I-25 fully reopens north of Pueblo Thursday following fatal train derailment

The northbound lanes of Interstate 25 reopened Thursday afternoon following a prolonged closure that began Sunday when a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train carrying coal derailed north of Pueblo.

The Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office announced on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, just after 4:15 p.m. that the northbound lanes had reopened from U.S. Highway 50 to mile marker 108 after crews completed the cleanup and road repairs necessitated by the derailment.

The southbound lanes of I-25 were reopened Wednesday afternoon. Motorists traveling through the reopened stretch of highway will experience reduced speeds around mile marker 107, according to the PCSO.

Colorado State Patrol troopers received initial reports of the derailment at approximately 3:25 p.m. Sunday afternoon and responded to the scene approximately 4 miles north of Pueblo.

Preliminary information from the National Transportation Safety Board, the independent federal agency investigating the matter, indicates that a broken rail just east of the I-25 bridge caused the derailment.

A 60-year-old truck driver, Lafollette Henderson, of Compton, California, was killed during the incident when the coal train derailed from a bridge that crossed over I-25 near Pueblo, causing the bridge to partially collapse on top of his commercial semitruck. No other injuries were reported.

A total of 30 cars derailed during the incident, the NTSB stated Monday evening. The train consisted of five locomotives and 124 cars carrying coal.

NTSB investigators believe the broken rail preceded the derailment and the bridge collapsed after the train derailed. The federal investigators said Tuesday they would “continue to determine the cause of the broken rail and why warning systems did not alert the crews to the condition of the track" as part of their ongoing investigation.

A preliminary report on the investigation will be available within 30 days, but the final report may take as long as two years to complete, according to the NTSB.

A BNSF spokesperson told the Chieftain Tuesday that due to a cooperative agreement the railroad has with Union Pacific, which enables BNSF freight trains to use a rail line that runs parallel to the one impacted by the derailment, BNSF rail traffic was not impacted by the derailment.

During the I-25 closure, motorists traveling north to Colorado Springs were detoured to exit I-25 at U.S. Highway 50, go west to Penrose and then head north on Highway 115; southbound I-25 motorists traveling to Pueblo were detoured at mile marker 110 onto a county road that runs parallel to I-25 and into Pueblo.

Chieftain editor Zach Hillstrom can be reached at zhillstrom@gannett.com or on Twitter @ZachHillstrom. Support local news, subscribe to the Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: I-25 reopens following fatal train derailment Sunday