Details Emerge of Victims in Deadly Train Crash

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Details Emerge of Victims in Deadly Train Crash

Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

Police walked Wednesday near a section of rail that was removed for the investigation of Monday's train crash in Washington.

By IAN URBINA
Published: June 24, 2009


WASHINGTON — When Metro Train 112 slammed into Train 214 on Monday, nine families, as diverse as this city, lost loved ones.

Among the dead were a school administrator, a retired general and a cleaning woman. There was also an aspiring beautician headed to pick up her sons from day care and a new train operator working at a job that neighbors said she cherished.

As investigators continued searching Wednesday for causes of the worst rail accident in the city’s history, family and friends of the victims tried to deal with their losses.

One of those friends was Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, who knew Maj. Gen. David F. Wherley Jr. of the Air Force, who headed the District of Columbia’s National Guard unit until his retirement a year ago. She commented on how he had faced dangers around the world, only to die on a mundane train ride.

“General Wherley was accustomed to risking his life for his country as commander of two flying squads,” Ms. Norton, the district’s delegate to Congress, said, “but he found his rest yesterday in the hometown he grew to love and adopted as his own.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/us/25victim.html