Given this image,
I'd say he came in from "far" side of the image (upper right) towards the camera (camera is bottom left), cutting trees. But the rail line goes in a trench here (significantly lower than surrounding terrain), so he skipped first (upper in the image) line of rail, hit the second (lower in the image) line, and impacted the upslope (the side of trench on which the camera is). He was at angle to the track (I'd say close to 45 degrees) and the track is somewhat protected by the edges of the "trench". Hence the limited damage to the rail itself.