About 200 feet of railroad track -- including 400 feet of rail and 160 ties -- along the Nickel Plate Road rail line was damaged by heat during last week's tanker truck explosion at I-69 and I-465, the Indianapolis Star reported.
That's the rail line that transportation advocates hope to use for light rail service from Noblesville to Downtown Indianapolis. The Nickel Plate runs underneath the I-465 East/West overpass and alongside the I-69 southbound ramp.
The Indiana Transportation Museum plans to hire a consulting firm to assess the damage and gauge the repairs. The museum is a mostly volunteer group that runs trains along the rail from the State Fairgrounds to Tipton. It's best known for the FairTrain to the State Fair each August.
Spokesman Ralph Bell said the museum plans to file insurance claims against the company that owned the truck, Propane Transport International, which is owned by AmeriGas Partners of Lima, Ohio.
Bell said he has no idea of the cost for the consulting firm or the repairs.
(The preceding article by Chris Sikich was published October 29, 2009, by the Indianapolis Star.)
