When a Train Meets an 18-Wheeler at a Midland Crossing: What Your Family Needs to Know
You are reading this because someone you love was killed or hurt at a railroad crossing — and the first thing you were told, or the first thing you read, was that the truck was stopped on the tracks for twenty-two seconds while the train sounded its horn. That fact is going to follow this case everywhere. The railroad has already said it publicly. And the natural reaction is to think: if the truck was just sitting there and the horn was blowing for that long, it must have been the driver’s fault.
We need you to hear something before you go any further: twenty-two seconds tells you how long the truck was on the tracks. It does not tell you why. And “why” is the entire case.
A commercial truck can end up stopped on a railroad crossing for reasons that have nothing to do with driver carelessness: a traffic signal beyond the tracks cycles red and queues cars back over the rails, trapping a long-wheelbase truck that entered the crossing legally and with room to spare. A crossing signal activates too late — after the truck has already committed to the crossing, with guard arms descending behind it and ahead of it. A mechanical failure stalls the truck on the tracks. A warning system that was designed for passenger cars, not seventy-foot tractor-trailers, gives a commercial vehicle inadequate time to clear. Each of these is a recognized, documented cause of grade-crossing collisions, and each of them shifts responsibility from the driver to the railroad, the road authority, or the truck’s condition — not the person behind the wheel.
We handle railroad crossing wrongful death cases in Texas. We are The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — Attorney911, and this page is built to give you, in plain language, everything you need to understand about what happened at the Fairgrounds Road crossing in Midland on June 3, 2013 — and what your family’s legal rights are if you are facing a similar loss. Nothing here is legal advice for your specific case. It is legal information, written by trial lawyers, so that when you call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 for a free consultation, you already know the questions to ask.
The 22-Second Question: Why Was the Truck on the Tracks?
The single most important unanswered question in this case is not whether the truck was on the tracks. Union Pacific’s own spokesperson confirmed that the locomotive’s forward-facing video showed the tractor-trailer stopped on the crossing for approximately twenty-two seconds, with the train engineer sounding the horn for the same duration. The question that determines everything — liability, comparative fault, case value, whether the family can recover at all — is why the truck was stopped there.
Here is what a railroad crossing investigation actually looks for, and what the answer could be:
The traffic trap. This is the most powerful liability theory for the family. A traffic trap exists when the road geometry, traffic signal timing, or queuing patterns at or near a crossing create a situation where a vehicle — particularly a long-wheelbase commercial truck — can enter the crossing lawfully and with what appears to be room to clear, only to be stopped by traffic ahead, trapping the truck on the tracks. The Fairgrounds Road crossing sits in a developed commercial area, with businesses like the Kent Kwik convenience store at Fairgrounds Road and Front Street nearby. If a traffic signal beyond the tracks cycled red and stacked vehicles back over the rails, a tractor-trailer that entered the crossing with apparent room to clear could find itself boxed in — unable to move forward (traffic ahead), unable to back up (traffic behind), and sitting on the rails when the train arrives. This is not driver negligence. This is a design defect, and it implicates the railroad that owns the crossing infrastructure and the road authority that designed the traffic flow.
Crossing signal timing. Federal regulations under the Federal Railroad Administration govern the warning time that crossing signals must provide before a train arrives. If the signals at Fairgrounds Road activated too late — giving a commercial vehicle insufficient time to assess the crossing, enter it, and clear it before the guard arms descended — the truck may have been legally within the crossing when the arms came down. Witnesses at the Kent Kwik told reporters they had seen many drivers attempt to cross before the guard arms fully descended, which suggests the timing between signal activation and arm descent may be tight for the traffic volume and vehicle mix at this crossing. Federal regulations require grade crossing signal systems to be tested, inspected, and maintained under standards that govern warning time adequacy. A signal log showing the activation sequence and timing is one of the most critical pieces of evidence — and it is perishable.
Mechanical failure. The truck’s engine control module — its electronic brain — records speed, throttle position, brake application, and engine performance in the seconds before a collision. If the truck stalled, if the engine lost power, if the brakes locked, the ECM data will show it. This data can be lost if the vehicle is moved, repaired, or if the battery discharges. The truck must be impounded and inspected immediately, with the ECM downloaded by a qualified expert before any of this data disappears.
