T Strikes, Kills Two BU Students

Two Boston University undergraduates were struck and killed by a MBTA commuter rail train early Wednesday morning in a tragedy that has left the BU campus grieving and investigators trying to determine why the students were on the tracks.

Sophomore Andrew R. Voluck and freshman Molly F. Shattuck were walking on the tracks near their West Campus dormitory on the BU campus when they were hit at approximately 12:50 a.m., MBTA spokesman Lydia Rivera said.

It is still not clear what the students were doing on the tracks, but according to some students who live on the West Campus, undergraduates sometimes socialize by the tracks. The situation is being investigated by MBTA police.

Voluck and Shattuck—whose mother is also a BU part-time instructor—were both students of the College of General Studies, and despite the school’s large student population of 29,000, their deaths had a profound impact on the campus.

“The student body woke up today missing two of its members, and their absence was felt throughout the day and across campus…Even in such a large student body, the loss of a single student is felt throughout,” the BU Daily Free Press wrote in an editorial published yesterday. “And the loss of two will not soon heal.”

According to an article in yesterday’s Boston Globe, MBTA commuter trains have struck more trespassers during a recent five-year span than some larger commuter rail systems. 56 people have been killed by MBTA commuter rail trains since 2000. The accident brings the total number of deaths involving Boston subways, buses, and commuter trains over the past five years to 84.

But Rivera said that this was the first incident of its kind in the BU area recently.

“Situations like this are infrequent,” she said.

These were also the first student deaths at BU since April 2001.

The Daily Free Press’s editorial also wrote that the incident raises the question of the potential danger posed by the rail tracks running right through the school’s campus.

“BU students attend a school in an urban setting, with all its inherent dangers. Highways, busy streets, and train tracks are traced throughout the campus,” the Daily Free Press staff wrote. “Traversing them is a daily hazard students have come to live with.”

The tracks where the incident took place are on a 91-acre plot of land that was recently purchased by Harvard University. But the issue is complicated by the fact that the railroad company CSX has an easement on the land, according to Harvard spokeswoman Lauren Mashall.

“The accident took place on land that CSX holds under a perpetual easement, and Harvard has no rights to use or maintain the easement area,” she said.

An article in The Daily Free Press yesterday suggested that the students might have gained access to the tracks through holes in a run-down chain-link fence on the property that surrounded the tracks.

Friends recalled that Voluck, who was from Blue Bell, Penn., was interested in film and photography and played the guitar.

“He was a really nice guy,” said sophomore Nils Reid, who was friends with Voluck. “It’s really devastating because nobody expects things like that to happen.”

According to a Daily Free Press article, Shattuck was also interested in art and music. She had gone out to dinner with her parents in Kenmore Square earlier in the evening of the incident.

According to Rivera, the engineer of the commuter rail that struck the students told T police that he saw the students when they were only 50 feet in front of him and was not able to honk the horn or hit the brakes in time—the train would have required approximately a half a mile to be able to stop.

BU Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore expressed his sympathies in a statement released on Wednesday.

“Our prayers and our hearts go out to their families and to those who knew them,” he said. “The Boston University community has suffered a great loss.”

—Staff writer Reed B. Rayman can be reached at rrayman@fas.harvard.edu.