What Happened at the Midkiff Road Crossing in Midland — and What It Means for You
If you were on that train on October 31, 2025 — or you love someone who was — you already know the part the news got right. A tractor-trailer became high-centered on the railroad tracks where Midkiff Road meets West Industrial Avenue in Midland. The trailer’s undercarriage hung up on the raised rail bed. The truck could not go forward. It could not go back. And then the train came.
You may have felt the impact before you heard it. You may have been thrown from a seat or braced against a wall. You may be a crew member who walked away from the locomotive with your ears ringing and your back screaming, telling yourself you are fine because you can walk. You may be a family member who got a phone call at 9 a.m. on a Friday and spent the rest of the day not knowing the full answer.
Here is what we want you to know right now: the fact that the truck driver was cited does not mean the case is simple, and the fact that you walked away does not mean you were not hurt. A train collision in an industrial corridor of Midland is not a fender-bender. It is a federally regulated event involving at least two commercial entities, multiple layers of insurance, and evidence that is already disappearing on a legal clock you cannot see.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle commercial-vehicle and catastrophic-injury cases in Texas. We are writing this for the person reading at 2 a.m. in Midland, trying to figure out whether what happened to them or someone they love is a case, and what to do about it before the proof is gone. Everything that follows is the work of our trial team — the law, the evidence, the medicine, the money, and the playbook the other side is already running on you. None of it is a guess. None of it is padded. And the call at the end is free.
Who Is Responsible When a Train Hits a Truck in Midland County
The short answer is: more companies than you think. The longer answer is what makes the difference between a case that covers your medical bills and one that accounts for what actually happened to your life.
A train-truck collision in Midland’s industrial zone is never one defendant. It is a stack. The trucking company that dispatched the driver to a route the driver was not supposed to be on. The railroad that owns the tracks, maintains the crossing signal, and operates the train. The entity responsible for the grade profile at the crossing — whether the rise over the rails was built so that a standard trailer could clear it, or whether the geometry was a trap waiting for the wrong vehicle at the wrong angle. And behind each of those, the insurance carriers whose money actually pays.
The trucking company. The truck driver in this incident was cited by Midland police for two things: insufficient clearance and driving a truck off a truck route. Those two citations are not just traffic tickets — they are potential evidence of decisions made up the chain. Who routed that truck down a road that was not a designated truck route? Was the dispatch software set to avoid grade crossings with known clearance problems, or was it set to the fastest route regardless? Was the driver trained on how to assess a crossing before committing the trailer? Was the load configured in a way that reduced ground clearance? Every one of those questions points at a company, not just a person behind the wheel.
The railroad. The railroad owns the crossing. The railroad is responsible for the signal system — the gates, the lights, the bells — and for maintaining them. Photos from this scene show a damaged level crossing signal, with the gate and warning light fixture lying on the ground. Was that damage caused by the collision, or was the signal already compromised? Was the signal functioning properly before the truck entered the crossing? Did the train crew receive adequate warning? Did the train crew attempt an emergency brake application, and if so, how much stopping distance did they have? A freight train moving at even moderate speed can take over a mile to stop. The railroad’s crossing inspection records, signal maintenance logs, and the train’s own event recorder data are all evidence — and the railroad controls all of it.
The crossing design. Grade crossings in industrial areas are not all built the same. Some have gentle approaches that let a long trailer clear the rails easily. Others have a steep crest that can cause a trailer’s underbody to drag — exactly the “high-centered” condition described in this incident. The geometry of the Midkiff Road and West Industrial Avenue crossing is a question that a reconstruction engineer needs to answer, and the design documents may point to a municipal or railroad entity that built or approved a crossing that was not safe for the truck traffic it was bound to receive.
This is the Permian Basin. The industrial corridors of Midland carry a volume of heavy truck traffic that most American cities never see — water haulers, frac sand transporters, equipment movers, crude tankers, all running on roads that were not always built for them and crossing railroad tracks that were laid decades before the oil boom. The Permian Basin trucking corridor that runs through Midland is one of the most dangerous environments in the country for commercial-vehicle crashes, and the intersection of those truck routes with active rail lines creates exactly the kind of hazard that surfaced on October 31.
“A motor carrier shall retain records of duty status and supporting documents required under this part for each of its drivers for a period of not less than 6 months from the date of receipt.”
— 49 CFR § 395.8(k)(1), the federal regulation governing truck-driver log retention
That quote is the clock. The trucking company is legally allowed to destroy the driver’s hours-of-service logs — the records that would show whether fatigue played a role, whether the driver had been on duty too long, whether the routing decision was made under pressure — six months after receiving them. After that, deletion is legal. The same federal rule applies to the supporting documents: fuel receipts, dispatch records, GPS pings, toll data. All of it can be gone in six months. And if you wait, the law itself becomes the shredder.
