Following the derailment in Montana, bridge construction is finished and train traffic has resumed

Stillwater County, Montana – After the Twin Bridges railroad bridge gave way and train cars spilled into the Yellowstone River, Montana Rail Link train service has resumed crossing it.

The first train reportedly crossed the brand-new bridge about 11:30 on Saturday morning, according to MRL spokesperson Andy Garland.

“Montana Rail Link has resumed operations with the completion of bridge construction efforts at the site of the June 24th derailment near Reed Point. Significant progress was made over the last week of construction,” Garland said in a statement on Saturday. “Construction work was completed ahead of initial estimates, allowing service to officially be restored 28 days post outage. As normal train traffic resumes, crews and contractors will remain on site to remove all equipment and material utilized throughout the process and continuing to restore the area. The safety of these crews, our employees, and members of the public remains our top priority as train service is restored.”

Elmer Lloyd, a resident of Reed Point, expressed his astonishment at how rapidly the bridge was built.

“I drove by it a couple of days ago, me and my son, and I said, ‘That’s going to take them another couple of weeks at least,’ and the next day it’s open,” Lloyd said on Sunday. “No idea it would take that quick for them to fix that railroad bridge.”

The return of train service through Reed Point, according to Lloyd, feels “normal.” “Having the train running back and forth again means that business is once again booming.”

Canadian resident Paul O’Neil has been a railfan his entire life. Since he can remember, he has always had a passion for trains. O’Neil was immediately informed of the derailment because he has family in eastern Montana.

“There’s people from all over North America really focused on Montana Rail Link,” O’Neil said. “Watching what happened, or seeing what happened, affected a lot of people that had plans to see the Montana Rail Link because well you can’t run trains while there’s a bridge out.”

In order to get images of MRL trains before BNSF acquires the firm at the start of next year, O’Neil stated that many of the train enthusiasts he has met online were preparing to travel to Montana.

“The fact that they got this bridge built so quickly is pretty amazing,” O’Neil said.