The oil boom variable. Midland sits in the heart of the Permian Basin, the most productive oil and gas region in the United States. During the oil boom of the early 2010s, commercial vehicle traffic in Midland County exploded — oilfield truck traffic on roads and crossings designed for lighter, less frequent vehicles. The Union Pacific train that struck the truck was carrying crude oil, liquid petroleum gas, and hydrochloric acid from Fort Worth to Monahans — a Permian Basin oilfield destination. The crossing at Fairgrounds Road sits at the intersection of two massive industrial flows: oilfield truck traffic crossing rail lines that serve the energy corridor. The volume and character of traffic at this crossing may have changed dramatically since the crossing was last evaluated for safety — and if the crossing’s warning systems were not updated to account for the increased commercial vehicle traffic, that is a design and maintenance failure that belongs to the railroad and the road authority, not the driver.
Who Is Responsible: The Companies Behind the Crossing
A railroad crossing collision is almost never a single-defendant case. The liability map extends across multiple entities, each with its own insurance, its own defense lawyers, and its own incentive to point at the others.
Union Pacific Railroad Company operated the train, owns the tracks, and maintains the crossing infrastructure — including the warning signals, guard arms, and crossing surface. Union Pacific is one of two Class I freight railroads operating in the western United States, with an extensive network through Texas that serves the Permian Basin energy corridor. The company maintains its own crossing infrastructure and investigates its own collisions — a structure that creates an inherent tension between the railroad’s safety obligations and its litigation interests. When the railroad investigates its own crash, the evidence it controls — the locomotive video, the event recorder data, the signal system logs — is in the hands of the party that has the most to lose if that evidence shows a crossing failure. This is exactly why independent evidence preservation is critical, and why a preservation letter from counsel must go out immediately.
Union Pacific’s financial structure matters to your case. The railroad carries a substantial self-insured retention — meaning the company’s own dollars sit on the first layer of any claim — plus layered insurance above that retention. This is a deep-pocket defendant with the resources to fight aggressively. Union Pacific defends grade crossing cases hard, and its primary strategy is to emphasize driver failure to yield and its compliance with federal signal and horn requirements. But that defense only works if the crossing was actually safe — if the signals functioned properly, if the warning time was adequate, if the crossing geometry accommodated the vehicles that use it.
The trucking company that employed or contracted the driver has its own potential liability. If the driver was an employee, the company may owe workers’ compensation death benefits. In Texas, employers can choose to subscribe to workers’ compensation or opt out — and if the company is a non-subscriber, it can be sued directly in tort for negligent vehicle maintenance, negligent routing through a hazardous crossing, or inadequate training on railroad crossing procedures. The driver’s residence in Riverside, California, suggests a long-haul operation whose corporate identity, DOT number, safety record, and insurance coverage must be established through the truck’s registration and employment records. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations at 49 CFR Part 392 govern commercial motor vehicle operation at railroad grade crossings, including requirements that drivers slow down, stop, and verify the track is clear before proceeding — and these same regulations establish the standard against which the trucking company’s training will be measured.
The governmental road authority — TxDOT, the City of Midland, or Midland County — may bear liability if the road geometry, traffic signal timing, or intersection design at or near the crossing created a traffic trap that prevented commercial vehicles from clearing the tracks. Governmental entities in Texas are subject to sovereign immunity, but the Texas Tort Claims Act provides limited waivers for certain dangerous conditions of roadways. Claims against governmental entities carry strict notice-of-claim deadlines that are far shorter than the ordinary statute of limitations — which means the governmental defendant may have the tightest clock of any party in the case.
Texas Wrongful Death Law and the 51% Bar That Could Decide Your Case
Texas law gives surviving family members two separate claims when someone is killed by another’s negligence — and understanding both is essential because they recover different damages and belong to different parties.
The wrongful death action belongs to the surviving family — the spouse, children, and parents of the person killed. It compensates the family for what they lost: the mental anguish of losing their loved one, the future earning capacity that was taken from them, the loss of care and support the person would have provided, and the loss of companionship and society. Texas law permits these specific categories of recovery under what is commonly called the Texas Wrongful Death Act.
Texas wrongful death actions permit surviving spouses, children, and parents to recover for mental anguish, loss of earning capacity, loss of care and support, and loss of companionship and society.
The survival action belongs to the decedent’s estate and carries the claim the person would have had if they had survived — the conscious pain and suffering they experienced between the injury and death, plus medical expenses and funeral costs. Witness accounts from the scene indicate that the driver was still alive inside the cab immediately after the collision, which supports a survival component. The duration and severity of conscious suffering will require medical expert analysis of the mechanism of fatal injury — what the impact forces did to the body, how quickly death followed, and whether consciousness persisted long enough to support a meaningful pain-and-suffering award.
