Just before 3:30 p.m., Oct. 15, 2023, 30 railcars of a coal train derailed near milepost 109, roughly 5 miles north of Pueblo along I-25. Six railcars dropped to the highway below, killing a truck driver and closing lanes of I-25 for days. – Colorado Springs Gazette, February 19, 2025

I wrote about this when it happened because my son Mark and I with my granddaughter Kesley had driven under that bridge just 25 hours earlier.

Why am I writing about the derailment today? Because they’ve discovered the cause:

Sixteen months after a fatal derailment of a coal-carrying train crossing above Interstate 25 north of Pueblo, the final investigative report about the crash has been released, pinpointing blame on a bad track weld done earlier that year…Last week’s report cited the probable cause of the derailment as a failed thermite weld, done less than five months earlier. The report indicates that two sections of track were offset by three-sixteenths of an inch, and that the ensuing gap wasn’t properly handled by the welder. (emphasis mine)

“…wasn’t properly handled by the welder.” Solutions involve more inspections and retraining of welders.

I’ll bet you haven’t given much thought to the folks who weld train tracks together. Me neither. Every job is important. Every worker is important. There’s no such thing as “just a welder.” This is the person responsible for the safety of trains and even road traffic under railroad bridges.

Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines… (Song of Songs 2.15, NKJV)

Jesus went on to make these comments: If you’re honest in small things, you’ll be honest in big things; If you’re a crook in small things, you’ll be a crook in big things. If you’re not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store? (Luke 16.10, 11, MSG)