"You can't move out of the way, and you sure as hell can't stop," said the 58-year-old Metra engineer, who has been involved in seven deaths - six of them apparent suicides. "There's nothing you can do, so why get wound up?"

Lough said his worst nightmare would be hitting a child. He took some solace that a woman who died in 2007 as she cut across the tracks was in her 60s.

"It made it a little easier on me," he said. "The good years were behind her. At least I didn't take that away from her."

Lough never felt resentment toward the woman or anyone else he's hit just because their error also caused him anguish.

"It's just innocent people who used bad judgment for a second, or two or three - and that's all it took," he said.

After his first fatality, Lough was expected to suck it up and finish his run. Today, Metra gives engineers at least a day off, sometimes more. And the company requires them to see a counselor. Many railroad companies have also organized peer-support groups.

Fellow engineers hasten to assure their distraught colleagues that they were not to blame.