The Pecos Train-Truck Collision: What Happened and What It Means for Your Family
If you are reading this page, someone you love was on that Union Pacific train, or inside that building in Pecos when a tractor-trailer stopped on the tracks and the world came apart. You are sitting with a grief that has not yet found its shape, or with a pain in your body you are trying to tell yourself is nothing, while the insurance company’s first call is already coming. We are writing this page to you — not to explain the news, which you already know, but to tell you what the news does not say: what your rights actually are, what the companies are already doing to protect themselves, and what is disappearing right now that your family will never get back if someone does not act to freeze it.
A tractor-trailer hauling heavy equipment came to a stop on active Union Pacific railroad tracks at a crossing in Pecos, Reeves County, Texas, in December 2024. It stayed there for approximately one minute. A Union Pacific train traveling about 68 miles per hour struck it after the crew applied emergency brakes. The collision derailed the train. The heavy equipment the truck was carrying was propelled into the air and into the nearby Pecos Chamber of Commerce building. Two Union Pacific employees were killed. Three people inside the building were injured. The National Transportation Safety Board recovered a data recorder and is investigating why the truck was on the tracks.
That is the bare summary. What follows is everything a senior trial attorney knows about a case like this — the law that protects railroad families differently from anyone else, the evidence that is already dying, the corporate structures that will try to insulate whoever is responsible, and the honest, fact-driven evaluation of what a case like this is worth. We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We take commercial-trucking, railroad-crossing, and wrongful-death cases in Texas. We are writing this page as the resource we wish every family in your position could read before the adjuster reaches them.
The Collision: Reconstructing What Happened in Pecos
A freight train traveling at 68 miles per hour is moving at approximately 100 feet per second. The NTSB has reported that the tractor-trailer was on the tracks for about one minute before the collision — meaning the truck was sitting on the rails for roughly 6,000 feet of the train’s travel distance before impact. The crew applied emergency brakes before the collision, but a freight train of this type cannot stop from 68 mph in anything approaching the distance a car or even a truck can. The physics of a loaded freight train mean that even with emergency braking applied the moment the crew saw the obstruction, the train was going to hit that truck. The question the NTSB is asking — why the truck was stopped on the tracks — is the same question that will decide who is legally responsible for the two deaths and three injuries that followed.
The collision did not just crumple the truck. It derailed the train. And the heavy equipment the truck was carrying — the cargo that was supposed to be secured to the trailer — was launched into the air and struck the Pecos Chamber of Commerce building nearby. That building is close enough to the crossing that a multi-ton piece of equipment, thrown by the energy of a 68-mph train impact, reached it. The building was damaged. Three people inside were hurt. The fact that the equipment separated from the trailer and traveled that far raises a question that is separate from why the truck stopped: was the cargo secured the way federal law requires, or did a failure in the chain-and-strap system turn a collision into a projectile event that reached people who were nowhere near the tracks?
This is what a trial attorney sees first in a case like this — not one event but a chain of events, each with its own cause and its own defendant. The truck stopped on the tracks. The train could not stop. The equipment broke free and flew. Each link in that chain is a separate legal theory, a separate set of evidence, and potentially a separate source of recovery for the families who lost someone or the people who were hurt.
Who Was Killed and Who Was Hurt
Two Union Pacific employees were killed in the collision. They were the crew operating the train — the people who applied the emergency brakes in the seconds before impact, who did everything physics would allow them to do, and who died in the derailment. The NTSB has not released their identities in its public statements, and we will not speculate about who they were. What we know is that they were railroad employees engaged in interstate commerce, and that fact alone gives their families legal rights that most people in Texas never have to think about — rights under a federal statute called the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, or FELA, which we explain in detail below.
Three people inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce building were injured. The Pecos police chief has described their injuries as minor. We want to be clear about something: a police chief’s characterization of injuries at the scene of a catastrophic event is not a medical diagnosis. A person who was inside a building when a multi-ton piece of heavy equipment crashed through it, who felt the impact and heard the sound of a train derailment, may have injuries that are not obvious in the first hours or even days. Concussion, acoustic trauma, and post-traumatic stress disorder are all injuries that can present after a delay — and all of them are compensable under Texas law if they are documented and connected to the event.
The NTSB Investigation: What It Can and Cannot Do for Your Case
The National Transportation Safety Board is the federal agency investigating this collision. The NTSB will produce a preliminary report — typically within 30 days of the incident — containing factual findings: the speed of the train, the duration the truck was on the tracks, the status of crossing signals, the data from the recorders recovered from the wreckage. A final report with a probable-cause determination will follow, often 12 to 24 months later.
Here is what most families do not understand about the NTSB, and what the insurance companies are counting on you not understanding: the NTSB’s probable-cause conclusion is not admissible in a civil lawsuit for damages. Federal law — 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b) — explicitly bars any part of an NTSB report from being admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages. The NTSB’s conclusion about why the truck was on the tracks will never be shown to a jury in your case.
What is usable are the raw facts the NTSB’s investigators gather: the speed data from the train’s event recorder, the timing of the crossing signals, the physical measurements of the wreckage, the witness statements. Under 49 CFR § 835.3, NTSB employees may testify about factual information they obtained during the investigation — but not about the Board’s conclusions. This means the NTSB investigation is invaluable as a source of facts, but your family’s case must be proven with your own experts, your own evidence, and your own reconstruction of what happened. The headline “NTSB blamed the truck driver” will never reach a jury. The data showing the truck’s speed, brake application, and position on the tracks — that can.
This is one of the most important things to understand about a case like this: the federal investigation and the civil case are two separate proceedings with two separate purposes. The NTSB exists to prevent the next crash. Your lawsuit exists to compensate the families this crash destroyed. They run on different timelines, use different evidence rules, and answer to different standards. A family that waits for the NTSB’s final report before talking to a lawyer may discover that the evidence they needed was legally destroyed months before that report was published.
Why the Truck Was on the Tracks: The Central Liability Question
The NTSB has specifically stated it is trying to determine why the tractor-trailer was stopped on the tracks. That question is not just an investigative curiosity — it is the single most important liability question in this case, and the answer determines who pays.
There are several possible explanations, and each one points to a different defendant or combination of defendants:
Driver inattention or distraction. If the driver simply failed to notice the crossing, failed to check for trains, or was distracted by a cell phone at the moment the truck entered the tracks, the primary liability sits with the driver and the trucking company that employed or contracted the driver. Cell phone records become critical evidence — and they are on a 90-to-180-day retention clock with the wireless carrier, meaning they can be purged before a civil case ever requests them.
