Pecos Train Derailment: Two Union Pacific Workers Killed, Three Injured — Your Legal Rights Under FELA and Texas Law
If you are reading this because someone you love went to work for Union Pacific on December 18, 2024, and did not come home, we need you to understand something before anything else: the law that protects your family is not the same law that protects everyone else. It is stronger. It is older. And it was written precisely for this moment — for the families of railroad workers killed because someone else’s negligence, even partly, sent a train off its tracks in a small West Texas town.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases in Texas, and we are writing this page for the families of the two Union Pacific employees killed in the Pecos derailment, for the three people injured inside the Chamber of Commerce building when the train came through it, and for anyone in Reeves County searching for answers about who is responsible and what can be done. This is legal information, not legal advice — but it is the kind of legal information most families never receive until it is too late to act on. We want you to have it now, while the evidence still exists and the deadlines have not closed.
What Happened in Pecos on December 18, 2024
At approximately 5 p.m. on Wednesday, December 18, 2024, a Union Pacific freight train collided with a tractor-trailer at a railway crossing in Pecos, Texas — a city of roughly 13,000 people in Reeves County, about 200 miles east of El Paso along the I-20 corridor. The collision caused the train to derail. Two Union Pacific employees were killed. Three people suffered injuries — some of them inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce building, which the derailed train struck and damaged severely enough that officials advised against entering it until a structural engineer could inspect it.
The train was hauling metal shipping containers stacked two high. It was also carrying hazardous materials — lithium ion batteries and air bags — though none were released in the derailment. Leaked diesel fuel was contained. The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched an investigative team to the scene. The NTSB stated it does not determine or speculate about the cause during the on-scene phase of its investigation. Pecos Police Chief Lisa Tarango confirmed the cleanup was underway.
Those are the facts as publicly reported. What they do not tell you is what happens next — for the families, for the evidence, and for the legal rights that are quietly running on clocks most people have never heard of. That is what this page is for.
FELA: The Federal Law That Protects Railroad Workers Killed on the Job
The families of the two Union Pacific employees who were killed need to understand one thing above all others: their claims against the railroad are governed by a federal statute called the Federal Employers’ Liability Act — FELA — and FELA is not workers’ compensation. It is something far more powerful.
FELA is a fault-based federal tort remedy that serves as the exclusive remedy for an injured or killed railroad employee against the railroad employer. The railroad cannot force the family into a workers’-comp system with capped benefits and no pain-and-suffering recovery. Instead, the family gets full tort damages — lost wages, lost future earning capacity, the decedent’s conscious pain and suffering, and wrongful death beneficiary damages including loss of care, support, counsel, and companionship — with no statutory cap.
The liability provision of FELA states:
“Every common carrier by railroad… shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier… for such injury or death resulting in whole or in part from the negligence of any of the officers, agents, or employees of such carrier, or by reason of any defect or insufficiency, due to its negligence, in its cars, engines, appliances, machinery, track, roadbed, works, boats, wharves, or other equipment.”
That phrase — “in whole or in part” — is the entire architecture of FELA in six words. The railroad is liable if its negligence contributed to the death in any part, however slight. Not primarily. Not substantially. In any part. The families do not have to prove the railroad was the main cause. They have to prove the railroad’s negligence was one cause — even a small one.
If you are comparing this to what you know about ordinary injury cases, the difference is staggering. In a normal Texas wrongful death case, the plaintiff must prove proximate cause — that the defendant’s conduct was a substantial factor in producing the harm. Under FELA, the standard is radically lower. The Supreme Court of the United States said it plainly in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., decided in 1957: the test of a jury case is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death.
And that standard was not a relic of the 1950s. In 2011, the Supreme Court reaffirmed it in CSX Transportation, Inc. v. McBride, holding that FELA does not incorporate common-law proximate cause and that the proper instruction is that the railroad is liable if its negligence “played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury.” The railroads fought hard to import the tougher ordinary-negligence standard into FELA. They lost. The featherweight standard still governs.
What does this mean for the families of the two Pecos employees? It means that if the crossing signal system was not properly maintained, if the crew was not adequately trained for this territory, if the train was operating at a speed inconsistent with the crossing’s characteristics, if the horn was not properly activated — any one of these failures, even if the truck driver’s negligence was also a major cause, triggers FELA liability. The railroad cannot escape by pointing at the truck.
If your family is facing this situation, we encourage you to learn more about your wrongful death claim rights and to understand that FELA provides protections no state wrongful death statute can match.