Texas imposes no general damage cap on wrongful death or survival claims outside the medical malpractice context. This means a jury can award the full measure of damages the evidence supports — there is no statutory ceiling that automatically cuts the number down. This is one of Texas’s strongest advantages for families in catastrophic death cases.
But there is a rule that the railroad will weaponize, and it is the single most dispositive legal issue in this case: Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. This means that if the jury finds the plaintiff (the driver, whose fault is imputed to the family’s recovery) was 51% or more at fault for the collision, the family is barred from recovering anything — not a reduced amount, nothing at all. If the driver is found to be 50% or less at fault, the family’s recovery is reduced by that percentage but not eliminated.
This is why the railroad’s public emphasis on the twenty-two-second stoppage is not just a factual statement — it is a litigation strategy. The railroad wants the jury to hear “the truck was stopped on the tracks for twenty-two seconds while the horn blew” and conclude that the driver was more than half at fault. If the railroad can push the driver’s comparative negligence above 50%, the family gets nothing.
The counter to this strategy is the evidence that explains why the truck was stopped. If the investigation reveals a traffic trap, a signal timing failure, or a mechanical issue, each of those facts shifts percentage points of fault away from the driver and toward the railroad or the road authority. Every point matters — the difference between 50% and 51% is the difference between a recovery and nothing. This is why the investigation is not just about proving the railroad did something wrong — it is about proving the driver did not do everything wrong, and keeping the comparative fault number below the bar.
The Stowers doctrine governs settlement conduct in Texas, requiring insurers to evaluate settlement demands against the reasonable prospect of an excess verdict. When dealing with a deep-pocket defendant like Union Pacific, the Stowers doctrine creates pressure on the insurer to settle when the evidence supports a verdict that would exceed the policy limits — and the failure to do so can expose the insurer to liability above the policy. This is a critical framework for evaluating settlement in a case with substantial coverage and contested liability.
Texas applies a two-year statute of limitations for wrongful death and survival actions. The clock runs from the date of death. There are potential tolling provisions that may apply to an out-of-state decedent’s family, but the safe assumption is that the two-year deadline is real and unforgiving. Waiting to see what the investigation reveals before contacting counsel is understandable — but it is also how families lose the right to file at all.
The Evidence That Is Dying Right Now
Every piece of evidence that could answer the twenty-two-second question is on a clock. Some of it is already gone. The rest is dying at different speeds, and the only thing that stops the clock is a preservation letter — a formal demand from counsel that orders the evidence holders to freeze the records before they are overwritten, purged, or “lost.”
Locomotive forward-facing video — This is the single most critical piece of evidence in the case. It shows the truck’s exact position on the tracks, the timing of crossing signal activation, the guard arm descent sequence, and whether the truck was trapped by traffic or voluntarily stopped. Union Pacific controls this video, and the company’s own retention policies may overwrite it within thirty to ninety days. The video was already reviewed by UP’s spokesperson, which means it exists — but the question is whether the full, unedited footage will survive long enough for an independent expert to analyze it. A preservation letter must demand the complete, unedited locomotive video from all camera angles, not just the portions UP chose to review.
Train event recorder data — The locomotive’s “black box” records the train’s speed, braking application, throttle position, and horn activation timing. This data reveals whether the engineer’s braking response met the standard of care, whether the train was traveling at a reasonable speed for the crossing and its hazmat cargo, and whether the horn met federal audibility and duration standards. The Federal Railroad Administration requires preservation of event recorder data after fatal accidents, but Union Pacific controls the download — which means the data is in the hands of the party whose braking response and speed it measures.
Crossing signal system logs and maintenance records — These establish whether the warning signals and guard arms activated properly, when they activated relative to the train’s approach, and whether any signal malfunction or testing deficiency contributed to the collision. Signal system event logs may be overwritten on regular maintenance cycles, and maintenance records can be modified during post-incident repairs. These logs are the proof of whether the crossing’s warning system gave adequate time for a commercial vehicle to clear — and they are perishable.
Truck EDR / engine control module data — The truck’s electronic brain records speed, braking, throttle position, and steering inputs in the seconds before the collision. This is the evidence that determines whether the truck stalled, was trapped by traffic, or the driver failed to act. EDR data can be lost if the vehicle is moved, repaired, or if the battery discharges. The truck must be impounded and inspected immediately — not released to the trucking company or the insurance adjuster.
