A man talking on a cell phone while walking Wednesday on railroad tracks was hit by a train and killed. He was the second person in the area to be killed by a train while talking on a cell phone in the past two weeks.

Auburn Police spokesman Scott Near said the man killed just after noon was walking on the tracks between the 1200 and 1400 blocks of C Street Northwest, where the rails parallel the street and there are no signs or crossings.

Security personnel at Emerald Downs racetrack said the man was a 49-year-old groom at the track, and co-workers there said he had been hired about two months ago after working with horses in Texas.

Witnesses, including the train conductor, saw the man talking on the phone. The engineer sounded the horn, but the man apparently didn't hear it. The train was going about 80 mph and couldn't stop in time to avoid hitting the man. The Amtrak Cascades train was heading north from Eugene, Ore., to Seattle.

The accident is under investigation, but Near said the death appears to be accidental and not a suicide.

On April 21, Angellina Rodriguez, 17, of Kent, was killed by a train on the same main railroad line. Witnesses told police that they saw Rodriguez talking on the phone as she was walking across railroad tracks about 200 yards north of East James Street in Kent.