Here's more info from Sandpoint's local paper:[www.bonnercountydailybee.com]

I realize no train crew has their eyeballs fixed on the track ahead every moment of their trip; plenty of other things in the cab that need to be glanced at from time to time, including the toilet. However, the platform and approaches to a passenger depot, even in the darkest hours of the night, is the kind of place where you'd think both bodies in the cab would be upright and facing forward at full attention. Especially so at Sandpoint, which is fraught with trespassers, day or night, any time of year.

If this woman was walking TOWARD the depot, and her body was found south (railroad west) of the depot, it's logical to assume (I emphasise "assume") she was facing toward the oncoming train. Still to be proven (at least to me) is whether she was struck by the front of the train, or whether she slipped and fell beneath the train as it passed, or what. For all we know, she may have been walking away from the depot, thus away from the approching train, after waiting so long in the cold.

Sandpoint is a kind of screwy set-up for Amtrak. Station doors are only open for a brief period before and after both Empire Builders, which are scheduled through at something like 11:50pm WB and 2:30am EB. Actual times have been WAY off lately due to impacts from severe weather, most notably the mudslides north of Seattle. Not mentioned in any of the reports I've seen so far is whether or not the depot was open at the time of this incident.

The authorities will no doubt have questions for her family. Was she dropped off at the depot? Or was she staying at the nearby hotel and attempting to walk to the depot? In other words, short of the kind of foul play that's been taking place on NYC subways lately, why would she have wound up so far from the depot itself? Tired...wandering...unsure of when and where to board the train? Sure, her body could have been struck closer to the depot and carried some distance from there, but the suitcases too?

What a terrible, terrible end for her family's Christmas week.