Broken wheel tossed train

A BNSF Railway derailment Feb. 16 was caused by a broken wheel, BNSF reported to the Federal Railroad Administration.

The broken wheel caused 40 (out of 121) loaded coal cars to derail from the train tracks about four miles west of Cloquet three months ago. Cleanup started almost immediately. The derailment dumped more than 4,000 tons of coal near or partially into the frozen St. Louis River.

“BNSF conducts a thorough review of every incident because we want to understand what happened and why, and work to prevent it from happening in the future,” BNSF spokesperson Amy McBeth told the Pine Knot News.

McBeth said the cleanup process is almost finished.

“About 99 percent of the coal has been removed, with just a very small amount remaining,” she said. “As weather allows the little coal left will be removed and we’ll be seeding the area to restore it to the pre-incident condition.”

In response to a question about cost, McBeth said BNSF won’t release publicly the cleanup costs.

After what appeared to be an initial hiccup in communication and cooperation, the railroad has been working with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa on the cleanup process, as the incident occurred on the reservation.