Georgia · Gwinnett County · Traffic

Buford Highway Train Accident Near Bankers Industrial Drive Kills One in Gwinnett County, GA

A person was struck and killed by a Norfolk Southern train on Bankers Industrial Drive, just off Buford Highway in unincorporated Gwinnett County, on Friday evening. Gwinnett County police said the person died at the scene. No name has been released.

By Nathan Saunders Published Sept. 5, 2026, 9:04 a.m. ET 9 min read Active · victim not identified

What happened on Buford Highway in Gwinnett County?

One person was hit by a train and killed on Friday evening in an unincorporated part of Gwinnett County.

The accident happened shortly before 8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026 on Bankers Industrial Drive, a street off Buford Highway. Atlanta News First placed the site around 7066 Buford Highway.

Gwinnett County police said the person was pronounced dead at the scene. No identity has been released.

The railroad involved is Norfolk Southern, and the person at the controls of the train came through it without injury, WSB-TV reported. What led up to the accident has not been made public, and the case is open.

Where is Bankers Industrial Drive, and why does the crossing detail matter?

Bankers Industrial Drive sits just off Buford Highway in an unincorporated part of Gwinnett County, on the same corridor the track runs through.

The site is not at or near a designated railroad crossing. Norfolk Southern confirmed that to WSB-TV, and police said no designated crossing sits near the spot.

That distinction is not cosmetic. Federal accident reporting treats a highway-rail grade crossing accident as its own category with its own form, so a death away from a crossing is counted elsewhere.

Has the victim been identified?

Not publicly. Gwinnett County police released no name on Friday night, and no name has been released since.

Age, sex and hometown are all blank. Nothing has been said about where the person came from or why the person was there.

Those facts usually arrive last, and the reason sits with a separate office rather than with the police department.

Who is investigating the Buford Highway train accident?

The Gwinnett County Police Department is the investigating agency. Its officers responded on Friday evening, and the case is open.

Norfolk Southern owns the track and operates the train, and Georgia law also gives a railroad a route to its own sworn officers.

Identification of the person and the medical cause of death belong to the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Office rather than to the police. The federal side is the Federal Railroad Administration, which collects the reportable record rather than running a scene investigation.

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What does Georgia law say about being on a railroad track?

Nobody has said the person killed here was trespassing. A rail corridor is private property, and Georgia has statutes that govern who may be on one.

Georgia has a railroad-specific offense. O.C.G.A. § 46-8-380 says any person intruding unlawfully upon the constructed track of a railroad company, contrary to the will of the company, is guilty of a misdemeanor. Its history line runs back to the laws of 1837.

The annotation carried with it is worth knowing, because it cuts against the assumption most people make. In Savannah, Florida & Western Railway v. Stewart, 71 Ga. 427 (1883), the Georgia Supreme Court held that walking upon a track was not unlawful intruding within the meaning of the predecessor to that section. Presence on a track, by itself, is not automatically the offense the statute describes.

The general trespass statute is O.C.G.A. § 16-7-21. Under subsection (b), a person commits criminal trespass by knowingly and without authority entering the land or premises of another for an unlawful purpose, entering after receiving notice from the owner or an authorized representative that entry is forbidden, or remaining after being told to leave. Subsection (d) makes criminal trespass a misdemeanor.

Neither statute has any bearing on how a death is classified, and no one has been accused of anything in this case.

Does a railroad have its own police officers in Georgia?

Yes, and the mechanism is a state statute rather than a private security arrangement. Under O.C.G.A. § 46-8-230, the Governor may appoint one or more special officers to protect the property and interests of a railroad corporation operating in Georgia as a common carrier, on the application of that corporation’s president or resident executive officer. The statute says those officers have the power to make arrests, that the applying corporation must pay them, and that they draw no compensation from the state or from any county.

Their authority is broad. O.C.G.A. § 46-8-231 gives special officers appointed under that article all the powers, duties and responsibilities of sheriffs or other law enforcement officers of the state, throughout the state, while they are engaged in their duties as railroad officers. The one carve-out is the serving of civil process.

A railroad police force is therefore a real law enforcement body, and its involvement alongside a county department is ordinary. Which officers are working this case has not been described.

How is a person identified after a death like this?

Georgia routes it through a statute rather than through the responding department. O.C.G.A. § 45-16-24 lists the deaths that trigger the process, and the first three items on the list are a death as a result of violence, a death by suicide or casualty, and a sudden death when the person was in apparent good health. When one of those applies, the statute makes it the duty of any law enforcement officer, or any other person with knowledge of the death, to notify the coroner or county medical examiner immediately — either for the county where the events causing the death occurred or for the county where the body is found.

Gwinnett is a medical examiner county rather than a coroner county, and it does not staff the office directly. The county says medical examiner services are contracted to Forensic Pathology Services, P.C., which does business as the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Office under the Georgia Death Investigation Act. That firm’s employees carry out the death investigations and the postmortem examinations that establish cause and manner of death in cases within the office’s jurisdiction. The office line is 678.442.3160.

Identification and release are separate steps. Before anyone can take custody of a person who has died, the office requires an Authorization to Release Remains form hand-signed by the legal next of kin. Finding and notifying that next of kin is what has to happen before a name becomes public.

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Does an accident like this have to be reported to the federal government?

Yes. The federal rule is 49 CFR 225.19, which divides reportable railroad accidents and incidents into three groups: Group I for highway-rail grade crossing events, Group II for rail equipment events above a damage threshold, and Group III for death, injury and occupational illness.

Group III is the one that turns on a casualty. A death, injury or occupational illness that is a new case and meets the general criteria is reported on Form FRA F 6180.55a where an event arising from the operation of a railroad is a discernable cause. The first of the general criteria is death to any person.