Texas Law: Your Rights After a Train Collision in Midland
Texas law controls your case. Not the trucking company’s corporate policy, not the railroad’s internal procedures, not the insurance adjuster’s first offer. Here is what the law actually says, in plain language.
Comparative fault. Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule. That means your own share of fault — if any — reduces your recovery, but it does not erase it unless you are more than 50 percent at fault. If a jury finds you were 20 percent at fault, your award is reduced by 20 percent. If a jury finds you were 51 percent at fault, you recover nothing. This rule is the reason the defense works so hard to pin percentage points on the injured: every point they shift is money. In a train collision, the comparative-fault fight is usually about whether the truck driver’s decisions, the railroad’s crossing maintenance, or some combination produced the crash — and the injured person’s own conduct is usually a minor factor the defense tries to inflate.
The statute of limitations. In Texas, you generally have two years from the date of the injury to file a personal-injury lawsuit. For a wrongful death, you generally have two years from the date of death. These are not soft deadlines. Miss them and the case is over, no matter how strong the evidence is. But there are exceptions — the discovery rule for latent injuries, tolling for minors, and other narrow extensions — and a lawyer can tell you whether any apply. The one thing you should never do is assume you have “plenty of time.” The two-year clock and the six-month evidence clock are running at the same time, and the evidence dies long before the deadline does.
Railroad employees and FELA. If you were a crew member on that train — an engineer, a conductor, a brakeman, a switchman — your claim is not an ordinary personal-injury case. It runs under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, a century-old federal statute that gives railroad workers protections most injured workers do not have. Under FELA, the railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing your injury. That is the lowest causation standard in American injury law — the Supreme Court affirmed it as recently as 2011. Your own contributory negligence reduces your recovery but never bars it. The old “you knew the job was dangerous” defense is abolished. Any waiver or release you signed at the scene or on the day of hire is void under federal law. And you have three years to file, not two. You can sue in state court or federal court, and the railroad generally cannot remove a state-court FELA case to federal court. The full measure of damages is available — past and future lost earnings, full medical care, and pain and suffering — with no statutory cap.
If you are a railroad employee who was on that train, the FELA framework is your framework. It is more favorable to you than ordinary Texas negligence law in several critical ways, and the railroad knows it. The railroad’s claim agent will be at your door within days, sometimes hours, offering a quick check and a release. What the railroad’s own century-old federal law says about that release is simple: it is void if its purpose was to exempt the carrier from liability. But proving it was void is easier with a lawyer between you and the claim agent.
Train passengers. If you were a passenger on the train, you are owed the highest degree of care that the law recognizes for a common carrier. In most states, including Texas, a common carrier — a train, a bus, a transit system — is held to a standard of care higher than ordinary negligence. The railroad does not get to say “we were reasonably careful.” The law asks whether the carrier used the utmost care consistent with the practical operation of its business. That heightened duty runs from the moment you boarded until you safely disembarked.
The damages you can recover. Texas does not cap non-economic damages in most personal-injury and wrongful-death cases outside of medical malpractice. That means a jury can award the full human measure of what was taken: the pain, the fear, the lost ability to do the things you used to do, the impact on your marriage and your family. On top of that, the economic damages — past and future medical bills, lost wages, lost earning capacity, the cost of a life-care plan if the injury is catastrophic — are recoverable in full. In a wrongful-death case, the surviving spouse, children, and parents can recover. A separate survival action allows the estate to recover for the decedent’s pain and suffering between injury and death, plus pre-death medical expenses.
The Evidence Clock: Records That Prove Your Case — and How Fast They Legally Disappear
Every train collision is a race between your right to sue and the evidence that proves your case. The right to sue in Texas lasts two years for most personal-injury claims, three years for FELA claims by railroad workers. The evidence does not last that long. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can legally die.
The truck driver’s hours-of-service logs. Federal regulation 49 CFR § 395.8(k) requires the motor carrier to retain records of duty status and supporting documents for six months from the date of receipt. Supporting documents include up to eight per day: fuel receipts, dispatch records, toll data, bills of lading, payroll records, and GPS pings. After six months, the carrier can legally destroy them. The preservation letter that freezes those records has to go out in days, not months. If you are reading this in February 2026, three months have already passed. The clock is half gone.
