Settlement reached in train crash

Published 9:09 am Friday, May 25, 2012

MANKATO — Union Pacific Railroad and the family of a man killed in a Blue Earth County train crash have reached a legal settlement.

Attorneys say Union Pacific has agreed to pay $650,000 to the family of Todd Ziegler. He and another man were in a county dump truck that was struck by three locomotives near Crystal Lake in July 2009. The 43-year-old Ziegler and 42-year-old Jack Baker were killed.

The Ziegler family attorneys said the evidence shows the two men never heard the train whistle over the noise of the dump truck, and the railroad crossing was the only one in the area that didn’t have lights or crossing arms.

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