there wasn't so much stigma against therapy that people have other options.

This is happening more and more frequently. While I have great sympathy for the victims, it does raise the weakness of rail transport. A single person can cause massive delays for people commuting. This is where bus service excels. Since a bus is not tied to a "track", they can go around accidents. At some point some crazies will actually target train tracks to cause deliberate mayhem. Hopefully, VTA's BRT dedicated lane project will be completed so we will have a more robust transit system.

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Don't they have a security guard patrolling that station? Not that it would have mattered.
Whatever was bothering him, I hope the man is finally at peace. Condolences to his family.

I am soooooo sorry... may God bless this man.

I hate to harp on about this, but many things can be done here to prevent such deaths, accidents, and suicides along the caltrain line

- Grading and separation from traffic via overpass and underpasses - fencing to prevent casual entry.
-Quad tracking at stations -allow trains to stop, and ones to pass to go through in the middle in fenced off areas makes it harder for people to jump in front of moving trains. Added benefit of more trains.
- Greater separation between platform and track level, makes it harder to get off the platform and onto tracks
- Protective barriers.

I know it all costs money, but so do roads. With the ever increasing importance of mass transit in the peninsula, shouldn't we as a society prioritize some of this?

So sad. At the risk of sounding insensitive, from an academic point of view I wonder, of the many ways to kill yourself, why someone would choose the train. Because it is certain and instantaneous? Or because it is highly public and affecting dozens of people? And while it is newsworthy, one has to wonder if news coverage of these repeated train suicides is having any copycat effect. Does something as horrifying as jumping in front of an oncoming train become a more acceptable, legitimate, less outlandish method because we keep hearing about it?

To reader - I think they choose a train because it is rather easy, and they see (read) how it "works" with others, get used to these thoughts.

This is too much for so short period of time and so sad.

I also feel sorry for caltrain drivers and other people involved in investigations and so on. How do they live with these things? And they just have to.

Think there should be fenced areas on every station with entry by a ticket.

Do you really think that will stop someone? If someone really wants to commit suicide this way, they will just cut the fence.

Not everyone can handle the pressures of life, maybe it's due to drug abuse, alcohol, or just loss of a loved one. Who knows, but now they have time to rest, six feet under, never again to smell the fresh morning air.

So sad, when life is so short already. The only advice i can think of is that when you are at the bottom of life, there is only one way to go and that is up. So no matter how bad things may get, tomorrow always promise a new beginning.

Don't forget that this person jumped at the station. Unless we get rid of express trains and force every train to stop at every station, it won't matter whether the tracks are "at grade" with the road or not.

Regardless, the VTA BRT dedicated lane will provide an effective alternative to the CalTrain riders who have their system shut down. Right now, the congestion on El Camino makes this alternative almost as bad as sitting at a station.

If we slow down the train to 25 miles per hour, the chances they would live would be greatly increased.

VTA light rail goes slow and pedestrians still died. 50 tons will not stop fast and will most likely drag or run over a pedestrian when going slower.

AC is correct. The train is too big to stop quickly. Even if it were only running 25mph, it's probably still requires a quarter-mile to stop. Being hit by a train at 25 mph would still kill you. It's a very big piece of metal with lots of weight.

Also, limiting train speeds to 25 mph would effectively destroy Caltrain's business model as a commuter rail line. People here aren't going to spend three hours each direction going from San Francisco to San Jose.

As to installing fences, that is not a foolproof solution. There are many parts of the right-of-way where there aren't any fences and even in the places where there is fencing, there are many openings (homeless people often cut holes for easy transit). Getting onto the Caltrain right-of-way is not difficult.

In this case, the guy jumped off the platform. No amount of fencing or guards are going to prevent that.

Anyhow, the best way to approach this is to increase community awareness of mental health issues. Whether there are train tracks in the vicinity or not, these are not healthy people.

It's not like a security guard will pull them off the tracks.

They need help earlier.