A man was struck and killed by a passenger train in Santa Barbara on Sunday afternoon in what appeared to be a suicide, according to the Santa Barbara Police Department.

The incident occurred shortly after 4 p.m. as a northbound Amtrak train was approaching the Santa Barbara depot, said police Lt. Paul McCaffrey.

“The conductor saw a man walking along the tracks near the Anacapa Street crossing,” McCaffrey said. “The man turned to notice the train was approaching, then lay down across the tracks, straddling one of the rails.”

The man was struck by the train and dragged almost a block, nearly to the State Street crossing, McCaffrey said.

Due to the condition of the victim’s remains, confirming his identification was not possible, McCaffrey said, but items recovered suggested he was a 63-year-old Santa Barbara man.

The train was delayed while authorities investigated the incident and recovered the victim’s remains, McCaffrey said. State Street also was shut down in the area.

A determination that it was a suicide will be up to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Division, “but it looked intentional to us,” McCaffrey said.

McCaffrey noted that such incidents can be very traumatic for train crews.

“Events like this can be very stressful to the conductor who looks out front and sees that man’s going to be killed just prior to it happening,” he said.

» Click here for free suicide prevention resources that are available 24 hours a day.

— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.