Traffic conditions that trapped the truck. If the truck entered the crossing legally but traffic ahead stopped short, preventing the truck from clearing the tracks, the question becomes whether the crossing design provided enough clearance space on the far side — and whether the driver should have assessed the traffic situation before committing to the crossing. FMCSA regulations require commercial drivers to exercise specific care at grade crossings, including ensuring the vehicle can completely clear the tracks before entering the crossing zone.
Crossing-design trap. This is the possibility that turns a simple negligence case into a premises-design case. Pecos sits in the heart of the Permian Basin oilfield region, where heavy-equipment haulers with lowboy trailers are a daily presence. A lowboy trailer has extended length and very low ground clearance. If the crossing has an uneven approach grade — a rise on one side, a dip on the other — the trailer can bottom out and ground on the tracks, physically trapping the truck. This is a known hazard at rail crossings in oilfield regions, and if the crossing geometry contributed to trapping this truck, the entity responsible for the crossing’s design or maintenance may share liability. That entity could be Union Pacific, the Texas Department of Transportation, or a local authority — and if a governmental entity is involved, the Texas Tort Claims Act’s notice requirements apply, with deadlines that may be far shorter than the statute of limitations.
Mechanical failure. If the truck experienced a mechanical breakdown on the tracks — an engine stall, a brake lock, a transmission failure — the question shifts to whether the carrier maintained the vehicle properly. Federal law requires drivers to inspect their vehicles daily and to write up any safety defects, and the carrier must certify repairs. The Driver Vehicle Inspection Report has a retention period of only three months under 49 CFR § 396.11 — one of the shortest retention clocks in the entire federal trucking regime. If a mechanical defect contributed to the truck being stuck, the proof may be in a document the carrier is legally allowed to destroy 90 days after it was written.
Fatigue. If the driver had been on duty beyond the federal hours-of-service limits — more than 11 hours of driving in a 14-hour shift, or more than 60 hours in 7 days, or 70 hours in 8 days — fatigue may have impaired the driver’s judgment at the crossing. The driver’s Record of Duty Status, whether paper or electronic, is the proof — and federal law only requires the carrier to keep it for six months under 49 CFR § 395.8(k). After that, the logs can be legally destroyed.
Each of these possibilities is a separate investigative track, requiring different evidence and implicating different defendants. This is why the preservation letter — the written demand that freezes evidence before it can be destroyed — has to go out immediately, before anyone knows which theory will prove out. You cannot wait to find out why the truck was on the tracks before you preserve the evidence that would tell you.
FELA: The Federal Law That Protects Railroad Employees and Their Families
The families of the two Union Pacific employees who were killed have legal rights that do not exist under ordinary Texas injury law. Railroad employees engaged in interstate commerce are covered by a federal statute called the Federal Employers’ Liability Act — FELA — and it is fundamentally different from the state-law system that governs almost every other injury or death in Texas.
A common carrier by railroad engaging in interstate commerce shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier in such commerce . . . 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.
— 45 U.S.C. § 51
That statute — more than a century old — contains three provisions that make it one of the most powerful injury remedies in American law, and they all matter here:
The “any part, even the slightest” causation standard. Under FELA, the railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death. This is the lowest causation standard in American injury law. The Supreme Court affirmed it as recently as 2011 in CSX Transportation, Inc. v. McBride, holding that FELA does not incorporate the tougher “proximate cause” test that ordinary injury cases use. For the families of the Union Pacific crew, this means that even if the truck’s presence on the tracks was the primary cause of the collision, the railroad can still be liable if any railroad negligence contributed even slightly — inadequate crossing signals, excessive speed for the crossing conditions, deficient sight lines, or any equipment defect.
Contributory negligence reduces but never bars recovery. Under 45 U.S.C. § 53, if the employee was partly at fault, the recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault — but it is never eliminated. Texas state law uses a modified comparative negligence system with a 51% bar, meaning a plaintiff who is 51% or more at fault recovers nothing. FELA has no such bar. Even if the employee were found 50% at fault, the family would still recover 50% of the damages. And if the railroad violated a federal safety statute — such as an FRA grade-crossing regulation — the employee’s own contributory negligence is completely wiped out, and the recovery is not reduced at all.
Assumption of risk is abolished. Under 45 U.S.C. § 54, the railroad cannot defend by saying the employee knew the job was dangerous. Railroad work involves inherent hazards, and the law explicitly removed the “he knew the risks” defense. The railroad cannot escape liability by pointing to the obvious dangers of operating a train through a grade crossing.
Anti-waiver protection. Under 45 U.S.C. § 55, any contract, rule, or device designed to exempt the railroad from FELA liability is void. A claims representative who pushes a grieving family to sign a quick release at the hospital, or on the day of the funeral, is attempting something the federal statute specifically prohibits — and any such release can be challenged as void.
The statute of limitations. FELA gives the family three years from the date the cause of action accrued to file suit (45 U.S.C. § 56). This is longer than Texas’s two-year statute of limitations for wrongful death — meaning the FELA claim against the railroad may survive even after the state-law claim against the trucking company has expired. The family can file in state or federal court, and if they choose state court, the railroad generally cannot remove the case to federal court (28 U.S.C. § 1445(a)).
Full tort damages. FELA is not a workers’ compensation system with a benefit schedule. It is a full tort remedy. The family can recover past and future lost earnings, lost earning capacity, full medical expenses, pain and suffering, and — in death cases — the losses to the surviving spouse, children, and parents. There is no statutory cap on FELA damages.
What this means for the families of the two Union Pacific employees is that they have two separate legal tracks running simultaneously: a FELA claim against Union Pacific (if any railroad negligence contributed, even slightly), and a state-law negligence claim against the trucking company (whose truck was on the tracks). Both must be pursued. The FELA claim has a longer deadline and a more favorable causation standard, but it requires proving that the railroad did something wrong — even if that something was small. The state-law claim against the trucking company has a shorter deadline and a less favorable comparative-negligence rule, but the truck’s presence on the tracks is the more obvious breach.
A generalist attorney who does not know FELA might file only the state-law claim against the trucking company and miss the FELA claim entirely — or might file the FELA claim without understanding the featherweight causation standard that makes it so powerful. The difference between these two approaches can be millions of dollars in recovery for a grieving family.
If your loved one was a Union Pacific employee killed in this collision, we encourage you to learn more about how we approach workplace accident cases — and to understand that railroad worker deaths involve a federal legal framework that most personal injury attorneys never touch.
