By Justin Franz 

HAVRE, Mont. — No clear answers have emerged yet as federal investigators look at why Amtrak’s Empire Builder derailed along a remote section of track in Montana on Saturday, killing three people.

Within hours of the derailment near Joplin, Mont., about 50 miles west of Havre on BNSF Railway’s Hi-Line Subdivision, both the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Railroad Administration launched probes into the incident. While both agencies are working together on-site, they are expected to issue separate reports. 

According to investigators, the train was traveling west at 75 to 78 miles per hour, just below the track’s 79 miles per hour speed limit for passenger trains. The derailment occurred before the train hit a switch, perhaps eliminating the possibility that the derailment was the result of a flaw with the switch itself. BNSF said it inspects that section of track at least twice a week and that the last inspection occurred two days earlier. Footage from the cab of both the Amtrak train and a BNSF freight that passed through the area about 80 minutes earlier is being reviewed to see if there was a problem with the track ahead of time. 

“We are not ruling anything out at this point,” said NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg. “We don’t know if it was a track issue or a mechanical issue.”

Landsberg said that his team will be on-site for at least a week but that the track would likely be released to BNSF before that so that service through the area can resume. BNSF is detouring some trains south via Montana Rail Link.