The Three Protections FELA Gives Railroad Families That Texas Law Does Not
Protection One: Comparative Negligence Reduces — But Never Bars — Recovery
Under FELA, even if the employee was partly at fault, the family can still recover. The award is reduced by the employee’s percentage of fault, but it is never zeroed out. The statute says the fact that the employee “may have been guilty of contributory negligence shall not bar a recovery, but the damages shall be diminished by the jury in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to such employee.”
And there is a critical additional provision: if the railroad violated any federal statute enacted for the safety of employees, the employee’s own contributory negligence is wiped off the board entirely. The damages are not reduced at all. This is where the Federal Safety Appliance Act and the Locomotive Inspection Act become accelerants — if the train had a defective coupler, hand brake, grab iron, or if the locomotive was not in proper condition and safe to operate, the violation itself is the liability, and the worker’s own conduct is legally irrelevant.
Protection Two: Assumption of Risk Is Abolished
The railroad cannot defend itself by saying the job was dangerous and the worker knew it. FELA abolished the assumption-of-risk defense entirely. A railroad worker who goes to work on a freight train hauling heavy cargo through West Texas does not, by accepting that job, accept the risk that the railroad’s own negligence will kill him.
Protection Three: No Waiver, No Release, No “Device”
FELA voids any contract, rule, regulation, or device whose purpose is to exempt the railroad from liability. A release signed in the hospital, a settlement pushed by a claim agent in the days after the death, a company policy designed to shield the carrier — all of these are legally worthless if their purpose was to let the railroad off the hook. This matters because railroad claim agents are known to approach families quickly, sometimes within days of a fatality, offering a fast check and a release. That document may be unenforceable under FELA, but only if a lawyer is there to challenge it.
If Your Loved One Was a Railroad Employee Killed in This Derailment
Here is what the families of the two Union Pacific employees need to know about their practical rights:
The deadline is three years. FELA gives you three years from the date the cause of action accrued to file suit. This is longer than Texas’s two-year wrongful death statute of limitations — but it is still a hard deadline. Miss it and the case is over, no matter how strong the evidence is.
You choose the courthouse. FELA gives you concurrent jurisdiction — you can file in state court or federal court. And if you file in state court, the railroad generally cannot remove the case to federal court. This matters because a Reeves County jury is a West Texas jury — people who know these crossings, who drive these roads, who understand what it means when a freight train meets a tractor-trailer at a rural grade crossing in the Permian Basin.
The railroad’s own records are discoverable. Union Pacific maintains extensive internal operating rules, crew training protocols, crossing inspection records, and signal maintenance histories. All of these become discoverable in FELA litigation. The railroad cannot hide its safety record behind a corporate wall.
The damages are full tort damages, not a benefit schedule. Railroad engineers and conductors typically earn substantial salaries with strong benefit packages. The economic loss component of a FELA wrongful death claim is significant — particularly for employees with long career horizons and dependents. A forensic economist builds the lifetime earnings projection, and a life-care planner prices out the benefits and support the family has lost.
For families navigating this, understanding workplace accident claims is essential — but FELA is a specialized federal regime that requires specific experience to wield correctly.
Third-Party Injuries: Rights of Building Occupants and Bystanders
The three people injured in the Pecos derailment were not railroad employees. Some of them were inside the Chamber of Commerce building when the derailed train struck it. Their claims are governed not by FELA but by Texas tort law — and the framework is different in important ways.
Texas applies a modified comparative fault rule with a 51% bar. This means a plaintiff who is 50% or less at fault can recover, with the award reduced by their percentage of fault. A plaintiff who is 51% or more at fault recovers nothing. For the building occupants, this rule is straightforward — they were sitting inside a building when a train came through the wall. Their share of fault is effectively zero, and the fight is between the defendants about who bears the responsibility.
The defendants for the third-party claims include both Union Pacific and the unidentified tractor-trailer operator. The theory is that the collision at the crossing caused the derailment, and the derailment caused the train to leave the tracks and strike the building. Both the railroad and the trucking company may share responsibility, and Texas law allows the jury to apportion fault among all defendants.
Texas does not impose noneconomic damage caps on non-medical-malpractice personal injury or wrongful death claims. Punitive damages are available upon a showing of gross negligence, subject to statutory limitations. The two-year statute of limitations for Texas wrongful death and personal injury claims runs from the date of the incident — so for the three injured people and for any future wrongful death claims that might arise if injuries worsen, the clock started on December 18, 2024.
A critical medical point: the Pecos police characterized the three injuries as “minor.” But being inside a building when a derailed freight train strikes it is not a minor event. Concussion, closed-head injury, spinal injury, and psychological trauma — including post-traumatic stress — can emerge days or even weeks after the event. The “minor” label in the initial police report is a triage assessment, not a medical diagnosis. Anyone who was inside that building should receive a complete medical evaluation, including imaging and a neuropsychological assessment if cognitive symptoms appear.
