Main rail route across northern Montana reopens

HELENA (AP) — BNSF Railway officials say crews early Saturday reopened the main rail route across northern Montana after two freight trains derailed the previous day near Glacier National Park.

BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas says crews worked through the night repairing track and the line was opened at 2:45 a.m. Saturday.

The route closed about 24 hours earlier when one train derailed between Coram and Essex and the other about 10 miles west of Cut Bank.

A train hauling general merchandise from Seattle pulled off onto a siding at Belton at about 2:45 a.m. Friday when four locomotives and a car hauling three containers derailed.

At 6:15 a.m. Friday, the lead locomotive on another train hauling general freight from Pasco, Wash., to Minot, N.D., derailed.

Melonas says the cause of the derailments remains unclear.