Nearby business surveillance footage — The Kent Kwik convenience store at Fairgrounds Road and Front Street sits at the intersection, and employees there witnessed the collision. Their surveillance cameras may have captured the truck’s approach, the traffic conditions at the crossing, whether other vehicles contributed to a queuing trap, and the sequence of guard arm descent. Convenience store and gas station surveillance systems typically overwrite every seven to thirty days. A canvass of every business with sight lines to the crossing must be conducted within one week — after that, the footage is gone forever.
Train crew statements and post-incident toxicology — Federal Railroad Administration regulations require post-accident toxicological testing of train crew members following fatal grade crossing collisions. Whether that testing was performed — and what the results showed — must be verified in discovery. The absence of required testing is itself a liability factor. Crew statements may shift over time as the litigation develops; the earliest statements, taken before counsel is involved, are often the most candid.
Traffic signal timing data at nearby intersections — If a traffic signal near the crossing cycles in a way that causes vehicles to queue back over the tracks, this is the proof of a traffic trap. Traffic signal timing data may be modified during routine road maintenance without preservation of historical configurations — which means the timing data from the day of the collision may be overwritten by updated timing plans unless it is demanded quickly.
The driver’s qualification file, hours-of-service logs, and employment records — These establish the driver’s training on railroad crossing procedures, whether fatigue was a factor, his employment status (employee versus owner-operator), and the identity and workers’ compensation status of the trucking company. Driver files may be purged after a driver’s death, and employment records must be preserved before the company modifies or destroys them.
DPS crash investigation report — The Texas Department of Public Safety leads the official investigation, which provides the law enforcement reconstruction, witness statements, and physical evidence documentation. DPS reports typically take sixty to 120 days to complete, but the underlying physical evidence at the scene — skid marks, debris patterns, vehicle positions, sight lines — is lost within hours of the crash being cleared. An independent scene inspection by a reconstruction expert, conducted as soon as possible after the collision, captures evidence that the DPS report may not preserve.
What a Railroad Crossing Death Is Worth in Texas
The value of a railroad crossing wrongful death case turns on two variables: the strength of the liability evidence (which determines whether the comparative negligence stays below the 51% bar) and the damages profile of the person who was killed.
On the liability side, the case exists on a spectrum. If the investigation reveals that the truck was stopped on the tracks because of a traffic trap — a signal timing failure, a queuing problem, or a crossing design that could not accommodate commercial vehicles — the liability shifts toward the railroad and the road authority, and the comparative negligence stays low. If the investigation reveals that the truck stalled or had a mechanical failure, the liability may shift toward the trucking company for negligent maintenance. If the investigation reveals that the crossing signals functioned properly, the warning time was adequate, and the truck was stopped on the tracks for reasons attributable solely to the driver, the comparative negligence climbs toward — and potentially past — the 51% bar.
On the damages side, the driver was 53 years old and employed as a commercial truck driver — a profession with significant earning capacity. At 53, he likely had ten to fifteen remaining working years of income generation. A forensic economist projects the lifetime lost earning capacity using worklife expectancy tables built from federal labor data, adjusted for the trucking industry’s wage patterns, benefits, and the driver’s specific career trajectory. On top of lost earnings, the family’s wrongful death damages include the mental anguish of losing a spouse, parent, or child; the loss of care, support, and guidance the person would have provided; and the loss of the companionship and society that was taken from them.
The survival action adds the conscious pain and suffering the driver experienced between the collision and death. Witness accounts that he was alive in the cab immediately after impact support this component, though the duration and severity of conscious suffering will require medical expert analysis of the mechanism of fatal injury.
Based on the forensic analysis of this incident, the case value ranges from approximately $500,000 on the low end — reflecting a scenario where comparative negligence is found to exceed the 51% bar or where settlement is driven by litigation cost avoidance — to approximately $8,000,000 on the high end, reflecting a proven crossing design defect, traffic trap, or signal failure that trapped the driver on the tracks despite reasonable conduct, combined with full wrongful death and survival damages for a 53-year-old commercial driver with significant remaining earning capacity.
The absence of collisions at this specific crossing for approximately twenty years, according to Union Pacific’s own records, is a powerful defense fact that constrains value — unless discovery reveals unreported near-misses, signal malfunctions, or traffic engineering studies identifying the crossing as hazardous for commercial vehicles. The hazardous nature of the train’s cargo — crude oil, LPG, and hydrochloric acid — may support an argument for an elevated duty of care, but it does not automatically translate into higher damages for the driver’s family.