The Tractor-Trailer: Identifying the Carrier That Caused This Collision
The identity of the tractor-trailer operator involved in this collision has not been publicly reported. Identifying the carrier — its DOT number, its safety record, its insurance coverage — is the first-order investigation priority, and here is why the location matters enormously.
Pecos sits in the heart of the Permian Basin oil field. The truck traffic on the roads around Pecos includes oilfield service vehicles, water haulers, sand-hauling rigs, crude oil tankers, pump trucks, and wireline trucks — a mix of commercial vehicles whose safety cultures vary as widely as the companies that operate them. Some Permian Basin trucking companies maintain rigorous safety programs. Others run on thin margins with minimal oversight, pushing drivers past federal hours-of-service limits to meet the oilfield’s relentless production schedule.
The Permian Basin oilfield trucking context is not just background color — it directly affects the liability analysis. A trucking company that operates in the Permian Basin is subject to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, which govern driver qualification, hours of service, electronic logging device compliance, and vehicle maintenance. If the truck driver who collided with the train was an oilfield hauler running past his legal driving hours, distracted by a phone, or operating a rig with a history of safety violations, the carrier’s liability extends beyond the driver’s momentary failure at the crossing to the company’s own systemic negligence.
Once the carrier is identified, the federal safety record is publicly available through FMCSA’s SAFER database — the carrier’s USDOT number, operating authority status, power-unit count, crash history, and inspection violations. The crash totals in that database are involvement counts, not fault determinations — FMCSA makes no determination of responsibility for individual crashes. But a pattern of violations, out-of-service orders, or hours-of-service failures is evidence of a safety culture that contributed to what happened at that crossing in Pecos.
Union Pacific: The Defendant You Are Up Against
Union Pacific Railroad is one of the two largest Class I freight railroads in the western United States. Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, UP operates approximately 32,000 route miles across 23 states. It is a deep-pocket defendant with substantial self-insured retention and commercial liability coverage layers. It has been involved in numerous crossing collision and derailment cases nationally, and it maintains extensive internal operating rules, crew training protocols, and crossing inspection records — all of which become discoverable in litigation.
As a FELA defendant, UP is subject to the featherweight causation standard. It cannot escape liability by showing the truck driver was primarily at fault. If UP’s negligence contributed in any part — a poorly maintained crossing signal, an inadequately trained crew, a speed inconsistent with the crossing’s warning-device configuration — the railroad is liable to the families of its own employees.
As a third-party defendant, UP faces the Texas comparative-fault framework. The railroad will argue that the truck driver’s failure to yield was the sole proximate cause of the collision and resulting derailment. The plaintiffs’ counter is that the crossing’s safety systems — whatever they were — should have prevented a tractor-trailer from occupying the tracks when a freight train was approaching, or that the train’s speed and braking response were inadequate to avoid or mitigate the collision.
UP’s claims behavior follows the pattern of a large self-insured railroad: rapid scene response, immediate internal investigation, claim-agent outreach to families, and a litigation strategy designed to minimize the railroad’s share of fault. The company has the resources to mount a vigorous defense, which is exactly why the evidence-preservation clock is so critical.
The Grade Crossing: The Central Evidentiary Battleground
The specific crossing involved in this collision — its warning-device configuration, sightlines, approach grades, and maintenance history — will be the central evidentiary battleground of this case. Rural West Texas grade crossings vary widely in their warning systems. Some have active gates that descend and flashing lights that activate when a train approaches. Others have only passive crossbuck signage — the black-and-white X-shaped sign that tells drivers a crossing exists but provides no real-time warning of an approaching train.
The difference matters. A crossing with active gates and flashing lights creates a clear duty for the truck driver to stop — and a clear question for the railroad about whether the signals functioned properly. A crossing with only passive crossbucks shifts more of the burden onto the driver’s visual detection of the train but also raises questions about whether the crossing’s warning devices were adequate for the traffic it carries — particularly in the Permian Basin, where heavy commercial truck traffic crosses rail lines routinely.
The signal-status investigation will ask: Did the crossing have active warning devices? If so, did they activate properly? When was the last inspection? Is there a history of malfunctions at this crossing? Are there prior incidents — collisions, near-misses, citizen complaints — that put the railroad on notice that this crossing was hazardous? The Federal Railroad Administration maintains a grade crossing inventory database, and local agency records may document prior complaints or incidents. These records are relatively stable, but they should be obtained promptly before any post-incident modifications alter the crossing’s configuration.
