I have been following this matter quite closely, indeed since the original lease occurred in the 1980s, under which the Washington Co./ MRL, as part of the lease, was required to perform maintenance on the properties they were leasing. Did they have an incentive to perform maintenance? They did in the beginning, as not doing so would mean putting their own equipment on the ground, which they would pay for. How about toward the end of the lease, when they would be soon turning it back over to BNSF? That is the question. Most leases that require the lessee to perform maintenance do not stipulate how much maintenance, how many ties per mile, etc., and this one apparently didn't even specify that it be maintained at class III standards etc., because BN (at the time) thought that they were out of there for good. This is around the time when their president (ex-ARCO oil) said that "the whole railroad is for sale". Absence of specificity about how much maintenance is required was the origin of the dispute between Indiana Transportation Museum and the city of Noblesville that eventually ended the ITM.

Then I might suggest that your issue of contention (otherwise known as "scapegoat-seeking") would more accurately be pinpointing the specifics of the BN/BNSF lease of the property MRL used.

Given that this is potentially an issue of long-term bridge pier maintenance/inspection rather than derailment causing a bridge collapse, I will always choose to approach such an issue with the same open mind as I have seen NTSB investigators adopt--which means you literally cannot rule out anything from sabotage to freaks of nature/physics to "aliens," at least not initially.

I once told reporters who talked to me at the July 2001 CSX Howard Street Tunnel derailment press gatherings a rather far-fetched scenario as to how the derailment could have happened, and all but two of them just rolled their eyes and walked away. The next day, the NTSB spokesman announced that they were focusing their investigation on PRECISELY that scenario. It was all I could do not to gloat as those reporters' jaws dropped and they turned their heads to gawk at me as the spokesperson continued on................

You are confusing two different processes. The NTSB will be asking why the cars ended up in the river, and they will look at it as "fix the problem, not the blame". It will likely be later, in the courts, that the question of "who pays for it?" will be determined.

I saw traffic about this bridge over the weekend. Did a double take this morning when during a daily IT operations brief that includes status of a national TCP/IP network for a government agency, the network guys referenced that one of their larger bandwidth lines were down due to a RR bridge collapse in Montana.

https://www.ypradio.org/environment-sci ... ver-closed

The MT Highway Dept removed the identical adjacent highway bridge in 2021, due to the threat of "imminent collapse". The flooding of the past two years made it almost certain that the railroad bridge would fail, but MRL/BNSF played ostrich and so now they have a major problem. Rebuilding will encounter all kinds of environmental delays.

Although the need to remove a road bridge adjacent because of pier underscour definitely leads to an absolute need to consider pier condition as one of the potential causes of this incident, it is NOT an automatic presumption. Rail bridge piers are often (but not always) of sturdier construction than bridges for lighter road vehicles, especially when the latter were built in a remote area when motor highway vehicles were still somewhat "new" and "in beta mode."

I could bore you with details about pier construction transition from stone to concrete given to me by Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Highway Administration officials when I was struggling to save two landmark concrete bridges, but suffice it to say that when it comes to concrete highway bridge piers, the ACE regards concrete pier and bridge failure as "inevitable." The only question to them is who clears the waterway after it does fail to prevent further flooding upstream, and how long it will take (read: how many floods/high water events) before that happens.

The NTSB has always assigned "probable cause" and strives not to be usable as "ironclad" evidence in litigation. Their sole mission is to prevent future accidents of a similar/identical nature, not assign "blame." Further, it issues "recommendations," not orders--the orders to make equipment or systemic changes come from other regulatory bodies such as the FRA, FAA, etc.

What does this have to do with rail preservation? Lots, IF you have such piers or bridges on your line. Off the top of my head, I can think of several instances where such bridge piers have collapsed on "heritage" lines and had to be replaced before or after excursions started, three just in or next to Pennsylvania alone--one bridge (and maybe more!) over Codorus Creek on the present-day Northern Central near Hanover Junction, one over White Deer Creek on the NRHS-owned White Deer and Reading at White Deer, Pa., and one over the Monocacy River on the Walkersville Southern. In all three examples above, flooding instigated the collapses, and in all three cases state grants and the intervention of state transportation officials were necessary to find both the funding and impetus to repair/replace the piers. We could also bring up the Wilmington & Western, whose trestle and flood problems have been well-discussed over the decades. And someday the East Broad Top may be dealing with the Aughwick Creek concrete arch bridge, and it already has the Pogue bridge to deal with, with two stone piers and two stone abutments--and which is also in need of commonwealth funding:
https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... -projects/

If you have bridge piers or abutments on your line, as the ACE guys said: "It's not 'if,' but 'when'."