Punitive damages may be available under Texas law if discovery reveals that Union Pacific had prior notice of dangerous conditions at this crossing or systemic crossing safety deficiencies in Midland County and failed to implement reasonable remedial measures. The November 2012 Show of Support parade float tragedy at a separate Midland crossing — which killed four veterans just seven months before this collision — may be relevant as potential notice of Union Pacific’s awareness of crossing safety issues in the broader Midland area, though the defense will vigorously contest its admissibility and the twenty-year clean record at this specific crossing limits the punitive theory unless unreported near-misses or signal malfunctions are uncovered.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Railroad’s Playbook: What Union Pacific Will Do Next
Union Pacific has been defending grade crossing collisions for over a century. The company has a claims process, a legal team, and a playbook that runs the same way in case after case. Knowing what they will do — before they do it — is how you protect your family.
Play 1: Frame the driver before the family has a lawyer. The railroad’s public statements about the twenty-two-second stoppage and the continuous horn sounding are not neutral factual reporting — they are the opening move in a narrative that puts the driver at fault. By the time the family has counsel, the railroad has already shaped the public story, the DPS investigation’s early impressions, and the witness memories. The counter is independent evidence preservation — the locomotive video, the signal logs, the ECM data, and the scene reconstruction that tell the full story, not the railroad’s excerpt. The preservation letter goes out the day you call us.
Play 2: The friendly “investigator” who wants to help. Within days of the collision, someone from the railroad — or its insurance adjuster, or its contracted investigator — will contact the family. The tone will be sympathetic. The ask will be reasonable: “we just want to understand what happened,” or “can you tell us about your husband’s driving history,” or “we’d like to get a statement while memories are fresh.” Everything said in that conversation is recorded, transcribed, and used to build the comparative negligence case. A grieving spouse who says “he was probably tired” has just handed the railroad a fatigue theory. A parent who says “he sometimes had trouble with directions” has just given them a negligent-routing theory. The counter is simple: do not speak with any railroad representative, insurance adjuster, or investigator without counsel present. Every conversation goes through your lawyer.
Play 3: The quick settlement check. A check may arrive fast — sometimes before the funeral, sometimes before the medical examiner’s report is final. It will come with a release document that, once signed, extinguishes every claim the family has against the railroad, forever, for an amount that is a fraction of what the case is worth. The railroad knows that a family in shock, facing funeral costs and lost income, is most vulnerable in the first weeks. The counter is counsel before signature — an attorney who can evaluate whether the offer bears any relationship to the case’s actual value and who can tell you honestly whether it is fair or whether it is designed to close the file before the evidence is preserved.
Play 4: Point to the twenty-year clean record. Union Pacific’s spokesperson noted that the crossing had not had an accident in approximately twenty years. The defense will use this to argue the crossing was safe and that the collision was an aberration caused by the driver. The counter is twofold: first, the absence of reported collisions does not mean the absence of near-misses, signal malfunctions, or unsafe conditions — it means nobody died. Second, the Permian Basin oil boom dramatically changed the volume and character of traffic using this crossing, which means the crossing’s safety profile in the last few years may bear no resemblance to its twenty-year historical record. Discovery should demand all crossing inspection reports, signal testing records, near-miss reports, and citizen complaints for the crossing — not just the crash history.
Play 5: The “we complied with all federal standards” defense. The railroad will point to its compliance with federal signal requirements, horn standards, and crossing maintenance obligations. The counter is that federal compliance is a floor, not a ceiling — a crossing can meet minimum federal standards and still be unreasonably dangerous for the traffic it actually carries, particularly when the traffic mix has changed dramatically due to the oil boom and the crossing was never re-evaluated for the new conditions.
Play 6: Push comparative negligence past 51%. Every defense motion, every deposition question, every expert report will be designed to push the driver’s fault above 50%. The railroad knows that if it can get the jury to assign 51% of the fault to the driver, the family recovers nothing — no matter how bad the crossing design was, no matter how inadequate the warning time was. The counter is the traffic trap theory, the signal timing evidence, the ECM data, and the crossing geometry analysis — each of which moves percentage points away from the driver and toward the entities that designed, maintained, and controlled the crossing.
How a Railroad Crossing Case Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk of how a railroad crossing wrongful death case is actually built, from the first phone call through resolution.