Texas Wrongful Death Law: Who Can File and What Can Be Recovered
For the families of the deceased Union Pacific employees and for any future fatality claims that may arise from this collision, Texas law provides two parallel causes of action after a fatal injury:
The Wrongful Death Action. Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act (Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 71.001 et seq.), a claim may be brought by the surviving spouse, children, or parents of the deceased. The claim compensates the family members for their own losses: the financial support the deceased would have provided, the companionship and society that was taken from them, the lost inheritance, and the mental anguish of losing a loved one. If no eligible family member files within a certain period, the personal representative of the estate may be able to bring the claim.
The Survival Action. Under the Texas Survival Statute (Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 71.021), the estate of the deceased can pursue the claims the deceased would have been able to pursue if they had survived. This includes the pain and suffering the deceased experienced between the injury and death, the medical expenses incurred before death, and the lost wages between the injury and death. In a high-speed train collision, the survival claim for conscious pain and suffering may be brief — but it is medically provable through the train’s event-recorder data, the autopsy findings, and the timeline of the collision sequence.
The statute of limitations. Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for both wrongful death and personal injury claims (Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003). The FELA claim against the railroad has a three-year statute of limitations (45 U.S.C. § 56). The two clocks run independently — but the two-year deadline for the state-law claim against the trucking company is the one that will expire first, and it is the one the insurance company is counting on you to miss.
Comparative negligence. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence system with a 51% bar. If the plaintiff is found to be 51% or more at fault, recovery is barred entirely. If the plaintiff is 50% or less at fault, recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault. In a case with multiple defendants — the truck, the railroad, the crossing maintainer — the allocation of fault among them can dramatically affect the recovery. This is why identifying every defendant and building every theory of liability matters: each defendant the jury assigns fault to reduces the fault assigned to the plaintiff and increases the total recovery.
Exemplary damages. Texas allows punitive (exemplary) damages under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 41, but only on a showing of clear and convincing evidence of fraud, malice, or gross negligence. In a grade-crossing case, punitive damages could become available if discovery reveals that the trucking company knowingly dispatched a fatigued driver, ignored prior grade-crossing violations, or maintained the truck in a dangerous condition. The standard is high — Texas Supreme Court precedent defines gross negligence as conduct involving an extreme degree of risk, conscious of the risk, and proceeding with indifference to the rights of others — but the facts of this case may support it if the right evidence is preserved and the right theory is pleaded.
If you have lost a family member in this collision or any commercial vehicle crash, we encourage you to learn more about our approach to wrongful death claims.
The Defendant Map: Who Is Responsible for This Collision
A collision like this is rarely the fault of a single party. The defendant map in this case may include any or all of the following:
The tractor-trailer operating entity. The trucking company that operated the tractor-trailer has not been publicly identified in the initial reporting. It must be identified through the NTSB’s preliminary report, Texas DPS crash records, and Reeves County law enforcement reports. Once identified, its DOT number, MCS-90 endorsement status, safety rating, Hours-of-Service compliance history, and prior grade-crossing violations become critical discovery targets. The carrier’s federal safety record — inspection history, out-of-service rates, crash history — is publicly available through FMCSA’s SAFER database and must be pulled fresh and stamped with the date of retrieval. A high number of prior violations or crashes is not proof of fault in this specific collision, but it is evidence of a pattern that a jury should hear about.
The truck driver. The individual driver’s qualification file — mandated by 49 CFR § 391.51 — contains the employment application, the motor vehicle record from each licensing authority, the road-test certificate, the annual MVR inquiry, the 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. This file reveals whether the driver was qualified, trained, and medically fit to operate a commercial vehicle — and whether the carrier did the background checks the law requires.
The cargo loading and securement entity. The heavy equipment became a projectile. If the equipment was not secured in accordance with 49 CFR Part 393 Subpart I — the federal cargo-securement regulations — the entity that loaded and secured the equipment bears liability for the enhanced harm. That entity may be the same as the carrier, or it may be a separate shipper or loading facility. Loading manifests and securement diagrams may be controlled by the shipper and are not subject to the same retention requirements as carrier records — which means a preservation letter to the shipper must go out immediately, before those documents can be discarded.
Union Pacific Railroad. Union Pacific is identified as the train operator and the employer of the two deceased crew members. For the FELA claims, Union Pacific is the defendant — and the question is whether any railroad negligence (inadequate crossing signals, excessive speed, deficient sight lines, equipment defects) contributed to the deaths. For the building-occupant injury claims, Union Pacific may face negligence exposure if train speed or crossing-warning deficiencies are found to have worsened the outcome. Union Pacific is a Class I freight railroad headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, operating approximately 32,000 route miles across 23 states with a substantial Texas presence.
The crossing infrastructure owner or maintainer. If the crossing’s geometry, signal timing, warning devices, or approach-grade design contributed to the truck becoming trapped on the tracks, the entity responsible for the crossing’s design or maintenance may face liability. This could be Union Pacific (which may own and maintain its own crossings), the Texas Department of Transportation, or a local authority. If a governmental entity is implicated, the Texas Tort Claims Act’s notice requirements apply — and the notice deadline may be significantly shorter than the statute of limitations. This is a deadline that must be confirmed immediately if there is any indication of crossing-design involvement.
The heavy-equipment manufacturer or shipper. If the equipment’s securement points, transport configuration, or loading protocols contributed to the equipment separating from the trailer and becoming a projectile, the manufacturer or shipper may face liability for the enhanced harm to the building occupants.
The shell game in this case is the same one we see throughout the Permian Basin: heavy-equipment hauling frequently involves independent owner-operators contracted to larger oilfield services companies. The name on the truck door may be a single-truck LLC with minimal insurance, while the company that dispatched the haul, set the schedule, and controlled the cargo may be a much larger entity with deeper coverage. Identifying every layer of vicarious liability — the carrier, the shipper, the oilfield services company, any broker that arranged the transport — is how a case with two death claims and three injury claims reaches the coverage it actually needs. The federal lease rule at 49 CFR § 376.12(c)(1) provides that when a carrier leases on a driver and equipment, the authorized carrier has “exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease” and “assumes complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment” — which means the carrier displaying its name on the trailer is the entity the law put in control of that truck on the road, regardless of whether the driver is technically an independent contractor.
For a deeper look at how we identify and pursue every defendant in commercial trucking cases, see our 18-wheeler and commercial truck accident practice page.
Cargo Securement: How Heavy Equipment Became a Projectile
The NTSB reported that the collision “propelled the heavy equipment” into the nearby building. That detail — easy to overlook in the shock of a fatal train collision — is a separate liability theory that could determine whether the three people inside the Chamber of Commerce building have a viable claim and against whom.