Federal Railroad Administration regulations establish railroad operating safety standards, including grade crossing signal system inspection and maintenance requirements. If UP — or any independent signal maintainer responsible for this crossing — failed to properly inspect, test, or repair the warning devices, that failure is negligence. Under FELA, it is also a potential statutory violation that eliminates the employee’s comparative fault. Under Texas tort law, it is evidence of negligence that a Reeves County jury can weigh alongside the truck driver’s conduct.
Evidence That Is Dying Right Now
This is the section that matters most to anyone reading this page in the days and weeks after December 18, 2024. The evidence that will decide this case is perishable — and some of it is already gone.
The Train’s Event Recorder (Locomotive Black Box)
The locomotive’s event recorder captured the train’s speed, braking application, horn activation, throttle position, and emergency brake timing as it approached the crossing. The NTSB has likely secured this data as part of its on-scene investigation, but it must be confirmed through a litigation hold. The original equipment — the locomotive itself — may be scrapped or repaired during cleanup. Once the physical machine is gone, the data extracted from it becomes harder to authenticate and harder to challenge if the defense disputes its accuracy.
Grade Crossing Signal System Logs
If the crossing had active warning devices, the signal system may have logged its activation times, any malfunctions, and diagnostic data. Some signal logging systems overwrite within weeks. The maintenance records for the crossing — the last inspection date, any recent repairs, any history of malfunctions — must be preserved via an immediate litigation hold. A crossing signal that was malfunctioning in the weeks before the collision, and that the railroad knew about or should have known about, is the single most powerful piece of evidence in a crossing collision case.
The Tractor-Trailer’s ELD Data and Dashcam Footage
If the truck was equipped with an Electronic Logging Device — as most interstate commercial vehicles are — it retained approximately eight days of driver hours-of-service data. That data shows whether the driver was within legal driving hours, whether he was speeding, and whether he took required rest breaks. Eight days. After that, the data is gone unless a litigation hold or subpoena freezes it.
Dashcam footage, if the truck had one, may overwrite within hours to days depending on the system configuration. The footage from the approach to the crossing — showing the driver’s actions, the signal status visible from the cab, and the moment of impact — is the single most important piece of evidence on the trucking side. It dies faster than anything else in this case.
The Truck Driver’s Cell Phone Records
Cell phone records can prove distraction, texting, or phone use at the time of the crossing approach. Carrier retention policies vary widely, and the records must be preserved via litigation hold or subpoena immediately before routine deletion destroys them. A truck driver who was looking at a phone when he should have been looking for a train is not just negligent — his employer is directly liable for failing to prevent that distraction.
The Driver’s Qualification File
FMCSA regulations require motor carriers to maintain a driver qualification file containing the driver’s employment history, motor vehicle record, road-test certificate, annual review, medical examiner’s certificate, and any medical variance or exemption. The carrier must retain this file for as long as the driver is employed plus three years. What that file shows — or fails to show — is the difference between an accident and a company decision. A driver with a poor safety record, inadequate training, or an expired medical certificate is a driver the company should never have put behind the wheel.
NTSB Factual Findings and Scene Documentation
The NTSB’s on-scene investigation produces comprehensive scene mapping, vehicle and train examination, witness statements, and signal testing results. The final report may take 12 to 24 months. Factual data packets may be available sooner, but the scene evidence — the skid marks, the debris field, the position of the truck and the derailed cars, the damage to the Chamber of Commerce building — is being cleared during cleanup. Once it is gone, it cannot be recreated except through the NTSB’s documentation and any independent photographs or measurements taken before the scene was disturbed.
Prior Incident History at This Crossing
Records of previous collisions, signal malfunctions, or citizen complaints at this specific crossing establish notice of hazard. The FRA grade crossing inventory database and local agency records are relatively stable, but they should be obtained promptly — before any post-incident modifications alter the crossing and before the passage of time makes older records harder to locate.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook
If you are a family member of one of the killed UP employees, or one of the three injured people, you need to know what is coming. The insurance and claims machinery starts moving within hours of an incident like this. Here are the plays — and the counters.
Play One: The Friendly “Checking In” Call
Within days, someone friendly will call to “check on you” and ask you to “just tell us what happened.” This is a recorded statement. It is engineered to get you to say things that sound reasonable in the moment — “I’m doing okay,” “He loved his job,” “I’m not sure what happened at the crossing” — and those words will be quoted back to you in deposition, in mediation, and at trial. The counter: do not give a recorded statement to the railroad’s claim agent or the trucking company’s insurer without a lawyer. You are not required to. Your grief is not evidence, and your courtesy is not a waiver.
