Update: Broken rail caused fatal train crash and bridge collapse near Pueblo, NTSB says

A team of federal investigators on Monday began probing a fatal Pueblo County train derailment and bridge collapse that blocked Interstate 25 as officials sorted out who owned the 65-year-old structure and who had responsibility for its integrity.

The Sunday afternoon incident sent train cars and coal falling onto the highway, killing a 60-year-old truck driver and closing I-25 indefinitely in both directions — potentially for longer than a week.

It may take up to two years for investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board to complete their work and release a final cause for Sunday’s derailment and bridge collapse, though an initial report should be released within a month, the NTSB said.

The interstate can’t be cleaned up or reopened until investigators finish their on-site inspection, state and federal officials said Monday. That process is expected to take at least several days.

In an interview, Shailen Bhatt, the leader of the Federal Highway Administration and a former head of the Colorado Department of Transportation until 2017, reiterated a state timeline that the closure could extend for days to weeks.

Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement that state officials’ “immediate priority is safely getting the highway open both ways,” but he cautioned the reopening would take time, given that the NTSB was in control of the site. (For the most up-to-date information on local and regional traffic detours, travelers should check CDOT’s website and social media as well as cotrip.org.)

The safety board said in a statement Monday afternoon that the derailment of the BNSF Railway-operated train caused the bridge to partially collapse, crushing the semi-truck and killing its driver. Thirty rail cars on the 124-car train derailed, spilling coal and debris across the interstate about four miles north of Pueblo. CDOT said six or seven train cars landed on the highway itself.

Once the NTSB’s initial field work is complete, it may take crews another two days to fully clear the debris, Polis said.

A long line of trucks were arrayed near the scene Monday afternoon, waiting to begin clearing the scene. One driver said he’d been waiting since midnight.

“Just being down here, you see all of the coal from the overturned train cars — it is a significant recovery effort,” Bhatt said of the work to come.

Polis’ statement expressed condolences for the truck driver and his family. The Pueblo County Coroner’s Office on Monday identified the driver as Lafollette Henderson, 60, of Compton, California.

The governor said he had spoken with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and that the state was prepared to move as quickly as possible to reopen I-25 once given the green light.

“Our administration has been working for months to position Colorado to take advantage of the safety and rail investments that Congress and President Biden made possible through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” Polis said. “Sadly, those improvements come too late to prevent this incident, but it’s clear that federal funds for rail support are critical for Colorado.”

Questions remained Monday about who owned the rail bridge and who had inspection and oversight authority for it.

The bridge did not have an official name, according to Sarah Sulick, a spokeswoman for the safety board. Initially, state officials said it was owned and operated by BNSF, which owns the train that derailed. Railroads typically own, inspect and maintain the tracks and bridges over which their trains run, according to the Federal Railroad Administration, with rail bridges numbering in the tens of thousands across the United States.

The railroad administration also said BNSF owned the line. But the company told The Denver Post that the state owns the bridge, as did Bhatt, the federal highway administrator.

CDOT spokesman Matt Inzeo said the agency still was trying to confirm who had responsibility for the bridge, noting that staff were digging through records going back to its construction in 1958. He confirmed that the state inspected the bridge in 2022, though he said the structure was not covered by federal rules requiring regular inspections.

The bridge was a 188-foot-long, 14-foot-wide steel girder bridge, according to CDOT.

Jaime Horowitz, a spokesman for the Brotherhood Of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which represents at least one crew member on the derailed train, said he couldn’t comment Monday because the union is part of the federal investigation team.

There have been 11 train derailments in Colorado this year, all involving BNSF, according to data from the Federal Railroad Administration. The Texas-based railway and competitor Union Pacific together operate the vast majority of Colorado’s more than 2,800 miles of railroad. BNSF has had 177 derailments nationwide so far in 2023, federal data shows.

Company spokeswoman Kendall Kirkham Sloan wrote in an email that the state owned the collapsed bridge but declined to comment further, beyond providing a statement confirming the derailment and the subsequent investigation.

Bhatt said the White House had been informed of the derailment and interstate closure. Asked about potential causes, he deferred to the federal investigators, who are interviewing witnesses and reviewing video recordings.

“I would just say that this is being tracked at the highest levels,” he said, “and we’re very aware of the national impacts of a closure of an interstate, but also the local impacts to Pueblo and other communities down here.”

The derailment comes as legislators here are taking a closer look at railroad safety and oversight in the wake of a February train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that sparked a large fire and raised concerns about hazardous chemicals aboard.

Two weeks ago, state lawmakers on the Transportation Legislation Review Committee approved a bill that would cap the length of trains in Colorado at 8,500 feet, require operators to maintain safety detectors and allow crew members to report safety concerns.

“Commercial rail incidents have become more frequent and with increased severity over the last decade,” said Sen. Nick Hinrichsen, a Pueblo Democrat. “And I think we’re overdue for taking action to mitigate that, to put some safeguard into the commercial rail transportation network.”

Denver Post photographer Helen Richardson and the Associated Press contributed to this story.

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