The name of the woman killed walking down the Union Pacific tracks Thursday night,  north of Yosemite Avenue and west of Library Park,  was released on Friday as Tammie Marie Taylor-Cross, 50, of Manteca.

The 80-car freight train had been northbound at the time of the impact. It stopped before it reached Walnut Avenue.  Family members had gone to the scene where the train remained stopped for some three hours.

Taylor-Cross had reportedly been depressed prior to the mishap and had called friends and family on her cell phone in the time prior to her death.

Gloria Ceja spoke of her as a second mother – her mother’s best friend.  She was known to many of those in the community through her job as a checker at Raley’s Superstore in Manteca for some 15 years.

“She always went out of her way for others – always there for my mom if she needed anything – even a place to stay,” Ceja said.  “That’s why we are having such a hard time understanding it.  She was the sweetest lady, always happy. If we needed anything, we could always go to her.”    

Her daughter Candace Cross said her mom also worked at the Wawona Home and the Dutra Home where she cared for mentally challenged adults between 20 and 70 years old over a period during the last two and a half years.

She added that her mom would take people staying in the home care facility on short trips in her car one at a time.  She truly cared about others, she said.

“She made us breakfast yesterday morning,” her daughter said on Friday.  “Then she took my sister’s daughter to the park in the afternoon.”
The Park View Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.