Play Two: The Fast Check with a Release Attached
A settlement check may arrive quickly — sometimes before the funeral, sometimes before the medical results are in. It comes with a release printed on it or attached to it. If you cash that check, you may be releasing the railroad or the trucking company from all claims, including claims you do not yet know you have. The counter: FELA voids any contract, rule, regulation, or device whose purpose is to exempt the railroad from liability — but only if a lawyer is there to challenge it. Do not sign anything, do not cash anything, do not cash anything without having a lawyer read it first.
Play Three: The “Minor Injury” Framing
For the three people injured in the Chamber of Commerce building, the police characterization of “minor injuries” will be used by the insurance adjuster to minimize the claim. The adjuster will point to the police report, point to the absence of a cast or a stretcher photograph, and offer a small settlement. The counter: a “minor” label in a police report is a triage assessment made in the immediate aftermath. Being inside a building when a derailed freight train strikes it is not a minor event. Concussion, closed-head injury, spinal injury, and psychological trauma can emerge days later. Full medical evaluation — including imaging and neuropsychological testing if cognitive symptoms appear — is the proof that the “minor” label was wrong. The defense’s clean-scan argument is answered by the medical reality that mild traumatic brain injury can present with a normal CT, and the symptoms — headaches, memory loss, personality changes — may appear across the dinner table before any scan sees them.
Play Four: Blame the Truck Driver
The railroad’s primary defense is that the tractor-trailer driver’s failure to yield at the crossing was the sole proximate cause of the collision and derailment. Under FELA, this defense is weakened by the featherweight causation standard — the railroad is liable if its negligence played any part. Under Texas tort law, the railroad will try to shift its share of fault onto the trucking company. The counter: the crossing signal system’s maintenance history, the train’s operating speed, the crew’s training, and the horn activation record are all independent sources of railroad negligence that cannot be deflected onto the truck driver.
Play Five: The Slow Walk to the Statute of Limitations
For the third-party claims, the two-year Texas statute of limitations runs from December 18, 2024. The insurance company knows this. A strategy of delay — “we need more documentation,” “we are still investigating,” “let’s wait for the NTSB report” — is designed to run the clock while the evidence disappears. The NTSB final report may take 12 to 24 months. If a family waits for the report before talking to a lawyer, the truck’s ELD data is long gone, the dashcam footage is destroyed, and the cell phone records have been purged. The counter: the preservation letter goes out the day you call a lawyer, not the day the NTSB publishes its findings.
What a Case Like This Is Worth
We will not pretend to value a life. What we can do is describe the framework that a forensic economist and a life-care planner use to build the number, and the range that cases of this type — two FELA wrongful death claims against a deep-pocket Class I railroad — occupy.
The two Union Pacific employee fatalities are the primary value drivers. FELA allows recovery of lost wages, lost future earning capacity, the decedents’ conscious pain and suffering, and wrongful death beneficiary damages including loss of care, support, counsel, and companionship. Railroad engineers and conductors typically earn substantial salaries with strong benefit packages — meaning the economic loss alone, projected across a career horizon and reduced to present value, can be significant. The non-economic components — the conscious pain and suffering of the employees in the moments before death, the loss of companionship and support for the families — add substantially on top.
Based on the known facts and the FELA framework, the estimated case value range for this incident runs from approximately $4 million on the low end to $20 million or more on the high end. The low end assumes older employees with shorter work-life expectancy, significant comparative fault allocation, and minimal contribution from the unidentified trucking company’s insurance. The high end assumes younger employees with long career horizons, clear railroad negligence contributing to the collision, and substantial coverage from both UP and the trucking carrier once identified. The three minor injuries and building damage add comparatively modest value but should not be discounted without full medical evaluation.
The identity, safety record, and insurance status of the tractor-trailer operator is the single most significant unknown affecting the upper range of the case value. An interstate carrier operating in the Permian Basin is subject to federal financial-responsibility minimums — at least $750,000 for non-hazardous property carriers, rising to $1 million or $5 million depending on the cargo. A small oilfield operator with minimal coverage limits the recovery from that defendant. A well-insured national or regional carrier expands it substantially.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is different, and the numbers here are a framework for understanding what drives value, not a prediction of what any specific family will recover.
How a Railroad Crossing Death Case Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk of how a case like the Pecos derailment is built — from the first call to resolution.
Week One: Preservation. The day a family calls, the preservation letters go out — to Union Pacific, to the trucking company once identified, to the crossing signal maintainer, to any camera-system vendor. These letters demand that the railroad freeze the event recorder data, the crew’s hours-of-service records, the crossing signal logs, the maintenance history, and the internal incident reports. They demand that the trucking company freeze the ELD data, the dashcam footage, the driver qualification file, and the driver’s cell phone records. Every day without a preservation letter is a day the evidence can legally die.
