A northbound van went off Interstate 25, rolled and came to rest on a railroad track, where it was then hit by a southbound train in Pueblo County and burst into flames this afternoon, according to the Colorado State Patrol.
The man inside, the van’s lone occupant. was killed, said Trooper David Hall.
“The circumstances of this one are very unusual,” Hall said.
The driver’s name has not been released, pending notification of next of kin. No one aboard the train was injured, Hall said.
The van was struck by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe train at about 3:15 p.m. just south of the El Paso County line.
Authorities aren’t sure yet if he was killed in the rollover, or when the van was hit by the train.
If the cause of death is found to be the collision with the train, it would mark the first Colorado locomotive-related highway fatality since June 2008, when a Union Pacific train hit a road-grader in a rail crossing in Brighton, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
