Chester is installing up to $10 million in fencing along the Amtrak Northeast Corridor line where two children were killed last year, writes Anthony R. Wood for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Neighborhood kids were climbing through a hole in the fence to cross the tracks as a shortcut to a playground in Chester’s West End.

On April 29, 2023, Jahaad Atkinson, 9, and Ah’Yir Womack, 12, were struck and killed by an Acela train.

Their deaths led to a lawsuit filed on behalf of their parents, alleging that Amtrak’s National Railroad Passenger Corporation was negligent maintaining the fence.

“Amtrak builds in poor inner-city neighborhoods and doesn’t invest resources to maintain its property there,” said Emeka Igwe, the attorney who filed the suit in August. “That has to change.”

Since then, the Federal Rail Administration has awarded a grant to Chester for $7.8 million for “high security steel fencing” along part of the rail in Chester.

Amtrak will put up a 20 percent local match, raising the expenditure to nearly $10 million.

Several Amtrak fencing projects are in the works nationally, including a program to better secure the Northeast Corridor.

Find out more about the safety upgrades to the Amtrak line in Chester in The Philadelphia Inquirer.