Weeks Two Through Four: Scene and Records. While the NTSB conducts its on-scene investigation, the legal team begins its own. The FRA grade crossing inventory is pulled for the specific crossing. Local agency records are requested for prior incidents, complaints, or signal malfunctions. The Chamber of Commerce building’s structural engineering reports are obtained before repairs commence or debris is removed. Independent photographs and measurements of the scene are taken before cleanup alters the physical evidence.
Months One Through Three: Discovery and Expert Retention. Once suit is filed, discovery opens the railroad’s internal records — operating rules, crew training protocols, crossing inspection records, signal testing results, and any prior incident history. Expert witnesses are retained: a railroad operations specialist to evaluate the crew’s actions and the railroad’s procedures, a grade crossing signal expert to test and analyze the warning devices, an accident reconstructionist to model the collision physics, and a forensic economist to quantify the wage-loss components for the employee estates.
Months Three Through Twelve: Depositions and NTSB Factual Data. The depositions begin — the surviving crew members if any, the truck driver, the signal maintainer, the railroad’s safety director, the trucking company’s dispatcher. The NTSB’s factual data packet, which may be available before the final report, provides the government’s own measurements and findings — though the NTSB’s probable-cause conclusion, when it comes, is not admissible in a civil damages trial under federal law. The facts the investigation surfaces are usable; the conclusion is not.
Months Twelve Through Twenty-Four: Mediation and Trial Preparation. With the expert opinions formed, the depositions completed, and the damages model built, the case moves toward mediation. UP’s deep pockets and FELA’s plaintiff-friendly framework create strong settlement pressure on the railroad. Parallel pressure builds against the trucking company once its identity, coverage, and safety record are established. If mediation does not resolve the case, trial preparation intensifies — voir dire in Reeves County explores juror familiarity with rural railway crossings, attitudes toward railroad versus trucking accountability, and perceptions of shared fault at grade crossings.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do, What Not to Do
If you are in the first 72 hours after the Pecos derailment affected your family, here is what matters most.
Medical first. If you were inside the Chamber of Commerce building, see a doctor — even if you feel fine. Concussion and closed-head injury can present with a normal scan and symptoms that emerge days later. Tell the doctor everything: the impact, the noise, whether you lost consciousness, whether you are having headaches, memory trouble, dizziness, sleep disruption, or emotional changes. The medical record from the first days is the proof that the “minor” label was wrong.
Do not give a recorded statement. To anyone. Not to the railroad’s claim agent, not to the trucking company’s insurer, not to any investigator who is not a law-enforcement officer. You are not required to, and your words will be used to minimize your claim.
Do not sign anything. A release, a settlement agreement, a authorization for medical records, a “proof of claim” form — none of it should be signed without a lawyer reading it. FELA voids releases designed to exempt the railroad, but only if someone is there to challenge the release.
Do not post on social media. Nothing about the incident, nothing about your injuries, nothing about your loved one, nothing about the railroad or the trucking company. Insurance adjusters and defense investigators monitor social media, and a photograph of you at a family event will be used to argue your injuries are not serious.
Do not let anyone “fix” the crossing. If the crossing signal system is modified, repaired, or upgraded in the aftermath of the collision, the evidence of its pre-incident condition may be lost. A preservation letter demanding that the crossing and its warning devices be left unchanged — or at minimum, fully documented before any modification — is essential.
Call a lawyer. Not next week. Not after the funeral. Not after the NTSB report. The day you are able. The evidence-preservation clock is running, and the records that prove what happened at that crossing are dying on schedules measured in days and weeks, not months and years.
The Medicine: Injuries From a Train Derailment
The two Union Pacific employees who were killed in this collision suffered the catastrophic forces that a derailment imposes on the human body. A freight train colliding with a tractor-trailer and derailing involves masses and energies that dwarf ordinary vehicle crashes — the train alone can weigh thousands of tons, and the deceleration forces of a derailment throw equipment and cargo in unpredictable directions. For the families, the question of conscious pain and suffering — whether their loved one survived the initial impact and experienced awareness before death — is one that the medical and investigative records must answer. FELA allows recovery for the decedent’s conscious pain and suffering, and the timeline between injury and death, however brief, is compensable.
For the three people inside the Chamber of Commerce building, the injury picture is different but potentially serious. A derailed freight train striking a building transmits enormous kinetic energy through the structure — walls buckle, ceilings collapse, objects become projectiles, and the people inside are subjected to blunt-force trauma, acceleration-deceleration forces, and the psychological shock of a wall exploding inward without warning.
