Poor track conditions that should have been flagged by a freight railroad company's inspectors caused the derailment of an Amtrak train in Montana that killed three people and injured 49 others in 2021, federal investigators said Thursday in a final report.
The combination of wear and damage to the railroad track, had it been noticed by BNSF Railway inspectors, should have led to the track being replaced before the derailment occurred, the National Transportation Safety Board found. Investigators also found that a train inspector’s workload likely prevented him from doing a walking inspection of the area before the derailment.