Okay, congratulations. NOW it's about rail preservation.

Here is the history of the construction of the sister highway bridge, which was adjacent to the collapsed MRL railroad bridge:

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/m ... 59data.pdf

And here is a link to an article on the deterioration of the highway bridge that resulted in its demolition in 2021:

https://billingsgazette.com/news/local/ ... b19.html#1

While I concur that we have to await the judgement of the "usual suspects" for a cause, as a civil engineer, it is difficult to believe that the problems that led to the condemnation of the highway bridge did not equally affect the upstream adjacent railroad bridge. The disappearance of the concrete pier in the middle of the bridge at the point of fracture makes it likely that it rolled over. The pier on the south bank is visibly tipped toward the bank in photos of the collapse, suggesting that it also failed as the weight of the bridge and train dropped. Scouring was part of the mechanism of failure of these piers and one wonders why the railroad's bridge maintenance team didn't follow the lead of the highway engineers in analysis of the situation.

I drove by the site a few hours (3) after it happened and got fairly close to it before the police chased me off. I'm a civil engineer with some rail experience including fixing too many derailments. The tank car laying on it's side next to the right-of-way was dragged by the train far enough past the bridge until its trucks were torn apart. Finally the draft gear connecting it to the still-moving train sheared and it rolled over the side. A stub piece of the broken coupler is sticking out from the car in front of it which is still on the tracks. Parts of the trucks are scattered between the tank car and the bridge. Hot sulfur appeared to be bubbling out of the next tank car behind it which was ripped open in one side and laying ion the river.
My humble assessment is that the first tank car derailed on the bridge probably derailing the second car as well and together they dragged the span far enough for it to come off of its seats and maybe tipping a pier(?) then it dropped. The two tank cars became uncoupled when the span settled and the couplers lost alignment. The first tank car continued to be pulled along the ROW as mentioned above, and the trucks fell apart until finally the train going into emergency caused it to stop.
The first car may have derailed due to excessive "pumping" on the bridge approach causing a wheel to jump off or else some sort of track defect. The cars appeared to be fairly new and in good condition. I had looked at the track earlier at another location (at a grade crossing next to a bridge- no trespassing)and in my (again humble) opinion it looked excellent. Great ties, heavy rail, excellent surface and alignment. It may vary at other locations of course.
Ned Harris, P.E.

"Officials said it remains unclear which came first: The bridge collapse or the derailment that sent 10 cars into the river." https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... rogresses/

From said article:



Now, SOMEBODY stated earlier:



Question answered...................

Our courts won't take anyone's word at face value, but you apparently do. So speaking of bridges, are you interested in buying a bigger, older bridge, right in the heart of New York City?

If it comes to a court scenario, there are presumably inspection records that can be provided. How thoroughly such a bridge would get inspected would be at issue, but you're all but indirectly accusing them of lying to the public in a press conference.

Do YOU have any evidence of neglect and disregard for proper maintenance by MRL other than a hunch or some anti-MRL bias?

Well, there is such a thing as the FRA Bridge Management Program (BMP) so there are at least yearly inspection records on file with the Feds. As a small operation we have one short bridge, over a flood-prone creek no less, that gets its yearly inspection by a bridge engineer. If you have bridges, you should have a BMP in place.

I don't have any specific insight about MRL, I have general insights about drawn-out merger processes and incentives to spend money, the classic example being the Rock Island while their merger with the Union Pacific was pending. It is much better to have the acquiring carrier take over immediately.

I can attest that as of December MRL was still working on very large infrastructure projects such as tie replacement and PTC signal work. My son interviewed for a job there and was shown the projects he would work on.

So I seriously doubt there was any "slacking off" due to end of the lease. Remember its not a merger, BNSF is buying out the lease / contract to run the line.