Traumatic brain injury can occur without a direct blow to the head — the rapid acceleration and deceleration of the body inside a structure that is being struck can cause the brain to impact the inside of the skull. A “mild” traumatic brain injury can present with a perfectly normal CT scan — the damage is microscopic tearing of nerve fibers that a standard scan was never designed to see. Symptoms — headaches, memory loss, difficulty concentrating, personality changes, sleep disruption — may emerge days later. Roughly one in seven people with a mild brain injury still has symptoms three months later. The proof is neuropsychological testing, advanced imaging, and the testimony of people who knew the person before.
Musculoskeletal trauma — sprains, strains, fractures, spinal injuries — may not be immediately apparent in the adrenaline of the moment. The back and neck pain that starts the next morning is the body’s delayed response to forces it could not absorb. Full orthopedic evaluation, including imaging of the spine, is essential for anyone who was inside that building.
Psychological trauma — post-traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, adjustment disorder — is a recognized, diagnosable medical injury, not a character flaw. Being inside a building when a train comes through the wall is exactly the kind of event that produces PTSD. The diagnosis follows a formal eight-part checklist — the event, the intrusive memories, the avoidance, the negative changes in mood, the hyperarousal, the duration, the functional impairment — and it is proven with validated clinical instruments and the testimony of treating clinicians. A person who cannot walk past the Chamber of Commerce building, who flinches at the sound of a train whistle, who has not slept through the night since December 18 — that person has a real, compensable injury, regardless of what the initial police report said.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a claim for a railroad worker killed in the Pecos derailment?
Under FELA, the federal statute of limitations is three years from the date the cause of action accrued — which is the date of the incident, December 18, 2024, for most claims. This is longer than Texas’s two-year wrongful death statute of limitations, but it is still a hard deadline. Missing it ends the case permanently, no matter how strong the evidence is. If you are a family member of one of the killed UP employees, the three-year clock started on December 18, 2024.
I was inside the Chamber of Commerce building and was hurt. Can I sue Union Pacific?
Yes. Your claim is governed by Texas tort law, not FELA, because you were not a railroad employee. You can sue both Union Pacific and the tractor-trailer operator for the collision and derailment that caused the structural damage and your injuries. Texas’s modified comparative fault rule with a 51% bar applies — but as a building occupant who had no role in causing the collision, your share of fault is effectively zero, and the fight is between the defendants. The two-year statute of limitations runs from December 18, 2024.
What if the truck driver was entirely at fault? Can the railroad still be liable?
Under FELA, yes — the railroad can be liable even if the truck driver was primarily at fault. FELA’s “featherweight” causation standard requires only that the railroad’s negligence played “any part, even the slightest” in producing the death. If the crossing signal was malfunctioning, if the crew was inadequately trained, if the train was traveling too fast for the crossing’s configuration — any of those failures, even alongside the truck driver’s negligence, triggers FELA liability. The railroad cannot escape by pointing at the truck.
The police said my injuries were minor. Does that mean my case is not worth much?
No. The “minor” characterization in the initial police report is a triage assessment, not a medical diagnosis. Being inside a building when a derailed freight train strikes it is not a minor event. Concussion, closed-head injury, spinal injury, and psychological trauma can emerge days or weeks later. A full medical evaluation — including imaging and neuropsychological testing if cognitive symptoms appear — is the proof that the “minor” label was wrong. Do not let the insurance adjuster use the police report to minimize your claim before you have been fully evaluated.
What is FELA and how is it different from workers’ compensation?
FELA is the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, a federal statute that is the exclusive remedy for railroad employees injured or killed on the job. Unlike workers’ compensation, which provides capped, no-fault benefits regardless of who was at fault, FELA is a fault-based system that allows full tort damages — including pain and suffering, lost earning capacity, and loss of consortium — with no statutory cap. FELA uses a “featherweight” causation standard that requires only that the railroad’s negligence played any part in the injury, and it allows comparative negligence to reduce but never bar recovery. It also abolishes the assumption-of-risk defense and voids any waiver or release designed to exempt the railroad from liability.
Can the railroad make me sign a release or settlement right after the death?
The railroad’s claim agent may approach the family quickly — sometimes within days — offering a fast check and a release. Under FELA, any contract, rule, regulation, or device whose purpose is to exempt the railroad from liability is void. A release signed in the immediate aftermath, under the pressure of grief and without legal counsel, may be unenforceable. But challenging it requires a lawyer. Do not sign anything, do not cash anything, without having an attorney read it first.
How is the value of a FELA wrongful death claim calculated?
The value is built from multiple components: the decedent’s lost wages and lost future earning capacity (projected by a forensic economist using worklife expectancy tables and reduced to present value); the decedent’s fringe benefits (health insurance, retirement contributions, paid leave — which the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures at roughly 30% of total compensation for private-industry workers); the decedent’s conscious pain and suffering (the experience between injury and death, however brief); and the wrongful death beneficiaries’ losses — loss of care, support, counsel, companionship, and guidance. There is no statutory cap on FELA damages. The final number is built by experts, not asserted from a formula.