The truck’s electronic logging device and telematics. The ELD records the driver’s hours, but the raw data on the device can be overwritten on the next cycle, depending on the manufacturer. The carrier’s back-office copy is subject to the six-month retention rule. But the telematics system — the GPS tracking, the speed data, the hard-braking events — may have its own vendor-set retention window that is even shorter. This data shows where the truck was, how fast it was going, and whether the driver was on a route the company authorized. The carrier is not required to preserve it unless someone tells them to in writing.
The train’s event recorder. The locomotive’s event recorder — the train’s “black box” — captures speed, throttle position, brake applications, horn activation, and other operational data. Federal regulations govern how long this data must be retained, but the raw data can be overwritten if the locomotive continues in service without a preservation demand. The railroad controls this data. The preservation letter has to reach the railroad’s legal department, not just the local yard office.
The train’s forward-facing camera. Many locomotives are now equipped with forward-facing video cameras that record the approach to crossings, the collision itself, and the crew’s actions. This footage is the single most compelling piece of evidence in a grade-crossing collision case — it shows what the crew saw, when they saw it, and what they did. But the video storage system overwrites on a rolling cycle. The retention period is set by the railroad’s own policy, not by statute. If no one demands preservation, the footage of your collision can be recorded over by the next run.
The crossing signal system records. 49 CFR Part 234 governs grade crossing signal system safety. The railroad is required to inspect and maintain crossing signal systems. The records of those inspections — and any records of signal malfunctions, repairs, or adjustments — are critical evidence. If the signal was not working properly, or if the gate was already broken before the truck entered the crossing, that changes the entire liability picture. These records are held by the railroad and may be subject to shorter retention than you would expect.
The truck driver’s post-crash drug and alcohol test. Federal regulation 49 CFR § 382.303 requires post-accident drug and alcohol testing when the crash involves a fatality, or a citation plus injury requiring medical treatment away from the scene, or a citation plus disabling vehicle damage requiring a tow. The testing window is tight: the carrier must attempt the alcohol test within two hours and stop trying after eight hours; for controlled substances, the carrier stops trying after 32 hours. If the test was not done, the carrier must document why in writing. That written explanation — or its absence — is evidence. The test results themselves are retained for up to five years for positive results, but negative results may be destroyed in as little as one year.
The truck driver’s qualification file. 49 CFR § 391.51 requires the carrier to maintain a driver qualification file containing the employment application, motor vehicle record, road-test certificate, annual MVR inquiry, medical examiner’s certificate, and other documents. The DQ file must be retained for as long as the driver is employed and for three years after the driver leaves. For a currently employed driver, the file is alive now. What it shows — or fails to show — is the difference between a case about a driver’s mistake and a case about a company’s pattern of negligent hiring.
The truck’s daily vehicle inspection report. 49 CFR § 396.11 requires drivers to complete a daily inspection report covering brakes, steering, lights, tires, coupling devices, and other safety-critical components. The carrier must retain these reports for only three months. Three months. If the truck had a mechanical condition that contributed to the driver’s inability to clear the crossing — a suspension problem, a brake issue, a coupling problem — the document that would prove it can be legally destroyed in 90 days.
The train crew’s hours-of-service records. Federal regulation 49 CFR § 228.9 requires railroads to retain hours-of-duty records for train employees, signal employees, and dispatching service employees for two years. These records show whether the crew had been awake and on duty beyond federal limits. Fatigue is a factor in grade-crossing collisions when the crew’s reaction time is degraded. The two-year retention is more generous than the trucking six-month clock, but it still expires, and the records must be demanded before they are purged.
Scene evidence. The Midland Police Department responded to this collision and issued citations. The police report, any body-camera footage, and any dash-camera footage from responding units are public records that can be obtained — but they are also subject to retention schedules. The damaged crossing signal, the debris field, the skid marks (if any), the grade profile of the crossing — all of this is physical evidence that must be photographed and measured before it is cleaned up, repaired, or weathered away. The scene was cleared so traffic could resume. The evidence that was there on October 31 is not all there now.
The generalist’s mistake. A lawyer who handles ordinary car crashes and takes a train collision case may send a preservation letter to the trucking company and stop there. They will miss the event recorder on the locomotive. They will miss the crossing signal maintenance records. They will miss the train crew’s hours-of-service data. They will miss the forward-facing camera footage. They will miss the grade-profile design documents. And by the time they realize what they missed, the evidence will be legally gone. A train collision is a multimodal investigation — truck and train, federal and state, carrier and railroad — and the preservation demands have to go to every entity in the first week, not the first month.
The Money: Insurance Coverage and What a Train Collision Case Is Worth
The first question most people ask is whether there is money to recover. The answer is yes — but the architecture of that money is more complex than in an ordinary truck crash, because a train collision stacks two different federal regulatory regimes and multiple insurance towers.
