'I'm sorry for what I'm about to do'

A father called his son just two minutes before he stepped in front of a freight train with his wife in the US.

Earl and Mary Myatt were hit by a CSX freight train in Utica, upstate New York, at about 1:37pm.

Bradford Myatt, 30, said his father called him at 1:35pm to say “he was sorry for what he was about to do.”

A suicide note was found in the Oneida couple’s car that was parked alongside the tracks.

They had been married for 42 years.

“He called me at 1:35, and at 1:37, they were dead,” Myatt said.

“We’re devastated … but I want everyone to know that my father was a good man, and my mother was an angel who would do anything for anybody.”

Myatt said his mother Mary, 59, had been diagnosed with a brain aneurysm in January causing her brain to become like that of a toddler, and his father was "saddened by what she had been reduced to".

Trooper Jack Keller, public information officer for State Police Troop D, said investigators still were conducting follow-up interviews Monday and putting together the accident reconstruction, which will indicate the speed the train was traveling and whether it tried to stop before hitting the couple, who had been married 42 years.

Trooper Jack Keller said investigations into the incident were still being conducted, but that the location was not planned.

“It appears they just picked a random location,” Keller said.

“We have witnesses who said they heard a warning horn … but there is video that shows they stood right on the tracks waiting for it to come.”

If you are in need of help or know someone who is suffering, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit www.lifeline.org.au.