Federal investigators say BNSF railroad is analyzing a section of fractured rail after last month’s fiery derailment that prompted evacuations in southwest Minnesota, but they didn’t say definitively that the broken rail caused the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board issued its preliminary report Tuesday on the March 30 derailment that forced about 800 people from their homes in Raymond, Minnesota, after 10 ethanol cars derailed and several of them caught fire from the fuel additive leak. Those ethanol cars were among 23 cars that came off the tracks shortly before 1 a.m. that day.
The fire burned into the following day before firefighters could extinguish it, but no one was hurt and everyone who evacuated was able to return home within 12 hours of the derailment. Investigators estimated that the derailment caused $1.9 million of damage to railroad equipment and the tracks….