The trucking company’s coverage. A for-hire interstate carrier of non-hazardous property is federally required to carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage under 49 CFR § 387.9. If the truck was hauling hazardous materials, the minimum jumps to $1,000,000 or even $5,000,000 depending on the cargo. But the federal minimum is a floor, not a ceiling. Many carriers carry far more — layered primary, excess, and umbrella policies that stack into the millions. The real coverage on the truck that was stuck on the Midkiff Road tracks is not knowable from the outside. It takes a preservation letter and a discovery demand to pull the actual policy and its declarations page. What we can tell you is that the same crash can have ten times the available coverage depending on what the carrier bought and what the shipper required — and knowing which policies exist, in what order they pay, is half the value of the case.
The railroad’s coverage. Railroads are typically self-insured at a large scale, with excess layers above. A Class I railroad like the one whose tracks run through Midland carries coverage that dwarfs a trucking company’s policy. But accessing it requires proving the railroad’s share of fault — and the railroad’s legal team is among the most experienced in the country at deflecting blame. The railroad will argue the truck was illegally on the crossing, the signal was working, the crew did everything right. The evidence — the event recorder, the signal logs, the camera footage — is what breaks through that defense.
The coverage shell game. The trucking company may be a small LLC with a thin policy. The railroad is a deep-pocket defendant. But between them, the shipper who loaded the truck, the broker who arranged the load, the entity that designed the crossing, and the municipality that designated the truck route, there may be five or six different insurance towers. The path to full compensation runs through all of them. A lawyer who looks only at the trucking company’s policy and stops is leaving money on the table — money that may be the difference between covering a lifetime of medical care and covering a year of it.
What the case is worth. No honest lawyer can put a dollar number on your case without seeing the medical records, the wage records, and the full liability picture. What we can tell you is how the number is built. For a catastrophic injury — a brain injury, a spinal injury, a traumatic amputation — the economic damages alone can run into the millions: emergency care, surgery, rehabilitation, a life-care plan that prices out every surgery, every wheelchair, every medication, and every caregiver hour the injured person will need for the rest of their life. A certified life-care planner builds that cost stream year by year. A forensic economist reduces it to present value. On top of the economic damages, the non-economic damages — the pain, the suffering, the lost enjoyment of life, the impact on the family — are recoverable in full in Texas, with no cap in most cases.
For a wrongful death, the damages include the financial support the decedent would have provided, the services they would have performed, the companionship and counsel they would have given, and — in the survival action — the pain and suffering they experienced between injury and death. A young worker’s wrongful-death claim in the Permian Basin, where wages are high and the earning years are many, can carry a lost-earnings figure alone that runs well into seven figures.
We do not quote verdict numbers we have not verified. What we can tell you is that the firm has recovered $50 million in the aggregate across its practice, including a $5 million brain-injury settlement, a $3.8 million amputation settlement, and a $2.5 million truck-crash recovery. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But those numbers tell you the scale at which these cases operate when the evidence is preserved, the liability is proven, and the defense is met with the resources to fight it.
The Physics and the Medicine: What a Train Collision Does to the Human Body
A train does not hit like a car hits. The physics are different, and the injuries are different. Understanding both is what makes the medicine of a train collision case real to a jury — and what makes the difference between a settlement that covers your bills and one that covers your life.
The mass disparity. A loaded tractor-trailer weighs up to 80,000 pounds. A freight train weighs thousands of tons — potentially 10,000 tons or more depending on the consist. The weight ratio can be 250-to-1 or greater. When a train strikes a truck, the truck is not pushed — it is sheared. The trailer becomes debris. The tractor, as this incident demonstrated, can be whipped around with enough force to swing back into the train itself. The energy transfer is catastrophic, and the truck’s occupants, if they had not exited, would have been subjected to forces the human body is not designed to absorb.
The crew’s experience. The train crew does not escape unscathed. When a locomotive hits a tractor-trailer at speed, the crew experiences a violent deceleration. The cab lurches. The engineer and conductor are thrown against their stations, against the windshield, against the interior structure of the cab. Even when the crew is not thrown from the locomotive, the impact forces produce a pattern of injuries that emergency medical personnel may not recognize in the immediate aftermath: traumatic brain injury from the head striking the console, spinal compression from the sudden deceleration, knee and hip injuries from bracing against the impact, and post-traumatic stress from the knowledge that the train could not stop and the collision was unavoidable.