Federal cargo-securement regulations under 49 CFR Part 393 Subpart I require that cargo be secured by devices strong enough to withstand forces generated during emergency braking, turns, and collisions. The regulations specify minimum numbers of tiedowns based on cargo length and weight, require that tiedowns be rated for the load they secure, and mandate that cargo cannot shift or fall under any conditions that could reasonably be expected to occur in transportation.
When a train traveling at 68 mph strikes a tractor-trailer, the forces generated are catastrophic — far beyond what any tiedown system is designed to withstand in normal operation. But the question is not whether the securement should have survived a train collision. The question is whether the securement was adequate to keep the equipment on the trailer under the forces that were reasonably foreseeable — which for a heavy-equipment hauler includes emergency braking, sudden stops, and collision events. If the securement was substandard — too few chains, improperly rated binders, attachment points that failed — the equipment may have separated earlier and traveled farther than it would have with proper securement, turning a collision on the tracks into a projectile event that reached a building and injured people who had nothing to do with the crossing.
The proof lives in the loading manifests, the securement diagrams, the equipment specifications, and the physical condition of the chains and binders recovered from the wreckage. These documents may be controlled by the shipper or a third-party loading facility, not by the carrier — and they are not subject to the same federal retention requirements as the carrier’s driver logs. A preservation letter to the shipper, naming these specific documents, has to go out before they can be discarded or “lost.”
The Permian Basin Context: Why This Happened in Pecos
Pecos, Texas, is the county seat of Reeves County, situated along Interstate 10 and US Highway 285 in the heart of the Permian Basin oilfield region. The Permian Basin is one of the most active oil and gas production areas in the world, and the roads through and around Pecos carry a constant stream of heavy-equipment haulers, water trucks, frac sand transporters, crude-oil tankers, and other commercial vehicles serving the oilfield. The intersection of this heavy oilfield truck traffic with active Union Pacific rail lines through Pecos creates a documented grade-crossing risk corridor.
The specific hazard for lowboy and heavy-equipment haulers is this: a lowboy trailer has an extended length and a very low ground clearance. When the approach to a rail crossing has an uneven grade — a rise, a dip, a crown — the low trailer deck can bottom out on the rail or the approach, physically grounding the trailer and trapping it on the tracks. The driver cannot move forward (the trailer is hung up) and cannot back up (traffic or terrain may prevent it). The truck is stuck. And if a train is coming, the driver has seconds, not minutes, to get out of the cab.
This is a known hazard in oilfield regions. It is the kind of local truth that a jury in Reeves County will understand because many of them have seen lowboy trailers on these roads and may have personal experience with grade-crossing near-misses. A jury that understands the oilfield trucking context is a jury that can evaluate whether the trucking company should have assessed the crossing geometry before entering it, whether the crossing design was adequate for the traffic it carries, and whether the carrier’s training prepared the driver for exactly this situation.
Reeves County is a small, rural jurisdiction with a limited jury pool. A state-court case filed there would draw from a demographically narrow venire — people who know oilfield commerce, who may have driven these roads themselves, and who may have opinions about railroad crossings and heavy-haul traffic. This is not necessarily bad for a plaintiff. Rural West Texas juries can be deeply sympathetic to families who have lost loved ones to corporate negligence, particularly when the defendant is an out-of-state corporation like Union Pacific, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. But voir dire must account for the community’s relationship with the oilfield industry — some panelists may have ties to trucking or oilfield services that could affect their view of the case.
For more on how we handle the specific hazards of Permian Basin oilfield trucking, see our Texas oilfield commercial truck accident practice page.
Evidence Preservation: What Exists and How Fast It Disappears
This is the section that matters most if you are reading this page in the first weeks after the collision. Every piece of evidence in this case is on a clock — and some of those clocks may have already run out.
CCTV footage from the Chamber of Commerce and nearby businesses. This is the single most compelling evidence in the case — a visual record of the truck’s approach, its stop on the tracks, the signal activation, the collision itself, and the trajectory of the equipment into the building. Commercial CCTV systems typically overwrite on a 7-to-30-day cycle. The collision occurred in December 2024. If no preservation letter was sent to the businesses near the crossing within days of the incident, the footage may already be gone — recorded over by the same cameras that captured it. This is the fastest-dying evidence in the entire case, and it is the evidence that would have shown a jury exactly what happened.
The tractor-trailer’s electronic data recorder / engine ECM. The NTSB has reportedly recovered a data recorder from the wreckage. This data — vehicle speed, brake application, throttle position, and timestamp information — is central to determining why the truck was stopped. But the physical truck itself, if it has been released from the NTSB’s custody, may be in a salvage yard where it can be scrapped or destroyed within weeks. Once the truck is crushed, the physical evidence of the crossing approach, the braking marks, the equipment securement points, and the condition of the tiedown system is gone forever. A preservation letter to the trucking entity and the salvage yard must demand that the vehicle be held in its post-crash condition.
The train’s event recorder / locomotive data. Union Pacific controls this data — train speed, emergency-brake application timestamp, horn activation, and signal-interaction data. Union Pacific will preserve this as part of the NTSB investigation, but independent preservation demands should be issued to lock in the chain of custody and ensure the data is not altered, overwritten, or “unavailable” by the time civil discovery requests it.
Grade-crossing signal system logs and inspection records. Whether the crossing signals, gates, and bells activated at the proper interval before the train’s arrival — and whether the signal system had any history of malfunction at this crossing — is provable through the signal-system event logs and the inspection and repair records. Signal-system event logs may be overwritten on regular maintenance cycles. Inspection and repair records must be demanded before routine purging by the maintaining authority.
The driver’s Hours-of-Service logs and ELD data. The driver’s Record of Duty Status — whether the driver had been on duty beyond the federal 11-hour driving limit or the 14-hour shift window — is provable through the ELD data and supporting documents. Federal law requires the carrier to retain these records for only six months under 49 CFR § 395.8(k). After six months, the logs can be legally destroyed. The driver’s ELD data may be retained for as few as 8 days on the device itself, with longer retention on the carrier’s backend system. If fatigue was a factor, the proof is in these logs — and the clock on them is shorter than most families realize.
The driver’s qualification file. The carrier must maintain the driver’s qualification file — application, motor vehicle record, road-test certificate, annual review, medical examiner’s certificate — for as long as the driver is employed plus three years (49 CFR § 391.51(c)). For a currently employed driver, this file is alive. But if the driver is terminated or leaves employment, a three-year clock starts — and a carrier that wants to make the file “disappear” can do so legally once that clock runs.
The Driver Vehicle Inspection Report. If a mechanical defect contributed to the truck being stuck on the tracks, the DVIR — the daily inspection report where the driver writes up safety defects — is the proof. The retention period is only three months from the date the report was prepared (49 CFR § 396.11). This is the shortest retention clock in the federal trucking regime. A defective-equipment case lives or dies on a preservation letter sent within weeks of the incident.
