MARSHVILLE — A man was killed after his car was struck by a train early Sunday morning.

William Wesley “Wes” Morton was delivering for The Enquirer-Journal at about 2:30 a.m. Sunday when his car was hit while crossing Clonnie Strawn Road near the Anson County line. He was 61.

“He was the world’s greatest dad, I think,” Morton’s son Travis Morton said Monday afternoon. Travis Morton works for The Enquirer-Journal.

Many who knew Wes Morton knew him only by the name “Santa” because of his white hair and thick white beard, but his son remembered him as a father who would do anything for those he loved.

“He brought $2 to work every night so I could get something out of the snack machine,” Travis Morton said.

As a youngster, Travis Morton said, he and his cousin Bobby Hannah were in a shop class together and William Morton helped them build a model house perfectly to scale.

“He was a carpenter before he hurt his back,” Travis Morton said, remembering how thankful he was for the help he received on the project.

CSX Corp. spokesman Gary Sease said the train that hit Morton had three engines and 100 loaded coal cars. It was traveling from Tennessee to South Carolina.

Sease said it is company policy to conduct an investigation that includes looking at an event recorder, which lists the train’s speed and the engineer’s actions, and study video from an on-board recorder. Sease did not release the engineer’s name or history and said the investigation report would not be completed until later this week.

The eastbound train struck Morton’s car on the passenger side and pushed it for almost a mile before stopping.

There are crossing bars and lights at the Connie Strawn Road intersection; the lights and bars were operational early Monday morning and again Monday afternoon. The next intersection toward Monroe is Gaddy Road and does not have crossing bars or lights, but a CSX employee working at that crossing Monday said it would be unlikely for the accident to have happened there because there is a sensor on the Anson County side of the intersection that would have picked up any unusual activity on the track.

The initial Highway Patrol and CSX reports list Connie Strawn Road as the intersection where the accident happened. The train and car came to rest just across the Anson County line.

Officials did not suspect any foul play. Beaver Lane Fire Chief Chris Griffin speculated that Morton was “just caught off guard.”