The delayed injury pattern. The most dangerous injuries in a train collision are the ones that do not show up on the first scan. A mild traumatic brain injury can present with a perfectly normal CT scan — the damage is microscopic, the tearing of nerve fibers that a standard imaging machine was never designed to see. The symptoms come later: headaches that do not go away, memory gaps, a short fuse that was never there before, the inability to do the job the crew member has done for twenty years. Roughly one in seven people with a “mild” brain injury still has symptoms three months later. The defense will call it subjective. The medicine says it is real.
The spinal injury. The sudden deceleration of a train collision produces the same mechanism as a high-speed rear-end crash: the head whips forward and back, the spine compresses and extends, and the spinal cord — the bundle of nerves that runs every function below the neck — can be bruised, compressed, or severed. The injury may not be immediately apparent if the cord is contused rather than cut. But the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center tracks the lifetime cost of these injuries, and for a high-level cervical injury requiring ventilator support, the first-year cost alone exceeds $1.4 million, with lifetime costs reaching more than $6 million for a young adult. Those are the stakes when a crew member walks away from the cab saying “I’m fine” and three weeks later cannot feel their legs.
The psychological injury. A train crew that hits a stuck truck — knowing the train cannot stop, watching the collision unfold, unable to do anything but brace — carries that experience for the rest of their lives. Post-traumatic stress disorder is not a mood. It is a formal psychiatric diagnosis with eight separate criteria, and the clinical literature shows that transportation workers who experience catastrophic collisions develop PTSD at rates that match or exceed combat veterans. The treatment is real, the cost is real, and the damage to a person’s ability to return to the cab is real. The defense will call it “just stress.” The diagnosis says otherwise.
The proof problem. The insurance company’s favorite play in a train collision case is the “you walked away” argument. The ER record says you were alert and oriented. The CT was negative. You refused transport. Therefore, the adjuster reasons, you were not really hurt. The medicine demolishes this: a normal CT is exactly what is expected in a mild brain injury. The absence of a fracture does not rule out a spinal cord contusion. The ability to walk off the train does not rule out a delayed neurological decline. The injury is proven not by the first scan but by the full clinical picture — the neuropsychological testing, the advanced imaging, the testimony of the people who knew the person before the collision and see the difference now.
If you were on that train, the hospital you would have been taken to is Midland Memorial. Midland Memorial is a capable hospital, but it is not a Level I trauma center. The nearest Level I trauma centers are in Lubbock and El Paso — hours away by ground, reachable by air if the weather cooperates. For a catastrophic injury — a severe brain bleed, a spinal cord injury, a crush injury requiring specialized surgical intervention — those hours matter. They matter to your survival, and they matter to your case. The delay in reaching definitive trauma care is itself a factor in the harm, and the medical records from Midland Memorial, from the helicopter flight, and from the receiving trauma center all tell the story of what the collision actually did.
The Insurance Adjuster Playbook: What They Do Before You Call
The insurance industry runs a playbook on every serious commercial crash, and the train collision playbook is the most sophisticated of all because it involves multiple carriers — the trucking company’s insurer, the railroad’s self-insured claims department, and potentially the shipper’s and broker’s carriers — all coordinating their defense before you have spoken to a lawyer. Here are the plays, in the order they run, and the counter to each.
Play 1: The friendly “just checking on you” call. Within days of the collision, someone will call you. The voice is warm. They say they are from the insurance company and they just want to make sure you are okay. They ask if they can record your statement — “just for our records.” They ask how you are feeling. If you say “I’m okay” or “I think I’m fine,” those words are now in a recording that will be played at your deposition. The counter: do not give a recorded statement. You are not required to. The adjuster is not your friend. The recording is not for your benefit. It is engineered to lock you into a version of your condition before the real symptoms surface. The only statement you should give is one your lawyer prepares you for, if one is given at all.
Play 2: The quick check with a release. A check may arrive fast — sometimes within weeks. It looks generous. Attached to it, often on the back or in a separate page you have to sign to cash it, is a release. By signing, you give up your right to sue anyone connected to the collision — the trucking company, the railroad, the shipper, everyone. The check is designed to arrive before the MRI results do, before the headaches become constant, before the neuropsychological testing reveals the cognitive deficit. The counter: never cash a check from an insurance company after a commercial collision without having a lawyer read every word of every document attached to it. A release signed in the first month of a catastrophic injury case is the insurance industry’s single most profitable play.
Play 3: The “independent” medical examination. The insurance company will send you to a doctor of their choosing for an “independent medical examination.” The doctor is not independent — the insurance company selects them, pays them, and sends them cases. The examination may last fifteen minutes. The report will say you are fine, or that your injury is pre-existing, or that you have reached maximum medical improvement. The counter: you are not required to attend an IME in the first weeks. When you do attend, your lawyer should prepare you, and the examination should be observed or recorded where permitted. The IME doctor’s report is a defense document, not a medical opinion, and it is only as good as the facts the doctor was willing to look at.