Post-crash drug and alcohol testing records. Federal law requires post-accident drug and alcohol testing when a crash involves a fatality (49 CFR § 382.303). For alcohol, the testing window closes at 8 hours; for controlled substances, at 32 hours. If the test was not administered within those windows, the carrier must document why — and that documentation is itself evidence. Test records are retained for up to 5 years (49 CFR § 382.401).
Cargo securement documentation. The loading manifests, securement diagrams, and equipment specifications may be controlled by the shipper or a third-party loading facility. These records are not subject to the same federal retention requirements as carrier records — which means they can be discarded at any time unless a preservation letter freezes them.
The driver’s cell phone records. If distraction contributed to the failure to clear the crossing, cell phone records are the proof. Wireless carriers typically retain call detail records for 90 to 180 days before routine purging. Preservation letters must go to the carrier and directly to the wireless provider before standard data purging eliminates the records.
The crossing approach-grade survey and geometric design records. If the crossing geometry contributed to the truck being trapped, the design records — approach grades, clearance distances, sight-line measurements — are the proof. Design records are relatively stable, but prior-incident reports at the same crossing may be subject to records-retention purging by the maintaining authority.
NTSB preliminary and final reports. The NTSB’s preliminary report — typically issued within 30 days — will contain factual findings: speeds, timing, signal status, vehicle data. The final report — 12 to 24 months — will contain the probable-cause determination, which is inadmissible under 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b). The factual portion is usable immediately upon release. A family’s legal team should monitor the NTSB docket for the release of the preliminary report and incorporate its factual findings into the civil case.
The pattern across all of these records is the same: the evidence that is most valuable is the evidence that disappears fastest. The preservation letter — a formal written demand that the recipient freeze specific records and physical evidence — is the single most important step in the first days after a collision like this. It is the difference between a case built on documented facts and a case built on what people remember after the proof is gone.
When a defendant lets required evidence die after receiving a preservation letter, the law answers. A court can give an adverse-inference instruction — telling the jury they may assume the lost record was as bad for the defendant as the plaintiff says it was. The bar for the harshest sanctions is high, but the leverage begins the moment the letter is on file.
The Insurance Reality: Coverage Towers and Who Pays
The amount of money available to compensate the families in this case depends on identifying the right defendants and understanding the structure of their insurance coverage. The coverage reality is very different for a trucking company versus a railroad.
The trucking company’s coverage. If the tractor-trailer was operated by an interstate carrier hauling non-hazardous property, federal law requires a minimum of $750,000 in liability coverage (49 CFR § 387.9). If the carrier was hauling oil or certain hazardous materials, the minimum rises to $1,000,000. For the most dangerous hazardous materials in bulk, the minimum is $5,000,000. But these are statutory floors, not ceilings — many carriers carry far more in voluntary limits, and the real coverage tower may include excess and umbrella layers stacked above the primary policy. The specific policy limits, the MCS-90 endorsement status, and the existence of excess layers are all discovery targets that cannot be assessed until the carrier is identified.
The harsh reality of Permian Basin oilfield hauling is that many heavy-equipment transports are run by independent owner-operators — single-truck operations with minimal insurance and minimal assets. If the trucking company in this case is a small operator, the primary policy may be exhausted by two wrongful-death claims alone, leaving nothing for the building-occupant injury claims. This is why tracing every layer of vicarious liability — the shipper that hired the carrier, any oilfield services company that contracted the haul, any broker that arranged the transport — is critical. Each of those entities may carry its own coverage, and each may be liable under respondeat superior, statutory employment, or negligent-selection theories.
Union Pacific’s coverage. Union Pacific, as a Class I freight railroad, is a deep-pocket defendant. For the FELA claims, Union Pacific’s solvency is not the concern — FELA judgments are backed by the railroad’s assets. The question is proving the railroad’s negligence. For the building-occupant claims, Union Pacific’s general liability coverage would be the target, but the railroad will argue that the truck’s presence on the tracks was the sole proximate cause and that the railroad’s conduct (train speed, signal adequacy) did not contribute to the building injuries.
The Stowers leverage. Under Texas’s Stowers doctrine, once a plaintiff presents a settlement demand that is within the defendant’s policy limits and that an ordinarily prudent insurer would accept, the insurer faces a choice: settle within limits and protect its insured, or refuse and expose the insured (and by extension the insurer) to an excess verdict. If the insurer refuses a proper Stowers demand and the case later results in a verdict exceeding the policy limits, the insurer may be liable for the full verdict amount — not just the policy limits. This creates powerful bad-faith leverage that can push a case toward settlement at a number closer to its true value than the insurer’s initial offer. But a Stowers demand must be carefully calibrated — it must present the claim clearly, demand an amount within the policy limits, and offer to release the insured in exchange. This is a strategic tool that must be deployed at the right time, after the insurance limits and safety record have been established through discovery.
The Insurance Adjuster Playbook: What They Will Try
Within days of a collision like this, representatives of the trucking company’s insurer and potentially Union Pacific’s claims department will begin contacting the families. They will be friendly, concerned, and professional. They will also be executing a playbook that is designed to minimize what the company pays. Here are the plays and the counter to each:
Play 1: The “just checking on you” recorded-statement call. An adjuster calls the family, expresses sympathy, and asks the family to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording. The purpose is to lock in a statement before the family has counsel, before the full extent of injuries or damages is known, and before the family understands their rights. The statement is engineered to get the family to say things that will later be quoted against them: “I think the truck driver tried to stop” or “We’re not sure who was at fault.” The counter is simple: do not give a recorded statement to any insurance representative without consulting a lawyer first. You are not required to. You will never make your case stronger by talking to the other side’s insurer without preparation.
Play 2: The fast settlement check with a release buried under it. A check arrives — sometimes within weeks — along with a release document that, once signed, extinguishes all claims against the company. The check may look substantial to a family that is suddenly facing funeral bills and lost income, but it is almost always a fraction of what the case is worth. The insurer is counting on grief, financial pressure, and the family’s lack of information about the true value of the claim. The counter: do not sign anything from any insurance company without having it reviewed by a lawyer. Under FELA, any contract or device designed to exempt the railroad from liability is void (45 U.S.C. § 55) — which means a release pushed on a railroad employee’s family at the funeral may be legally worthless, but you should not rely on that without counsel.
