Train, semi collide in southern Minnesota — again
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For the second time this month, there’s been a collision between a semi and a train in southern Minnesota.
The latest crash happened Wednesday afternoon in Blue Earth County, northeast of Lake Crystal. The main highway there — State Highway 60 — is closed due to construction.
The Blue Earth County Sheriff's Office said a semi driver from North Dakota was following an unofficial detour just after 2 p.m. Wednesday when he took a right turn off the highway and crossed an adjacent rail line as a Union Pacific train approached.
The train collided with the semi trailer, flipping the semi on its side. No one was injured.
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Authorities said the train included some tanker cars believed to be carrying ethanol, but none of the rail cars were damaged. The semi was carrying paper products.
In the wake of the crash, the sheriff's office urged drivers “to follow official construction detours. Unofficial routes are not designed to handle large volumes of traffic and may lack safety measures considered in the official detour.”
In a separate incident earlier this month, a driver escaped serious injury when a train collided with a semi hauling grain in Brown County.
That crash on April 4 happened along U.S. Highway 14 near Sleepy Eye when a semi made a right turn off the highway and into the path of a train.
The collision tore the semi trailer into two pieces. The driver of the semi and two crew members aboard the CPKC train suffered minor injuries.