Federal Team to Probe Fatal Iowa Train Accident

A federal team has been assigned to investigate a train accident in southwest Iowa that left two crew members dead, officials said Monday.

A news release from the National Transportation Safety Board said Michael Flannigan, the lead NTSB investigator, will head the seven-member team.

Authorities said an eastbound coal train rear-ended a train carrying maintenance equipment in McPherson, which is about five miles west of Red Oak, on Sunday morning, killing the conductor and engineer on the coal train. Their names have not been released

A spokesman for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, Gus Melonas, said Monday that workers had cleared one track and that rail traffic was moving through the crash site. The adjacent line remained closed as the accident investigation continued, Melonas said.

The train had been headed from the PowderRiver Basin in Wyoming to Chicago pulling 130 cars of coal. The coal cars were to be transferred to another line in Chicago to be sent to an Eastern utility, he said.

The other train was hauling 34 cars of maintenance equipment belonging to the railroad. It was going from Bridgeport, Nebraska, to Creston, Iowa, Melonas said. The maintenance train also had two crew members. They were not injured.

According to preliminary reports, 10 cars on the maintenance train derailed as well as one of the three locomotives on the coal train.

Rail traffic was rerouted or otherwise affected until the repairs were completed.

That included Amtrak’s California Zephyr train. The closure of both tracks had forced Amtrak to bus its passengers from Galesburg, Illinois, to Omaha, Nebraska, around the accident site, which is about 40 miles southeast of Omaha.

Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said Amtrak expected to return to normal service through the area on Monday afternoon.