SOUTH ROYALTON — A 92-year-old grandmother from Massachusetts who apparently lost her way while driving was killed when her vehicle was struck by a train at a railroad crossing in South Royalton early Wednesday, a tragic outcome for worried family members who were anxiously tracking the vehicle’s movements until it disappeared.

Rhea LaRoche, of Westminster, Mass., was pronounced dead at the scene after police and rescue teams were called out at 3:15 a.m. Wednesday to a private railroad track crossing on Acton Place in the center of the village where a freight train had collided with an SUV that was at rest on the railroad tracks, according to a news release issued by the Royalton Police Department.

Acton Place is a short street that runs parallel to the railroad tracks, which run through South Royalton and crosses the tracks for access to three residences. The vehicle was on the tracks pointing north with its headlights turned off when it was struck by a 78-car train operated by New England Central Railroad moving south, according to Royalton Police Chief Loretta Stalnaker.

“By the time (the train engineer) saw the vehicle, it was too late,” said Stalnaker, who determined the vehicle’s occupant was killed instantly by the impact.

Freight trains routinely run through South Royalton twice a day, in the early morning hours heading south — often waking people sleeping in nearby homes as the train blares its horn — and daytime hours heading north.

How or why LaRoche and her vehicle ended up on an unlighted stretch of railroad tracks down a dead-end road in the dead of night in an area where she had no ties is not known for certain.

But police and LaRoche’s family members believe that after she left a scheduled appointment on Wednesday in Westminster, which is in north central Massachusetts along Route 2, she became disoriented and then lost while driving.

Nancy Allard, LaRoche’s niece, said her aunt had gone out for a routine beauty appointment on Tuesday and never returned home.

“She had been missing since noontime yesterday,” Allard said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “She had gone out to have her nails done, and that was the last time she used her credit card. We didn’t know where she was. She was missing for 15 hours.”

LaRoche’s vehicle was fitted with a GPS tracking device, and the family was intermittently able to trace the vehicle’s movement through Portsmouth, N.H., and around New Hampshire.

State police had been alerted to be on the lookout, Allard said. But the signal would “go black” and they would lose track.

“She went all over New Hampshire and Vermont. Whether she took a wrong turn somewhere, we don’t know. … The last ping was in Norwich,” Allard said.

South Royalton has been the location of railroad-related accidents twice in recent years, including in 2021 when a student at Vermont Law and Graduate School was killed when his SUV was struck by an Amtrak passenger train at the Stearn Road crossing in South Royalton village. That incident led to safety changes, including installing lights and a bar at the crossing where the student was killed. The town also permanently closed off a second crossing on Stearn Road nearby.

And then, in 2022, a train traveling at 40 mph hit a truck at the crossing at Perley Farm Road, with the driver of vehicle emerging unscathed and the truck suffering front-end damage. Obstructed visibility caused by overgrown bushes, which made it difficult to see approaching trains, was blamed in that case.

Allard said her aunt grew up in Gardner, Mass., and later moved to Westminster.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.