(Waterloo, Iowa television station KWWL posted the following news brief on its website on February 3.)
WATERLOO, Iowa — Investigators and engineers with the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern Railroad have determined that the train derailment in Lawler on January 14 was caused by a broken rail.
Investigators went through all the pieces of broken track and pieced the rail back together. They say the rail had batter marks on the inside indicating that the break was caused by track fatigue, and not by a faulty track piece.
The cost of the clean-up of the derailment is estimated to be several hundred thousand dollars.