Week one: the preservation dragnet. The day the family calls, preservation letters go out — not one letter, but a dragnet. To Union Pacific: demand the complete, unedited locomotive video from all camera angles, the event recorder download, the crossing signal system logs, the maintenance records, the inspection reports, the train crew statements, and the post-incident toxicology results. To the trucking company: demand the truck’s ECM/EDR data, the driver qualification file, the hours-of-service logs, the employment records, the vehicle maintenance records, and the dispatch records. To every business near the crossing with a surveillance camera: demand that footage be preserved before it overwrites. To the road authority: demand the traffic signal timing data, the road geometry studies, and any crossing safety evaluations. These letters create a legal duty to preserve — and if evidence disappears after the letter is received, the court can impose sanctions, including an adverse-inference instruction that allows the jury to assume the lost evidence was as bad for the defense as the plaintiff says it was.
Weeks two through four: the downloads and the scene. The truck’s ECM is downloaded by a qualified expert before the vehicle is moved or the battery discharges. The locomotive event recorder data is demanded from Union Pacific — if the railroad resists, a court order follows. The scene is independently inspected by a railroad crossing safety engineer and a train accident reconstructionist, who measure sight distances, crossing geometry, signal placement, guard arm timing, and the relationship between the crossing and nearby traffic signals. Every business with a camera has been canvassed, and surviving footage is secured.
Months two through six: the expert analysis. A railroad crossing safety engineer analyzes the crossing design and signal adequacy — was the warning time sufficient for a commercial vehicle of standard length to clear the crossing after the signals activated? A train accident reconstructionist analyzes the train’s speed, braking profile, and horn compliance — did the engineer brake as soon as reasonably possible, and was the train’s speed reasonable given the hazmat cargo and the crossing’s characteristics? A commercial vehicle operations expert addresses the FMCSA crossing requirements and the truck’s mechanical condition — did the truck stall, or was it trapped? A forensic economist begins building the lost earning capacity model, using worklife expectancy tables and the driver’s career trajectory.
Months six through twelve: discovery and depositions. The records come out. The train crew is deposed — what did the engineer see, when did he see it, when did he brake, how fast was the train going? Union Pacific’s crossing safety personnel are deposed — when was this crossing last evaluated, has the warning time been adjusted for the increased oil boom traffic, were there near-misses or citizen complaints? The trucking company’s safety director is deposed — what training did the driver receive on railroad crossing procedures, what was the maintenance history of the truck, was the route through this crossing chosen by the company or the driver?
The Stowers demand. After sufficient discovery to evaluate the comparative negligence exposure, a Stowers demand is calibrated to the reasonable verdict range — the amount a Midland County jury would likely award, given the evidence. The demand is structured to put pressure on the insurer to settle, because if the verdict exceeds the policy limits and the insurer rejected a reasonable settlement demand within those limits, the insurer can be liable for the excess. Mediation is typically timed after the key depositions, when both sides have a clear picture of the evidence.
Trial. If the case does not settle, it is tried in the Midland County district courts, before a jury of the reader’s neighbors — people who live in the Permian Basin, who know the oil industry, who drive these roads, who may remember the November 2012 parade float tragedy. Voir dire must account for the community’s deep ties to both the oilfield trucking industry and the railroad, the emotional impact of the parade float tragedy on juror perceptions of railroad safety, and the need to educate jurors on traffic trap engineering before the defense frames the twenty-two-second stoppage as simple driver negligence. The trial is where the twenty-two-second question finally gets answered — in front of twelve people who decide whether the driver was more than half at fault, or whether the crossing itself was the killer.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do and What to Refuse
If you are reading this in the hours or days after a railroad crossing collision, here is what matters most — in order.
Do not sign anything. Not a release, not a settlement, not a “authorization to obtain records,” not a “statement of facts.” Nothing. The railroad and its insurers are already working. Their timeline started the moment the collision happened. Yours starts when you have a lawyer. Anything you sign before that moment is designed to limit what you can recover, and it will.
Do not give a recorded statement. To Union Pacific, to the trucking company’s insurer, to any “investigator” who calls the house. The request will sound reasonable — “we just want to get your side of the story” — and the recording will be transcribed, analyzed, and used to build the comparative negligence case against your loved one. Every conversation about the collision goes through counsel. Period.