Play 4: Surveillance and social media mining. If your case has value, the insurance company will watch you. They will photograph you in your yard, at the store, at your child’s game. They will scrape your social media — every post, every photo, every comment. A photo of you smiling at a birthday party will be presented as proof you are not in pain. A post about “feeling better today” will be quoted out of context. The counter: set your social media to private immediately. Do not post about the collision, your injuries, your medical appointments, or your activities. Assume you are being watched, because if your case is worth anything, you are.
Play 5: The “you were partly at fault” pressure. In a comparative-fault state like Texas, the defense will try to pin percentage points on you. If you were a train crew member, they will argue you should have seen the truck sooner, applied the brakes earlier, or been traveling slower. If you were a passenger, they will argue you were not seated properly. If you were in the truck, they will argue you contributed to the routing decision. The counter: every percentage point they try to shift is money, and the evidence — the event recorder, the signal logs, the crew’s hours of service — is what keeps those points where they belong. The defense counts on you not having that evidence. The preservation letter is the first step in making sure you do.
Play 6: The railroad claim agent. If you are a railroad employee, the railroad’s claim agent will visit you — sometimes at the hospital, sometimes at home. They will express concern. They may offer a small advance on your claim. They will ask you to sign documents. What they will not tell you is that under FELA, any contract, rule, or device designed to exempt the railroad from liability is void. They will not tell you that the federal law that protects you was written because railroads had a century-long habit of pressuring injured workers into cheap settlements before they knew the full extent of their injuries. The counter: do not sign anything from the railroad’s claim agent. Do not give a statement. Do not accept an advance without understanding what it means. Call a lawyer who knows FELA first.
How a Train Collision Case Is Actually Built — From Preservation Letter to Verdict
Here is how a train collision case in Midland County is actually built, step by step, from the day you call to the day a jury decides.
Week one: the preservation letter. The first thing that happens is not a lawsuit. It is a letter — a litigation-hold and spoliation-preservation demand — sent by certified mail to every entity that holds evidence: the trucking company, the railroad, the crossing signal maintainer, the truck’s telematics vendor, the train’s event-recorder custodian, and any third-party broker or shipper involved in the load. The letter names the specific records: the driver’s ELD logs and supporting documents, the train’s event recorder data, the forward-facing camera footage, the crossing signal inspection and maintenance records, the driver’s qualification file, the post-crash drug and alcohol test results, the daily vehicle inspection reports, the train crew’s hours-of-service records, and the police report. The letter puts each entity on notice that the evidence must be preserved and that destruction after notice may result in an adverse-inference instruction — a jury instruction that permits the jury to assume the lost evidence was as bad for the defense as the plaintiff says it was.
Weeks two through four: the records demands and the scene reconstruction. While the evidence is frozen, the medical picture is being built. If you were taken to Midland Memorial, your medical records are pulled and reviewed. If you were flown to Lubbock or El Paso, those records are pulled too. A reconstruction engineer is engaged to measure the crossing — the grade profile, the sight lines, the signal placement, the distance from the crossing to the point of impact. The engineer downloads the event recorder data if it has been preserved. The truck’s telematics data is pulled and analyzed. The police report and any body-camera footage from responding officers are obtained through a public-records request.
Months two through six: the discovery phase. If the case is in suit, formal discovery begins. Written interrogatories go to every defendant. Document demands are served: the trucking company’s safety manual, the driver’s personnel file, the carrier’s CSA scores and inspection history, the railroad’s crossing inspection records for the Midkiff Road crossing going back five years, the train crew’s training records, the railroad’s signal maintenance logs. Depositions are taken — the truck driver, the train engineer, the train conductor, the safety director for the trucking company, the railroad’s signal maintainer, the responding police officers. Under oath, the safety director explains the company’s routing practices. The engineer describes what they saw and when they applied the brakes. The signal maintainer describes the last inspection of the Midkiff Road crossing and whether the gate was functioning.
Months six through twelve: the expert phase. The life-care planner evaluates the injured person and builds the cost-of-care projection — every surgery, every therapy, every medication, every piece of equipment, every caregiver hour, projected across the person’s expected life span. The forensic economist reduces that stream to present value. The neuropsychologist administers the testing that proves the brain injury. The reconstruction engineer finalizes the physics analysis. The rail-safety expert opines on whether the crossing met federal standards and whether the railroad’s maintenance was adequate. Each expert’s report is a piece of the proof structure that will be presented to a jury.