What evidence disappears the fastest after a train-truck collision?
The fastest-dying evidence is the tractor-trailer’s dashcam footage, which may overwrite within hours to days. The truck’s Electronic Logging Device data retains approximately eight days of driver hours-of-service information. The truck driver’s cell phone records — which can prove distraction — are subject to carrier retention policies that vary and must be preserved by subpoena immediately. The grade crossing signal system logs may overwrite within weeks. The train’s event recorder data is likely secured by the NTSB but must be confirmed through a litigation hold. The physical scene — skid marks, debris positions, the damage to the Chamber of Commerce building — is being cleared during cleanup. The preservation letter that freezes these records has to go out in days, not months.
Was the public at risk from the hazardous materials on the train?
The train was carrying lithium ion batteries and air bags as hazardous materials, though none were released in the derailment. Leaked diesel fuel was contained. The fact that no hazmat was released does not mean the risk was absent — a different collision angle, a higher speed, or a different cargo position could have produced a release that affected the surrounding area, including the Chamber of Commerce building and nearby properties. The hazmat cargo is relevant to the case because it bears on the severity of the risk the crossing collision created and the adequacy of the emergency response.
Do I need a lawyer who specifically knows FELA and railroad cases?
Yes. FELA is a specialized federal statute that differs from ordinary personal injury law in critical ways — the featherweight causation standard, the abolition of assumption of risk, the anti-waiver provision, the three-year statute of limitations, the concurrent state-federal jurisdiction. A lawyer who does not know FELA may file the wrong claim, miss the federal advantages, fail to preserve the railroad-specific evidence, or accept a settlement framework that does not account for the full range of FELA protections. The railroad has lawyers who know FELA intimately. The families need the same.
What if the crossing only had crossbucks and no gates or lights?
That is one of the most important questions in this case. A crossing with only passive crossbuck signage provides no real-time warning of an approaching train. The question is whether the crossing’s warning-device configuration was adequate for the traffic it carries — particularly in the Permian Basin, where heavy commercial truck traffic crosses rail lines routinely. If the crossing should have had active gates and flashing lights, and the railroad or the responsible roadway authority failed to upgrade it, that failure is negligence. The crossing’s warning-device history, its traffic counts, its prior incident record, and any studies or recommendations calling for an upgrade are all discoverable evidence.
Why Our Firm
Ralph P. Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court — the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, where FELA cases can be filed. A journalist before he was a lawyer, Ralph approaches every case the way a reporter approaches a story: find the facts, follow the evidence, and never accept the first version of events. He is the Managing Partner of Attorney911, licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998, a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. Ralph’s instinct is to dig — into the crossing’s maintenance history, into the crew’s training record, into the trucking company’s safety file — until the evidence tells the truth. Read more about Ralph Manginello here.
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 from people exactly like the families reading this page. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how the quick check with a release attached works, and how the claim is fed into valuation software that discounts pain it cannot see. Now he sits on your side of the table. Lupe is a third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch, born and raised in Sugar Land, licensed in Texas since 2012, and admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Read more about Lupe Peña here.
Together, Ralph and Lupe bring the combination that matters in a case like this: the trial lawyer’s instinct to find the evidence and the insider’s knowledge of how the other side tries to bury it.
If You Are Reading This at 2 A.M.
If you found this page because someone you love went to work for Union Pacific on December 18 and did not come home, or because you were inside the Chamber of Commerce building when the wall came in, we want you to hear one thing clearly: the law gives you tools most people never know exist. FELA gives the families of railroad workers a federal remedy that is stronger, more forgiving, and more generous than anything state law provides. Texas tort law gives the injured building occupants a claim against both the railroad and the trucking company. The evidence that proves what happened at that crossing in Pecos is still there — but it is dying on clocks measured in days and weeks.
The preservation letter that freezes the train’s event recorder data, the crossing signal logs, the truck’s ELD records, and the driver’s cell phone history goes out the day you call. Not the day the NTSB publishes its report. Not the day you feel ready. The day you call.
We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. And we answer 24 hours a day, seven days a week — not an answering service, but live staff who can put you through to a lawyer when you need one.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — 1-888-288-9911.
Hablamos Español. Lupe Peña conducts full consultations in Spanish, and our bilingual staff is ready to help your family in the language you are most comfortable speaking.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case is different, and the information here is general guidance based on the facts publicly reported about the Pecos derailment and the federal and Texas legal frameworks that govern claims arising from it. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. For advice specific to your family’s situation, call us.