Do not post on social media. Not about the collision, not about your loved one, not about the railroad, not about the investigation. Insurance adjusters and defense investigators monitor social media, and a post that seems innocuous — a photo, a comment, a check-in — can be taken out of context and used against the family. A post that says “he was probably working too hard” becomes a fatigue theory. A photo of the family at an event becomes a “they seem fine” argument against mental anguish damages. Stay off social media until your lawyer tells you otherwise.
Do call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The call is free. The consultation is free. We work on contingency — we do not get paid unless we win your case. The first thing we do is send the preservation letters that freeze the evidence before it disappears. The locomotive video, the signal logs, the ECM data, the surveillance footage — every piece of evidence that could answer why your loved one was on those tracks is on a clock, and the clock does not stop until a lawyer puts it in writing.
Do gather what you can. Your loved one’s employment records, pay stubs, tax returns, benefits statements, training certificates, driver’s license, medical records (for the survival action), and any correspondence from the trucking company or the railroad. These documents build the damages case — the lost earning capacity, the conscious pain and suffering, the loss to the family. The railroad is already gathering its evidence. You need to gather yours.
Do identify witnesses. If anyone saw the collision, the approach, or the conditions at the crossing, get their names and contact information immediately. Memories fade, witnesses move, and the person who saw whether the traffic was backed up over the tracks — the person who can prove the traffic trap — may not be identified in the DPS report. Witness recollections are most accurate in the first hours and days. After that, they degrade.
Do understand the deadline. Texas gives you two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death and survival action. That sounds like a long time. It is not. The investigation takes months. The evidence preservation takes weeks. The expert analysis takes months more. If you wait a year to call a lawyer, half the evidence may be legally destroyed and the remaining time may not be enough to build the case. The safest move is to call now, while the evidence is still alive and the clock is still running.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the 22-second stoppage on the tracks mean the driver was at fault?
No. Twenty-two seconds tells you how long the truck was on the tracks — it does not tell you why. Commercial trucks end up stopped on railroad crossings for many reasons that have nothing to do with driver negligence: traffic signals that queue vehicles back over the rails, crossing signals that activate too late for a long-wheelbase vehicle to clear, mechanical failures that stall the truck, and crossing designs that do not accommodate the vehicles actually using them. The central question in any railroad crossing case is not how long the vehicle was on the tracks, but why it was there — and that answer is determined by the evidence, not by the duration.
Can we still recover if the driver was partly at fault?
Yes — up to a point. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51% bar. If the driver is found to be 50% or less at fault, the family’s recovery is reduced by that percentage but not eliminated. If the driver is found to be 51% or more at fault, the family is barred from recovering anything. This is why the railroad works so hard to frame the driver as primarily responsible — every percentage point of fault assigned to the driver moves the case closer to the bar. The defense is evidence that shifts fault to the railroad, the road authority, or the trucking company — and that evidence is what the investigation is designed to find.
How long do we have to file a lawsuit?
Texas applies a two-year statute of limitations for wrongful death and survival actions, running from the date of death. This is a hard deadline — miss it and the case is over, no matter how strong the evidence is. There may be tolling provisions that apply to an out-of-state decedent’s family, but the safe assumption is that the two-year clock is running. Additionally, if a governmental entity (TxDOT, the City of Midland, or Midland County) bears liability for a traffic trap or road design defect, the Texas Tort Claims Act imposes notice-of-claim deadlines that are far shorter than two years — potentially as short as a few months. This is why contacting counsel early is not just about preserving evidence — it is about preserving the right to file at all.
What if the trucking company was at fault?
If the driver was an employee, the trucking company may owe workers’ compensation death benefits regardless of fault. In Texas, employers can choose to subscribe to workers’ compensation or opt out — and if the company is a non-subscriber, it can be sued directly in tort for negligent vehicle maintenance, negligent routing through a hazardous crossing, or inadequate training on railroad crossing procedures. The trucking company’s identity, DOT number, safety record, and workers’ compensation status must be established through the truck’s registration and employment records. The trucking company may be a separate defendant from Union Pacific, with its own insurance and its own liability exposure.
What evidence disappears the fastest?
The fastest-dying evidence is the nearby business surveillance footage — convenience store and gas station cameras typically overwrite every seven to thirty days, and the Kent Kwik at Fairgrounds Road and Front Street had a direct sight line to the crossing. The locomotive video may be overwritten within thirty to ninety days under Union Pacific’s own retention policies. The truck’s ECM data can be lost if the vehicle is moved, repaired, or if the battery discharges. The crossing signal system logs may be overwritten on regular maintenance cycles. Every one of these records is on a clock, and the only thing that stops the clock is a preservation letter from counsel.
