Pecos Train Derailment: What Happened, Who Is Responsible, and What the Families Need to Know Right Now
If you are reading this because someone you love was on that Union Pacific crew — or because you were inside the Chamber of Commerce building when the train came through the wall — you are in the hours and days after a disaster that took two lives and hurt three more people in a town where everybody knows somebody. You are being told it was an accident. You are being told the investigation will sort it out. And while that is being said, the evidence that would tell the full story is being erased on short retention cycles that the railroad and the trucking company are counting on you not knowing about.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We are trial lawyers who handle catastrophic injury and wrongful-death cases in Texas, including wrongful death claims against railroads and commercial-trucking defendants. We are writing this page because what happened at the Oak Street and Dot Stafford Street crossing in Pecos on a Wednesday evening at 5:45 p.m. is not just a news story. It is a federal case — literally. The two people who died were veteran Union Pacific Railroad employees, and their deaths are governed by a century-old federal statute that most people have never heard of, that gives their families rights the railroad does not volunteer, and that runs on a clock the railroad is already working against.
This page is for the families of those crew members, for the people who were inside that building, and for anyone in Reeves County who needs to understand what actually happens after a train hits a truck and derails into a building in a West Texas town that sits on one of the busiest freight corridors in the western United States. It is long because the truth is long. It is specific because vague advice is no advice at all. And every word of it is written so that you walk away knowing more than the railroad’s claim representative wants you to know.
FELA: The Federal Law That Protects Railroad Workers — and Their Families After Death
The two people killed in this derailment were Union Pacific employees. That single fact changes everything about their families’ legal rights. When a railroad worker is injured or killed on the job, the claim does not run through ordinary Texas personal-injury law. It runs through a federal statute called the Federal Employers’ Liability Act — FELA — enacted in 1908 and codified at 45 U.S.C. §§ 51 through 60.
FELA is not workers’ compensation. It is a fault-based tort remedy, but one that is deliberately tilted in the worker’s favor. The railroad is liable if its negligence played any part — even the smallest — in causing the injury or death. The statute’s own words say it:
“Every 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 phrase — “in whole or in part” — is the entire ballgame. The Supreme Court has called this the lowest causation standard in American injury law. In Rogers v. Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., 352 U.S. 500 (1957), the Court held that the test is “simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought.” And in 2011, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that standard in CSX Transportation, Inc. v. McBride, 564 U.S. 685 (2011), holding that FELA does not incorporate the tougher common-law “proximate cause” test that governs ordinary injury cases.
What this means for the families of the two Union Pacific employees killed in Pecos is this: they do not have to prove the railroad was the primary cause of the derailment. They do not have to prove the railroad was the only cause. They have to prove that the railroad’s negligence — in crossing-signal maintenance, in train speed through a populated corridor, in crew training, in track condition, in compliance with its own operating rules — played any part, even the slightest, in what happened. That is a standard the railroad’s lawyers know well, and it is a standard that makes FELA cases different from every other wrongful-death case in Texas.
FELA’s Three-Year Clock — Longer Than Texas’s Deadline, But the Evidence Won’t Wait
FELA gives the families three years from the date the cause of action accrued to file suit. That is longer than Texas’s general two-year statute of limitations for wrongful-death and personal-injury claims. But the three-year deadline is a trap if you read it as permission to wait. Here is why: the evidence that proves the railroad’s negligence is not preserved for three years. It is preserved for days, for weeks, for a few months at most — and then it can be legally destroyed.
The locomotive event recorder — the train’s black box — records speed, throttle position, brake application, and horn and bell activation timestamps at the approach to the crossing. Federal regulations require its retention, but Union Pacific may download the data and return the locomotive to service within days. The forward-facing camera footage — the visual record of the crossing-signal status, the truck’s position, and the collision dynamics — can be overwritten within 72 hours to 7 days depending on the system configuration. The grade-crossing signal system event logs — whether the lights, bells, and gates were functioning — may auto-purge within 30 to 90 days. Union Pacific’s dispatch audio may auto-delete within 30 days.
