ASPEN, Colo. -- Colorado Comcast officials are now looking at backup options after a train derailment near Winter Park knocked out all Internet service to 7,500 Comcast customers from Winter Park to Aspen to Parachute.

The coal train derailment occurred last weekend in the Moffat Tunnel, which runs under the Continental Divide. Comcast high-speed Internet service to the Western Slope is made possible by a buried fiber optic line that runs parallel to the train track

Comcast officials said it wasn't clear if the outage was caused by the derailment or by railroad crews clearing the scene.

According to the Aspen Daily News, the Avon-based general manager for Comcast's Colorado mountain market said the three-day outage was a wake-up call for a backup system.

"This certainly attracted attention at the highest levels of the company," Mike Trueblood told the newspaper.

It was the third multi-day outage experienced by Comcast Western Slope customers. The two previous also came as a result of train derailments.

One Aspen Comcast customer told the Aspen Times that he learned a lot about train derailments as result of his service interruptions.

"I never realized so many trains derailed until my Internet kept going out," said Michael McVoy.