Play 3: The “your injuries were minor” minimization. For the three building occupants, the insurer will lean heavily on the police chief’s characterization of the injuries as “minor.” They will use that word to justify a low settlement offer and to discourage the injured person from seeking further medical evaluation. The counter: a police chief’s scene characterization is not a medical diagnosis. A person who was inside a building when a multi-ton piece of heavy equipment crashed through it should undergo a full medical evaluation including neurocognitive screening, audiometric testing, and psychological assessment — because the injuries that matter most in a case like this are the ones that do not show up on the first exam.
Play 4: Social media surveillance. The insurer’s investigators will monitor the social media accounts of every claimant — the families of the deceased and the injured building occupants. A photograph of a family member smiling at a gathering, posted weeks after the collision, will be used to argue that the family’s grief is not as severe as claimed, or that the injured person’s injuries are not as serious as alleged. The counter: do not post about the collision, your injuries, your grief, or your daily activities on any social media platform. Assume everything you post will be screenshot and shown to a jury.
Play 5: The “you were partly at fault” argument. The insurer will look for any fact that can be used to pin some percentage of fault on the plaintiff — the train crew for not stopping sooner, the building occupants for being “too close” to the tracks, the truck driver for something unrelated. In Texas, every percentage point of fault assigned to the plaintiff reduces the recovery, and if fault reaches 51%, recovery is barred entirely. Under FELA, the standard is more favorable — contributory negligence reduces but never bars recovery. The counter: build every theory of liability against every defendant, so that the jury’s allocation of fault is spread across the defendants rather than concentrated on the plaintiff.
Play 6: The delay aimed at the statute of limitations. The insurer may string the family along with “we’re still investigating” or “we need more documentation” — not to resolve the claim, but to run out the clock toward the two-year statute of limitations. Once the deadline passes, the claim is dead. The counter: have counsel file the lawsuit before the deadline, regardless of whether the insurer has “finished” its investigation. The investigation can continue through discovery after the suit is filed.
Play 7: The policy-limits shell game. The trucking company’s insurer may disclose only the primary policy limits and conceal the existence of excess or umbrella layers. The carrier may argue that the driver was an independent contractor, not an employee, to avoid respondeat superior liability. The shipper may argue it is not responsible for how the carrier loaded the equipment. The counter: discovery — the formal process of demanding documents, taking depositions, and requiring answers under oath — is how the real coverage tower is revealed. The federal lease rule at 49 CFR § 376.12(c)(1) puts the authorized carrier in “exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment” and makes it “assume complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment” — which is the statutory counter to the “independent contractor” dodge.
The Medicine: Injuries From a 68-MPH Train Collision
A freight train traveling at 68 miles per hour carries kinetic energy that is almost incomprehensible in human terms. When that energy is transferred to a tractor-trailer and its cargo, the forces involved are lethal in the immediate zone of impact and dangerous for hundreds of feet beyond it.
For the two Union Pacific crew members who were killed: The mechanism of death in a collision of this force is typically multi-system blunt trauma — the catastrophic deceleration of the locomotive cabin, the structural intrusion of the derailment, and the potential for fire or secondary impacts as the train leaves the rails. The train’s event recorder and the autopsy findings will establish the timeline of the collision and whether there was any period of conscious survival between impact and death. Even a brief period of conscious suffering is compensable under the Texas Survival Statute, and the event recorder’s timestamp data — showing the moment of emergency brake application, the moment of impact, and any subsequent data — is the objective evidence that proves it.
For the three building occupants who were injured: The police chief described the injuries as minor. We want to be direct about what that word means and what it does not mean. When a multi-ton piece of heavy equipment is propelled into a building, the people inside are subjected to:
- Blast-wave overpressure: The impact of the equipment against the building generates a pressure wave that can cause concussion, tympanic membrane rupture, and pulmonary contusion — injuries that may not be immediately apparent.
- Acoustic trauma: The sound of a 68-mph train collision and derailment is extreme — potentially loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage. Audiometric testing is necessary to document any hearing loss or tinnitus.
- Blunt trauma from debris or structural collapse: If the building’s structure was compromised, falling materials, glass, or structural elements could have caused head injury, spinal injury, or internal organ damage that is not obvious at the scene.
- Concussion / mild traumatic brain injury: A person’s head does not have to strike an object for a brain injury to occur. The deceleration forces alone can cause the brain to impact the inside of the skull. Mild TBI can present with a perfectly normal CT scan — the standard presentation, not the exception. Symptoms may include headache, dizziness, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, personality changes, and sleep disturbance. These symptoms may not appear for hours or days after the event.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder: Witnessing a catastrophic train collision, seeing people killed, and being injured by flying heavy equipment is a qualifying traumatic event under the DSM-5 criteria for PTSD. PTSD is a diagnosable, treatable, and compensable injury — not a character flaw or an exaggeration. It can include intrusive memories, nightmares, avoidance of the area, hypervigilance, and persistent negative alterations in mood and cognition.
The proof problem for the building occupants is that their injuries may be invisible on standard imaging — a clean CT does not mean the brain is fine. Neuropsychological testing, advanced imaging (such as diffusion tensor imaging), and the testimony of people who knew the person before the event are how these injuries are proven. A person who is told their injuries are “minor” and who does not seek further evaluation may be giving up the right to compensation for a permanent cognitive injury they have not yet discovered.
For more on how we evaluate and prove traumatic brain injuries — including the injuries that do not show up on the first scan — see our brain injury practice page.
What This Case Is Worth
We are not going to tell you a specific number that this case will settle for or produce at trial, because the value of any case depends on facts that are still being investigated. What we can tell you is how the value is built and what the honest range looks like based on what is known.
The two wrongful-death claims for the Union Pacific crew members are the primary value drivers. Railroad engineers and conductors are typically well-compensated hourly employees with significant benefit packages and career longevity. A forensic economist projecting the lost earning capacity of a career railroad employee — factoring in wage growth, fringe benefits (which the Bureau of Labor Statistics measures at roughly 30% of total compensation for private-industry workers), and worklife expectancy — can produce a seven-figure economic-loss projection per decedent. On top of the economic loss, the non-economic damages under the Texas Wrongful Death Act — mental anguish, loss of companionship, loss of society, loss of inheritance — are substantial in a case involving the violent death of a working adult. The FELA track adds the possibility of recovery against the railroad on a more favorable causation standard, potentially increasing the total recovery if railroad negligence is proven.
The three building-occupant injury claims are currently characterized as minor. If that characterization holds — if the injuries are genuinely limited to minor lacerations, contusions, and transient symptoms that resolve completely — the collective value of these three claims may be in the range of $500,000 to $2,000,000. But if any of the three occupants is diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, acoustic trauma, or PTSD through the medical evaluation we recommend above, the value of that individual claim could escalate significantly — potentially into seven figures for a documented TBI with lasting cognitive impact.
