How will officials determine the cause of train derailment?

PITTSBURGH — The cause of the train derailment near Station Square is still unknown, so Channel 11 reached out to officials to find out how they will determine what happened.

Norfolk Southern said the track was inspected just 24 hours before the crash. A maintenance crew inspected the track on a hi-rail vehicle on Friday.

On Saturday, a crew was back out in the area, checking the track on a "heat patrol."

Channel 11's Rick Earle asked Norfolk Southern officials about the speed limit and they said the fastest the freight trains should have been traveling was 25 miles per hour.

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Investigators said they will look at data from the train to see if it was speeding.

Norfolk Southern already checked to see if there were rocks on the track from the hillside, but found none.

The railroad company has a slide fence in the area. It's plugged into an electrical circuit and falling rocks activate a warning to train crews to keep trains out of the area until the track could be inspected.

A spokesperson for the Federal Railroad Administration said they have at least two inspectors on the scene working alongside Norfolk Southern investigators to figure out what caused the derailment.

They'll look at the track and cars, interview the train crew and witnesses and look at data from the train's black box.

Channel 11's Rick Earle also looked deeper into safety issues surrounding the train derailment. Click here to watch his report.

Cox Media Group