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  UNION, Mo. (AP) - An eastern Missouri man is dead after being struck by a pickup truck while standing on a rural highway.

   The Missouri State Highway Patrol says 55-year-old Kenton Veninga of Union was standing in a driving lane of Highway YY in Franklin County Wednesday night when he was struck by a Mazda pickup. It wasn't clear why Veninga was on the roadway.

   The patrol says Veninga was knocked into a ditch and pronounced dead at the scene. The 20-year-old driver of the pickup was not hurt.

Railroad officials say the man struck and killed by an Amtrak train in Pacific Wednesday night had been cutting across the tracks when the accident happened. Police say 20 year -old Zachary Brady was walking home from his job at a fast-food restaurant when Amtrak's Missouri River Runner train struck and killed him.

Police say this is the fourth serious accident along the Union Pacific line near the Fourth Street crossing in the last eight years -- two others were also fatal.

An Amtrak official told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that most accidents involving pedestrians could be avoided if people wouldn't trespass on railroad tracks. Trespasser fatalities have become the leading cause of railroad deaths.

A 20-year-old man is dead after being struck by an Amtrak train in Pacific.

Police say the man was walking on the tracks when he was hit and killed around 8:45 last night at the North 4th Street crossing.

Amtrak officials confirm that the accident involved a train carrying 58 passengers en route from St. Louis to Kansas City.

No one on the train was hurt.