The property damage to the Chamber of Commerce building is a separate claim track that would be pursued by the property owner or its insurer through subrogation. It is not part of the personal-injury or wrongful-death claims, but it is a related consequence of the same collision.
Based on the known facts — two deaths, three injuries, the Permian Basin oilfield context, the unidentified trucking company, the potential FELA claims, and the cargo-securement theory — the aggregate case value range is honestly $5 million to $15 million on the low end (if the trucking company has minimal coverage, the railroad’s negligence is not proven, and the building-occupant injuries resolve as truly minor) and $25 million to $50 million or more on the high end (if the trucking company is a well-insured national carrier, the FELA claims against the railroad succeed, the cargo-securement theory enhances the building-occupant claims, and discovery reveals facts supporting punitive damages).
The three critical unknowns that will determine where in this range the case falls are: (1) the trucking company’s identity, insurance limits, and asset profile; (2) the NTSB’s factual findings and what they reveal about the railroad’s potential negligence; and (3) the results of the building occupants’ medical evaluations. Until these unknowns are resolved, any more specific number would be a guess — and we do not guess.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
How We Handle Commercial Trucking and Railroad Crossing Wrongful Death Cases
The way a case like this is actually built — from the first call to the day the number is reached — is a process most families never see. Here is what it looks like when we handle it.
Week one: The preservation letter goes out. The day a family calls us, we send written preservation demands to every entity that may hold evidence: the trucking company (once identified), Union Pacific, the crossing-signal maintainer, every business near the crossing with CCTV, the shipper, and any broker. Each letter names the specific records we want frozen — the ELD data, the event recorder, the signal logs, the CCTV footage, the cargo-securement documentation, the driver qualification file, the cell phone records. The letter puts each recipient on notice that the evidence must not be destroyed. If they destroy it after receiving the letter, we have leverage — and in some cases, we have a separate claim for the destruction itself.
Weeks one through four: The trucking company is identified. Through the NTSB’s preliminary report, Texas DPS crash records, and Reeves County law enforcement reports, we identify the tractor-trailer’s operating entity. We pull its FMCSA SAFER snapshot — DOT number, operating authority, power-unit count, crash and inspection summary, out-of-service rates. We pull its SMS/CSA BASIC percentiles — the government’s own scorecard on the carrier’s safety performance in categories like Unsafe Driving, HOS Compliance, and Vehicle Maintenance. We pull its Licensing and Insurance filings to confirm active insurance and identify the MCS-90 endorsement status. Every record is stamped with the date of retrieval, because these databases update monthly and a carrier’s safety profile can change between the time we pull it and the time we present it to a jury.
Months one through three: Experts are retained. We bring in a commercial-trucking accident reconstructionist to analyze the EDR data, the scene measurements, and the vehicle dynamics. We bring in a railroad-grade-crossing signal expert to test whether the crossing signals activated at the proper interval and whether the signal system had any history of malfunction. We bring in a heavy-equipment cargo-securement specialist to evaluate whether the equipment was secured in accordance with 49 CFR Part 393 Subpart I and whether a failure in the securement system caused the equipment to become a projectile. We bring in a forensic economist to project the lost earning capacity of the deceased railroad employees. And if any of the building occupants shows signs of TBI or PTSD, we bring in a trauma medicine specialist and a neuropsychologist to document and quantify the injury.
Months three through twelve: Discovery and depositions. Once the lawsuit is filed, we use the formal discovery process to demand the records the preservation letter froze — and to take the depositions of the people who made the decisions. The trucking company’s safety director explains, under oath, how the driver was hired, trained, and supervised. The driver explains what happened at the crossing. The shipper’s loading supervisor explains how the equipment was secured. The crossing maintainer explains the inspection and repair history of the signal system. The railroad’s operations manager explains the speed restrictions and signal protocols for this crossing. Each deposition is a chance to lock in testimony before memories fade or stories change.
Month twelve and beyond: The number is built. From the frozen evidence, the expert analysis, the discovery records, and the depositions, the case value is built — not from a formula, but from the complete picture of what happened, who was responsible, and what it cost the families. Only then is a settlement demand calibrated — and if the insurer refuses to pay what the case is worth, the case goes to a jury in Reeves County, where twelve people who know these roads and this community will decide what a life was worth and what a corporation’s negligence should cost.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do Now
If you are reading this page in the days or weeks after the Pecos collision, here is what you should do — and what you should not do.
For the families of the two Union Pacific employees who were killed:
Do not sign anything from Union Pacific, its claims department, or any insurance representative. Under FELA, any contract or device designed to exempt the railroad from liability is void — but you should not rely on that without counsel reviewing the document.
Do not give a recorded statement to anyone. You are not required to, and anything you say will be transcribed and potentially used to minimize your claim.
Contact a lawyer immediately. FELA gives you three years, but the evidence that proves the railroad’s negligence is disappearing now — the signal logs, the event recorder data, the CCTV footage. The day you call is the day the preservation letter goes out.
Obtain the death certificate and the autopsy report when available. These documents are the foundation of the survival claim for conscious pain and suffering.
Do not discuss the case on social media. The insurer’s investigators are watching.
For the three people who were injured inside the Chamber of Commerce building:
Seek a full medical evaluation — even if your injuries feel minor. Tell your doctor exactly what happened: that you were inside a building when heavy equipment crashed into it after a train collision. Ask for neurocognitive screening (to check for traumatic brain injury), audiometric testing (to check for hearing damage), and a psychological assessment (to check for PTSD). These are not dramatic requests — they are the standard medical workup for a person who has been in a catastrophic event.
Do not let the police chief’s characterization of “minor” injuries determine your medical care. A police chief is not a doctor. Your medical records — not the police report — are what prove your injuries in a legal claim.
Do not sign anything from any insurance company. Do not give a recorded statement.
Document everything — your symptoms, your medical visits, your time off work, the impact on your daily life. Keep a journal. This documentation is how a jury will understand what you went through.
Contact a lawyer. Texas gives you two years, but the evidence is disappearing now.
For all:
The preservation letter is the most important thing that happens in the first 72 hours. It freezes the evidence before it can be legally destroyed. The CCTV footage, the ELD data, the signal logs, the driver’s cell phone records, the cargo-securement documentation — all of it is on a clock, and some of those clocks may have already expired. The day you call a lawyer is the day those clocks stop working against you.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a lawsuit for the Pecos train-truck collision?