The trial. If the case does not settle — and many do, because the defense sees the evidence and calculates the risk — it goes to trial in the Midland County courthouse, before a jury of people who live in Midland County, who know the Midkiff Road corridor, who understand the oil-field truck traffic because they drive alongside it every day. The jury hears the evidence. The event recorder data is displayed. The camera footage is played. The safety director’s deposition is read. The life-care plan is presented. And the jury decides what the collision cost and who pays.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do and What to Refuse
The first 72 hours after a train collision are when evidence is freshest, injuries are declaring themselves, and the insurance industry is most active. Here is the practical roadmap.
Medical first — and document everything. If you have not been seen by a doctor, go now. Not because you need to “build a case” — because you need to know what is happening inside your body. The symptoms of a brain injury, a spinal injury, or an internal injury may not appear for hours or days. The medical record from the first 72 hours is also the most powerful evidence that your injury is connected to the collision. If you wait two weeks to see a doctor, the defense will argue the injury came from something else. Go now. Tell the doctor everything — every symptom, every pain, every cognitive change, no matter how small. “I have a headache” is a symptom. “I keep forgetting words” is a symptom. “I feel foggy” is a symptom. Write them down. Take someone with you who can describe what they have observed.
Do not give a recorded statement. Not to the trucking company’s insurer. Not to the railroad’s claim agent. Not to any third-party adjuster. You are not required to. Anything you say can and will be used to reduce the value of your claim. The adjuster is trained to ask questions that elicit helpful answers — “How are you feeling today?” — and to avoid questions that would elicit harmful ones — “What did the doctor say about your brain?” Say nothing about the collision, your injuries, or your condition to any insurance representative until you have spoken to a lawyer.
Do not sign anything. Not a release. Not a medical authorization. Not an employment form. Not a “settlement” check. Not a claim agent’s paperwork. Not even something that looks like a routine form. The railroad’s claim agent and the trucking company’s insurer both use documents that look harmless and are not. If someone puts a paper in front of you, read it. If you do not understand it, do not sign it. If it says “release” or “settlement” or “waiver” anywhere on it, do not sign it under any circumstances.
Set your social media to private. Do this today. Do not post about the collision, your injuries, your medical appointments, your lawyer, or your activities. Do not let friends tag you in posts. Assume everything you post will be photographed and presented to a jury as evidence that you are “fine.”
Preserve everything you have. Your phone — preserve the photos, the texts, the call logs from the day of the collision. Your clothes from that day — do not wash them. Any personal items that were damaged. Anything the hospital gave you — discharge instructions, wristbands, paperwork. If you were a train crew member, preserve your work records, your schedules, your training documents. If you were a truck occupant, preserve your ELD records, your dispatch communications, your route instructions. Do not rely on the company to keep your copy.
Call a lawyer. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. The evidence freeze starts then. The insurance adjuster’s playbook stops then. The medical-records demand starts then. Everything that matters in your case — the evidence, the liability, the value — is shaped by how early the right lawyer enters the picture. The call is free. The consultation is free. You do not pay anything unless we win.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still file a claim if the truck driver was cited but I was not in the truck?
Yes. If you were on the train — as a crew member or a passenger — the truck driver’s citations are evidence of negligence, but your claim is not limited to the truck driver. The railroad may bear responsibility for the crossing design, the signal function, or the crew’s response. The trucking company may bear responsibility for the routing decision, the driver’s training, or the vehicle’s configuration. Your claim runs against every entity whose decisions contributed to the collision, not just the person who was cited.
I am a railroad employee who was on the train. Do I have a different type of case?
Yes. Railroad employees are covered by the Federal Employers’ Liability Act — a federal statute that gives you protections ordinary injury victims do not have. Under FELA, the railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing your injury. Your own contributory negligence reduces but never bars your recovery. The assumption-of-risk defense is abolished. Any release you signed at the scene is void under federal law. You have three years to file, not two. And you can choose state or federal court. The railroad’s claim agent knows all of this. They will still try to get you to sign a release. Do not sign anything without speaking to a lawyer who understands FELA.
How long do I have to file a lawsuit after a train collision in Midland?
For most personal-injury claims in Texas, the statute of limitations is two years from the date of the injury. For a wrongful-death claim, it is two years from the date of death. For a FELA claim by a railroad employee, the federal deadline is three years from the date the cause of action accrued. These deadlines are not flexible. But the evidence dies faster than the deadline: truck-driver logs can be destroyed in six months, train crew records in two years, and camera footage in weeks. The time to act is not when the deadline approaches — it is now, while the evidence still exists.
The insurance company already offered me a check. Should I take it?