The clock is monthly rather than immediate. 49 CFR 225.11 requires each covered railroad to submit a monthly report of these accidents and incidents to the Federal Railroad Administration, and to submit it within 30 days after the end of the month in which they occurred. An accident on Sept. 4 therefore lands in the September filing, which is not due until the end of October.

How often does this happen in Georgia?

The agency publishes the casualty records behind those monthly filings, broken out by state, by year and by the type of person hurt or killed. One of those categories is labeled trespassers.

In Georgia, the agency’s Form 55a casualty data records 24 trespasser fatalities in 2025, 25 in 2024 and 35 in 2023. Non-fatal trespasser casualties ran alongside them at 29, 38 and 36 for the same three years.

How a death is categorized in the federal data is decided in the reporting process, and investigators have not said which category this one falls into.

How does someone obtain the report?

The governing law is the Georgia Open Records Act. O.C.G.A. § 50-18-71 requires an agency to produce records responsive to a request within a reasonable time not to exceed three business days. Where only some records can be located in that window, the agency has to release what it has and give the requester a description of the rest and a timeline for it.

Cost is capped by the same section. Search, retrieval and redaction may be charged at no more than the prorated hourly salary of the lowest paid full-time employee with the skill to do the work, and the first quarter hour is free. Copying is capped at 10¢ a page.

There is a carve-out that matters while a case is open. O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72(a)(4) exempts records of a law enforcement agency in a pending investigation, other than initial police arrest reports and initial incident reports. The initial incident report is the document that is normally available first.

Gwinnett County runs requests through an online portal coordinated by a county Open Records Office, and the police department and the medical examiner’s office both route records requests through it. The county names Meagean Diaz, Legal Manager, as its open records officer, at 770.822.8712 and 75 Langley Drive in Lawrenceville. Hard copies of initial incident or accident reports are available in person at seven county locations once a report is released; an electronic copy requires a request.

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What else has The Local Alert reported in Gwinnett County?

Three days earlier, one person was killed in a motorcycle accident on I-85 southbound at Indian Trail Lilburn Road, in our report from Sept. 2. The same department confirmed that death.

The same county also produced a tractor-trailer fire at the SR 211 exit. The rest of our county coverage is on the Gwinnett County page, and statewide road coverage on the Traffic and Accidents page.

What is not known yet?

What else are people asking about the Buford Highway train accident?

What happened on Buford Highway in Gwinnett County?
A person was struck and killed by a Norfolk Southern train on Bankers Industrial Drive, just off Buford Highway in unincorporated Gwinnett County, shortly before 8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. Gwinnett County police said the person was pronounced dead at the scene.

When did the Buford Highway train accident happen?
Shortly before 8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026.

Where exactly did the accident happen?
On Bankers Industrial Drive, just off Buford Highway in unincorporated Gwinnett County. Atlanta News First placed the site around 7066 Buford Highway.

Was the accident at a railroad crossing?
No. The site is not at or near a designated crossing. Norfolk Southern confirmed that to WSB-TV, and police said no designated crossing sits nearby.

Has the victim been identified?
Not publicly. No name has been released, and the age, sex and hometown of the person killed are not public.

Was the train operator hurt?
No injury to the train operator was reported.

Which agency is investigating?
The Gwinnett County Police Department. Norfolk Southern is the railroad involved, and Georgia law also allows a railroad to have its own commissioned officers.

What caused the accident?
That has not been released. Investigators have not said what led to it, and the cause remains under investigation.

What does Georgia law say about being on a railroad track?
O.C.G.A. 46-8-380 makes it a misdemeanor for any person to intrude unlawfully upon the constructed track of a railroad company, contrary to the will of the company. A separate statute, O.C.G.A. 16-7-21, defines criminal trespass, which covers knowingly and without authority entering the land or premises of another person for an unlawful purpose, or after notice that entry is forbidden. Nobody has said the person killed here was trespassing.

Does a railroad have its own police officers in Georgia?
Yes. Under O.C.G.A. 46-8-230 the Governor may appoint special officers to protect a railroad corporation's property and interests on the application of its president or resident executive officer, and the corporation pays them rather than the state or a county. Under O.C.G.A. 46-8-231 those officers hold the powers, duties and responsibilities of sheriffs or other Georgia law enforcement officers throughout the state while performing their railroad duties, except for serving civil process.

Who identifies a person killed in Gwinnett County?
The Gwinnett County Medical Examiner's Office, which the county contracts to Forensic Pathology Services, P.C. under the Georgia Death Investigation Act. Its staff conduct death investigations and postmortem examinations to determine cause and manner of death, and the office requires an Authorization to Release Remains form hand-signed by the legal next of kin before remains can be released.

Does an accident like this have to be reported to the federal government?
Under 49 CFR 225.19 a death to any person is one of the general reporting criteria when an event arising from the operation of a railroad is a discernable cause. Under 49 CFR 225.11 a covered railroad files a monthly report with the Federal Railroad Administration within 30 days after the end of the month in which the accident occurred.

How many rail trespasser deaths are recorded in Georgia each year?
Federal Railroad Administration casualty data published on data.transportation.gov records 35 trespasser fatalities in Georgia in 2023, 25 in 2024 and 24 in 2025. Investigators have not said which category this death falls into.

How can someone obtain the police report?
Gwinnett County takes records requests through an online open records portal coordinated by its Open Records Office, and lists Meagean Diaz, Legal Manager, at 770.822.8712 and 75 Langley Drive in Lawrenceville as its open records officer. The county says hard copies of initial incident or accident reports are available in person at seven locations, while electronic delivery requires an open records request. Under O.C.G.A. 50-18-71 an agency has three business days to produce responsive records.