For wrongful death claims under Texas law, the statute of limitations is two years from the date of death (Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003). For personal injury claims (the building occupants), the deadline is also two years from the date of injury. For FELA claims against Union Pacific filed by the families of the deceased railroad employees, the deadline is three years from the date the cause of action accrued (45 U.S.C. § 56). These are two separate clocks running on two separate legal tracks. The two-year state-law deadline is the one that will expire first. If a governmental entity (such as TxDOT) is implicated as a crossing maintainer, the Texas Tort Claims Act may impose a separate, shorter notice deadline that must be confirmed immediately.
Can the families of the Union Pacific employees sue the railroad?
Yes — under FELA, the families can sue Union Pacific if the railroad’s negligence contributed “in whole or in part” to the deaths. This is a deliberately low standard — the railroad’s negligence only needs to have played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death. Even if the truck’s presence on the tracks was the primary cause, the railroad can be liable if crossing signals were inadequate, the train was traveling too fast for conditions, sight lines were deficient, or any equipment defect contributed. FELA is a separate legal track from the state-law claim against the trucking company, and both should be pursued.
Will the NTSB report prove who was at fault?
No — at least not in court. The NTSB’s probable-cause determination is inadmissible in a civil lawsuit for damages under 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b). What is usable are the factual findings the NTSB’s investigators gather — speeds, timing, signal status, vehicle data, witness statements. Your family’s case must be proven with your own experts and your own evidence. The NTSB investigation is a source of facts, not a verdict on liability.
The police said my injuries were minor — do I still have a case?
A police chief’s characterization of injuries at the scene of a catastrophic event is not a medical diagnosis. If you were inside a building when heavy equipment crashed into it, you should undergo a full medical evaluation including neurocognitive screening, audiometric testing, and psychological assessment. Concussion, acoustic trauma, and PTSD are all injuries that can present with delayed onset and that may not be obvious in the first hours after the event. If documented and connected to the collision, these injuries are compensable under Texas law — regardless of what the police report says.
Why would the trucking company try to say the driver was not their employee?
Because if the driver is an independent contractor, not an employee, the trucking company argues it is not automatically liable for the driver’s negligence under respondeat superior. This is a common defense in Permian Basin oilfield hauling, where independent owner-operators are frequently contracted to larger companies. The counter is that under the federal lease rule at 49 CFR § 376.12(c)(1), when a carrier leases on a driver and equipment, the carrier has “exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment” and “assumes complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment” — which means the carrier displaying its name on the trailer is the entity the law put in control of that truck on the road, regardless of the driver’s technical employment status. We also pursue every layer of vicarious liability — the shipper, the oilfield services company, any broker — to reach adequate coverage for two death claims and three injury claims.
What if the crossing was designed in a way that trapped the truck?
If the crossing has an uneven approach grade, a low-clearance condition, or insufficient clearance space on the far side that could trap a long lowboy trailer on the tracks, the entity responsible for the crossing’s design or maintenance may share liability. This could be Union Pacific, TxDOT, or a local authority. If a governmental entity is involved, the Texas Tort Claims Act’s notice requirements apply — and the notice deadline may be significantly shorter than the statute of limitations. This is a theory that must be investigated early, through a crossing approach-grade survey and geometric design records, because the proof of a design defect is in the physical geometry of the crossing itself.
How much is this case worth?
We cannot give you a specific number without knowing the facts that are still being investigated — the identity and insurance limits of the trucking company, the medical outcomes for the building occupants, and the NTSB’s factual findings regarding the railroad’s potential negligence. Based on what is known — two wrongful-death claims for railroad employees, three building-occupant injury claims, and a cargo-securement theory — the aggregate case value range is honestly $5 million to $15 million on the low end and $25 million to $50 million or more on the high end. The final number depends on facts that discovery and medical evaluation will reveal. Any lawyer who gives you a specific dollar figure before those facts are known is guessing.
What happens to the evidence if I wait to call a lawyer?
The evidence disappears. CCTV footage from businesses near the crossing may have been overwritten within 30 days of the collision — it may already be gone. The truck’s ELD data is on a 6-month retention clock. The DVIR is on a 3-month clock. The driver’s cell phone records may be purged within 90 to 180 days. The physical truck may be in a salvage yard where it can be crushed within weeks. Every day you wait is a day the proof that would have built your case is legally erased. The preservation letter — the formal written demand that freezes specific records and physical evidence — is the single most important thing that happens in the first days after a collision, and it is the reason the day you call a lawyer is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you.
Do I have to pay upfront to hire a lawyer for this?
No. We work on contingency — we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% of the recovery before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. We serve families fully in English and in Spanish — Hablamos Español — because the community affected by a collision in Pecos deserves to understand every word of their rights in the language they think in.
The Firm: Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
Ralph P. Manginello is the Managing Partner of Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — more than 27 years of trial practice, including in federal court (U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas). He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association, rated “Excellent” on Avvo with a 5.0 client-review score. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — a background that means he knows how to find the story the evidence tells, and how to tell it to a jury. He is admitted to practice in federal court, he has built a career taking on corporate defendants and insurance companies, and he signs his name under every word on this page. You can learn more about Ralph Manginello here.
Lupe Peña is an Associate Attorney at the firm, licensed in Texas since 2012 and admitted to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas. Before joining this firm, Lupe spent years as an insurance-defense attorney at a national 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 the IME doctors are selected, how surveillance is deployed, and how delay tactics are engineered — because he used to be the one doing it. Now he uses that knowledge for injured families. Lupe is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — because a family in crisis should never have to translate their grief to understand their rights. You can learn more about Lupe Peña here.
Together, Ralph and Lupe bring more than 40 years of combined legal experience to every case — the trial lawyer who has spent his career in courtrooms, and the former insurance-defense insider who knows the playbook from the other side. The firm has recovered more than $50 million for clients, including $5 million-plus in a brain-injury settlement, $3.8 million-plus in an amputation settlement, and $2.5 million-plus in a truck-crash recovery. These are the firm’s verified results — not a promise of what your case will produce, because past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Call Now — Your Family’s Rights Depend on Evidence That Is Disappearing
If someone you love was killed on that Union Pacific train, or if you were inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce building when the heavy equipment came through the wall, the evidence that will prove your case is on a clock — and some of those clocks have already run out. The CCTV footage may be gone. The truck may be in a salvage yard. The driver’s logs are six months from legal destruction. The signal logs are cycling. Every day that passes is a day the proof your family needs is being legally erased.
The call is free. The consultation is confidential. There is no fee unless we win your case. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — live staff, not an answering service. Hablamos Español.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — 1-888-288-9911 — right now. Or contact us through our website. The day you call is the day the preservation letter goes out — and the day the clock starts working for your family instead of against you.