Almost never in the first weeks after a commercial collision. The first offer is designed to arrive before you know the full extent of your injuries — before the MRI, before the neuropsychological testing, before the life-care plan. It is also designed to arrive with a release that extinguishes your right to sue anyone. A check that looks generous in November can look like a fraction of what you need by March, when the headaches have not stopped and the doctor says the brain injury is permanent. Do not cash an insurance check after a train collision without having a lawyer read every document attached to it.
What if I was partly at fault for the collision?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule. Your own share of fault reduces your recovery, but it does not bar it unless you are more than 50 percent at fault. If a jury finds you were 20 percent at fault and your damages are $500,000, you recover $400,000. The defense will try to inflate your percentage because every point is money. The evidence — the event recorder, the signal logs, the crew records, the telematics data — is what keeps your percentage honest. In a train collision, the injured person’s share of fault is usually small compared to the corporate defendants’, which is exactly why the defense fights so hard to shift points.
Was the crossing signal working properly, and does it matter for my case?
It matters enormously. The crossing signal at Midkiff Road and West Industrial Avenue was damaged in the collision — the photos show the gate and warning light fixture on the ground. The question is whether the signal was functioning before the collision and whether the damage was caused by the impact or was pre-existing. The railroad is required to inspect and maintain crossing signals under federal regulation. The inspection and maintenance records for this crossing are evidence that must be preserved and obtained. If the signal was malfunctioning before the collision, the railroad’s share of liability increases significantly. This is one of the facts that a preservation letter is designed to freeze before the records can be lost.
I walked away from the collision and felt fine. Now I am having symptoms. Is it too late?
It is not too late, but the clock is running. Delayed symptoms after a train collision are the norm, not the exception — particularly for brain injuries, spinal injuries, and psychological trauma. The medical literature is clear: a normal CT scan in the emergency room does not rule out a brain injury. The symptoms can emerge days or weeks later. The key is to see a doctor now, describe every symptom, and create a medical record that connects your current condition to the collision. The longer the gap between the collision and the first documented symptom, the harder the defense will argue the injury came from something else. Close that gap today.
How much does it cost to hire Attorney911 for a train collision case?
Nothing upfront. We work on contingency — 33.33 percent before trial, 40 percent if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The call is free. We have 24/7 live staff — not an answering service, real people who can take your call right now. Whether you speak English or Spanish, we can help you. Hablamos Español.
Why People Call Attorney911: Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
Ralph P. Manginello has spent 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is the Managing Partner of The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — Attorney911. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he was trained to find the story the other side does not want told. He was admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1998 and to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, including its Bankruptcy Court. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. He leads the active $10 million hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi and the University of Houston — a case that is being fought right now in Harris County. When Ralph takes a case, the other side knows it because the preservation letter arrives before the courtesy call does. You can read more about Ralph Manginello’s background and practice on his attorney page.
Lupe Peña is the reason the insurance company’s playbook does not work on us. Lupe spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decide how to deny, delay, and devalue claims. He was trained in the claim-valuation software that carriers use to set reserves. He knows how the IME doctor is selected. He knows the surveillance schedule. He knows the recorded-statement script. And now he sits on your side of the table. Lupe is a Texas-licensed attorney admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. He is a third-generation Texan with family roots to the King Ranch, born and raised in Sugar Land. You can learn more about Lupe Peña’s experience and practice on his attorney page.
Together, Ralph and Lupe handle commercial truck and 18-wheeler collision cases across Texas — including the Permian Basin corridor that runs through Midland. The firm has recovered more than $50 million in the aggregate across its practice. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But those results tell you the scale at which we operate: $5 million in a brain-injury settlement, $3.8 million in an amputation settlement, $2.5 million in a truck-crash recovery. We are not the firm that sends one letter and waits. We are the firm that sends the preservation demand to every entity in the first week, freezes the evidence before it can be destroyed, and builds the case from the ground up.
The Call
The train hit the truck on October 31, 2025. The evidence clock started that morning. The truck driver’s logs can be destroyed in six months. The train’s camera footage can be overwritten in weeks. The crossing signal records are sitting in a file the railroad controls. Every day that passes is a day the defense uses to let the evidence expire.
The call is free. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. We have 24/7 live staff — not an answering service. Whether you speak English or Spanish, we serve your family fully.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911 — or contact us through our website. The conversation is confidential. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. The evidence freeze starts then. Everything that matters in your case is shaped by how early the right lawyer enters the picture.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case is different. The specific deadlines, evidence, and strategy for your case depend on facts we will learn when you call. But the clock is the same for everyone: it started on October 31, and it is running right now. Call today.