Train Victim Was Drinking, Witness Says : Tragedy: Third North County railroad death in two days was a transient who apparently peddled his bicycle into the path of an Amtrak locomotive.

A 34-year-old man described as a transient sat hunched over for nearly two hours in a Carlsbad parking lot drinking and talking to himself before he rode his bicycle directly in front of an oncoming train Thursday, a witness said.

Justin Godtfred Hegge, 34, had lived in the Carlsbad area for several years at different residences and was known to police for minor infractions, Carlsbad Police Sgt. Alan Edwards said. Hegge’s mother lives in Escondido.

Hegge became the third person to be killed by a train in North County since Wednesday afternoon when he rode around the crossing guard arm in the 300 block of Grand Avenue and was struck by a northbound Amtrak San Diegan shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday.

“He went straight through, and boom. I heard it. I saw it,” said Amy Henderson, an employee of the Coyote Bar and Grill who had been watching Hegge as he sat in the restaurant’s parking lot. “When the post went down, he just went through. The crossing arms were down, the lights were blinking, the horn was blowing. I don’t know whether it was too much intoxication, or suicide.”

While some witnesses told police that Hegge cleared the tracks on his bicycle and then turned around and rode back in front of the train, Henderson said he rode straight in front of it the first time.

The train was moving at 86 m.p.h., Edwards said.

Officers are investigating Hegge’s death, but Edwards said that at this point it is not being considered a suicide.

Earlier Thursday, the body of Barbara Ann Young, 58, who also had no known address and was reportedly distraught over her finances, was found scattered on the tracks in Solana Beach, below the Via de la Valle overpass.

Wednesday afternoon, 40-year-old Karina Ellie Murphy of Leucadia, mother of three teen-age boys, was struck and killed at Old Highway 101 near Grandview Street as she and her husband walked the family dog.

Murphy had lunged to rescue the dog from the path of the oncoming train and was struck by the grill.