Who investigates the crash?
The Texas Department of Public Safety leads the official law enforcement investigation, with Midland County deputies and Midland police and fire responding. Union Pacific also conducts its own investigation — which creates an inherent conflict of interest, because the railroad is investigating the same collision for which it may be held legally responsible. The railroad controls the locomotive video, the event recorder data, and the crossing signal logs — the most critical evidence in the case — and its investigation serves both safety and litigation purposes. This is why independent evidence preservation by the family’s counsel is essential: the evidence cannot be left solely in the hands of the party that has the most to lose if it shows a crossing failure.
What if the crossing signals malfunctioned?
If the crossing signals did not activate properly — if they activated too late, if the guard arms did not descend, or if the warning time was inadequate for a commercial vehicle to clear the crossing — this is evidence of negligence by Union Pacific, which owns and maintains the crossing signal system. Federal Railroad Administration regulations at 49 CFR Part 234 govern signal system testing, inspection, and maintenance, and compliance with these regulations must be verified in discovery. The crossing signal system logs and maintenance records are the proof — and they are perishable. A signal malfunction that trapped the truck on the tracks is one of the strongest liability theories for the family, because it shifts fault directly to the railroad.
What is the case worth?
The value depends on two variables: the strength of the liability evidence (which determines whether comparative negligence stays below the 51% bar) and the damages profile of the person killed. Based on the forensic analysis of this incident, the case value ranges from approximately $500,000 on the low end — where comparative negligence exceeds the bar or settlement is driven by cost avoidance — to approximately $8,000,000 on the high end, reflecting a proven crossing design defect or signal failure with full wrongful death and survival damages for a 53-year-old commercial driver. No lawyer can promise a specific result. What we can do is build the strongest possible case from the evidence, and let the value follow the proof.
Was the train’s hazardous cargo relevant to the case?
The train was carrying crude oil, liquid petroleum gas, and hydrochloric acid — all hazardous materials. None of the tanks leaked, and no community exposure occurred. However, the hazmat cargo is relevant in two ways. First, it may support an argument for an elevated duty of care — a train carrying materials that could cause mass casualties if released arguably owes a higher standard of care to the communities it passes through, particularly at grade crossings where collisions are foreseeable. Second, it underscores the severity of the risk that a crossing safety failure creates — not just for the driver on the tracks, but for the surrounding community. The defense will argue the cargo is irrelevant because no leak occurred. The plaintiff can argue the cargo is relevant to the reasonableness of the train’s speed and the adequacy of the crossing’s warning systems.
Can we sue Union Pacific even if the trucking company has workers’ compensation?
Yes. The workers’ compensation exclusive remedy bars a negligence suit against the employer — but it does not bar a third-party claim against Union Pacific, which is a separate entity from the trucking company. The third-party claim against the railroad is independent of any workers’ compensation claim and allows the estate to pursue the full measure of tort damages, including pain and suffering and the human losses that workers’ compensation never pays. In many fatal crossing cases, the workers’ compensation death benefit is a floor — a guaranteed payment regardless of fault — and the railroad claim is where the real recovery lives.
Why This Firm
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — which means he knows how to find the story the evidence tells, and he knows how to tell it to a jury. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He handles wrongful death cases and 18-wheeler collision cases across Texas, and he has built this firm around the principle that the company’s choices — not the victim’s — are where the case is won.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims exactly like yours. He knows how claims are valued from the inside, how IME doctors are selected, how surveillance is deployed, and how the delay tactics work. He now sits on your side of the table. And he conducts full client consultations in Spanish, without an interpreter — because every family in Texas deserves to understand their rights in the language they think in.
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. The call is free. And we have 24/7 live staff — not an answering service, but people who can take your call at 2 a.m. and start the preservation process before the sun comes up.
We serve families across Texas from our offices in Houston, Austin, and Beaumont, and we take cases in Midland County and throughout the Permian Basin. The oilfield trucking corridors of West Texas are some of the most dangerous roads in the state, and the rail lines that cross them carry hazmat through the same crossings that oilfield trucks navigate every day. We know this terrain — the roads, the rail lines, the courthouses, and the industries that created the danger.
Hablamos Español.
If your family is facing the loss of someone killed at a railroad crossing — in Midland, in the Permian Basin, anywhere in Texas — the evidence is dying and the clock is running. The single most important step you can take is the one that stops both.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win.