A wooden railroad bridge near Minnesota’s border with Canada burned and collapsed early Wednesday, shutting a busy train route that connects the Pacific Coast with Chicago, according to Associated Press via New York Times Wednesday.
The bridge in Koochiching County belonged to CN Rail. It carried more than 20 trains over the Rat Root River daily. A CN spokesperson, Brent Kossey, said the crew of a southbound train approaching the bridge reported a fire on the trestle just after 12:30 a.m. The train stopped after it had crossed the bridge. The bridge was destroyed, but the crew was not hurt.
Elswhere, BNSF Railway said Thursday in a statement from Fort Worth, TX, it’s planning employee furloughs due to slipping freight shipping demand across its rail network. The company said that it hopes to call back employees “as soon as businessneeds change.”
The railroad would not say how many employees were being furloughed but that they are “at different locations across our network.”
