Three-year-old boy dies day after being hit by a Ballarat-bound train

The three-year-old boy and a four-year-old friend were playing in a back yard in Wallace, when they wandered out of the yard to the railway tracks and were clipped by a Ballarat-bound train on yesterday morning.


The tot died of head, chest and abdominal injuries this afternoon at the Royal Childrens Hospital where his distraught family had been keeping a bedside vigil.


The girl remains stable with a head injury and a cut to her leg.


V/Line says there is nothing it could have done to prevent an dhexpress train hitting a little boy near Ballarat.


V/Line spokesman James Kelly said the train was likely to have been travelling at 110-130km/h when it hit the children near a railway crossing about 11.20am.


V/Line said inquiries had found the driver was not to blame for the accident and there was nothing the authority could have done to prevent it happening.


"From our point of view, nobody is at fault with what's happened. It's just a tragic accident that has had a widespread effect on a lot of people,'' Mr Kelly said.


"We can conclude that there's ultimately nothing that could have been done that could have prevented it from occurring, at least from the driver and V/Line's point of view.''


He said it was a tragic set of circumstances.


He said the train driver was off work and V/Line had offered support and counselling.


Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder said he believed the backyard the children were playing in was not fully fenced.


Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder said he believed the backyard the children were playing in was not fully fenced.
"As I understand there wasn't a fence fully constructed on the back of the property and most properties do have fences constructed when they face railway networks," Mr Mulder said.
"The network is open, it's not fenced, it has been raised in the past, the fact about it is you've got level crossings everywhere, you can't close off level crossings."