The three-year FELA deadline is real. But the evidence clock runs in hours and days, not years. The preservation letter — the formal demand that the railroad and the trucking company freeze every piece of evidence before it is destroyed — is the single most time-critical step in this case, and it goes out the day you call a lawyer, not the month before the deadline.
What FELA Gives the Families That Texas Law Does Not
FELA provides several protections that ordinary Texas wrongful-death law does not:
Contributory negligence does not bar recovery. Under 45 U.S.C. § 53, even if the deceased worker was partly at fault, the family can still recover — the award is simply reduced by the worker’s share of fault. And if the railroad violated a federal safety statute enacted for the protection of employees, the worker’s own contributory negligence is wiped out entirely. In a case where the truck driver’s negligence is obvious but the railroad’s own safety failures — excessive speed, inadequate crossing protection, signal malfunction — also contributed, this rule is critical. The railroad cannot defend itself by pointing at the truck and saying “that was the real cause” if its own negligence played any part.
Assumption of risk is abolished. Under 45 U.S.C. § 54, the railroad cannot argue that the crew knew the job was dangerous and accepted that risk. That defense is gone. A railroad worker who gets on a locomotive in Pecos and runs the Sunset Route is not assuming the risk of a negligently maintained crossing signal or an inadequately protected grade crossing.
No waiver is enforceable. Under 45 U.S.C. § 55, any contract, rule, or device designed to let the railroad escape FELA liability is void. If a claim agent shows up at the family’s door with a document — any document — and asks them to sign it, that document cannot extinguish the family’s FELA rights. The family should not sign anything, should not give a recorded statement, and should not provide authorizations for the railroad to access the deceased’s employment or medical records without counsel reviewing every page.
Full tort damages, no cap. FELA permits recovery of full tort damages — past and future lost earnings and earning capacity, full medical expenses, funeral costs, the estate’s claim for pre-death conscious pain and suffering, and the statutory beneficiaries’ loss of companionship, society, and mental anguish. There is no statutory cap on FELA wrongful-death damages. Texas imposes no general statutory cap on wrongful-death damages outside the medical-liability context. For veteran railroad employees whose compensation packages — base pay, overtime, benefits, and railroad retirement contributions — can produce lifetime earning-capacity figures well into seven figures per decedent, the economic-loss floor alone is substantial before any non-economic damages are added.
The family picks the courthouse. Under 45 U.S.C. § 56, FELA jurisdiction is concurrent in state and federal court. The family can file in state court — in Reeves County, where a jury of the reader’s neighbors would decide the case — and the railroad generally cannot remove the case to federal court under the anti-removal provision that bars removal of state-court FELA cases. This is not a minor strategic point. A jury in Reeves County understands heavy-industry risk, oilfield-truck traffic, and what it means for a railroad to run through their town. The railroad’s defense lawyers fly in from towers in other cities. The home field belongs to the family.
The Evidence Clock: What Exists, Who Holds It, and How Fast It Dies
This is the section that decides whether the case is won or lost before a single deposition is taken. Every piece of evidence listed below exists right now. Some of it is being erased as you read this. The preservation letter — the formal demand that each evidence holder freeze specific records — is the document that converts an automatic deletion into sanctionable destruction. The day the letter is on file, the clock starts working for the family instead of against them.
Locomotive Event Recorder (Black Box Data)
What it captures: Train speed, throttle position, brake application, horn and bell activation timestamps at the approach to the Oak Street crossing.
Who holds it: Union Pacific. The FRA requires retention, but UP may download the data and re-deploy the locomotive within days.
How fast it can die: The data itself, once downloaded, should survive. But the raw telemetry on the locomotive’s internal storage can be overwritten by continued operation. The preservation letter to UP and the FRA must demand the immediate download and preservation of all event-recorder data from the involved locomotive.
Why it decides the case: This is the single most important record for proving FELA negligence. Speed, braking, and horn activation are the three facts that determine whether the railroad’s crew acted within operating rules and whether the railroad’s own practices contributed to the outcome. Without this data, the FELA “any negligence” standard becomes much harder to satisfy with specifics.
Forward-Facing Camera / Track Image Recorder
What it captures: Visual record of crossing-signal status, the tractor-trailer’s position, the collision dynamics, and the moments before and after impact.
Who holds it: Union Pacific.
How fast it can die: UP camera systems may overwrite within 72 hours to 7 days depending on configuration. This is the fastest-dying critical evidence in the entire case.
Why it decides the case: The forward-facing camera is potentially dispositive on comparative fault. It can show whether the crossing signals were activated, whether the gates (if any) were down, whether the truck was stalled on the crossing or drove into the train’s path, and the exact sequence of events. If this footage is gone, the reconstruction becomes a battle of expert opinions instead of a matter of recorded fact. The preservation letter demanding this footage is the most time-critical single action in the first 72 hours.
Grade-Crossing Signal System Logs and Maintenance Records
What they capture: Whether active warning devices (lights, bells, gates) were functioning, when they were last inspected, and whether any malfunctions were logged.
Who holds them: The signal maintainer — which could be UP, a contractor, or a public entity. The records are held by whichever entity is responsible for the crossing’s signal system.
How fast they can die: Signal system event logs may auto-purge within 30 to 90 days. Maintenance history must be demanded before records are archived or destroyed under routine retention schedules.
Why they decide the case: If the signals were not functioning — if the lights did not activate, if the bells did not ring, if the gates (if present) did not descend — that is a FELA negligence fact against the railroad and a foreseeability fact against whatever entity maintained the crossing. The signal logs are the proof. Their absence is itself a story.
Tractor-Trailer ELD, Driver Logs, and Cell-Phone Records
What they capture: Hours-of-service compliance, speed approaching the crossing, potential mobile-device distraction, and route authorization for the specific crossing.
Who holds them: The unidentified motor carrier and the driver’s cell-phone carrier.
How fast they can die: ELD data may overwrite within 8 days. Cell-carrier retention varies and may require immediate litigation hold or preservation letter. If the truck was towed from the scene, the dashcam device may be lost or wiped.
Why they decide the case: The truck driver’s approach to the crossing is the other half of the liability story. Was the driver on the phone? Was the driver over hours? Was the driver unfamiliar with the crossing? Was the driver required to stop and did not? The ELD, the cell records, and the dashcam answer these questions. Without them, the trucking defendant’s negligence is harder to prove and the railroad’s share of fault becomes the primary battleground.
UP Internal Communications: Dispatch Records, Crew Orders, Track Bulletins
What they capture: Speed restrictions in effect through Pecos, any prior crossing incidents flagged by dispatch, crew authorization for hazmat routing, and real-time communications during the trip.
Who holds them: Union Pacific’s dispatch center.
How fast they can die: Dispatch audio may auto-delete within 30 days. Written bulletins are retained but require specific request.
Why they decide the case: The dispatch record tells us what restrictions were in place when the train entered Pecos. Was there a slow order through town? Had prior incidents at this crossing been communicated to dispatch? Was the crew operating under specific instructions for the hazmat cars in their consist? These records fill in the operational picture the railroad will not volunteer.
Scene Evidence: Photographs, Drone Survey, Track and Road Measurements
What they capture: Sightline obstructions, crossing geometry, skid marks, debris field, building impact angle, and the physical relationship between the crossing and the Chamber of Commerce.
Who holds them: The Pecos Police Department, Reeves County officials, the FRA, and Union Pacific’s own investigators.
How fast they can die: Scene remediation and track repair are already underway. Physical evidence is being altered daily. Once the track is repaired and the crossing is reopened, the physical record of what happened is gone. An independent scene survey — conducted by a reconstruction expert retained by the family’s counsel — is the only way to preserve what the cleanup is erasing.
Building Occupants’ Medical Records
What they capture: Causation documentation for the minor-injury claims, diagnostic workup for delayed-onset symptoms, and a baseline for emotional-distress evaluation.
Who holds them: The hospital that treated the injured and the individuals’ own providers.
How fast they can die: Hospital records are retained per HIPAA, but prompt authorization collection prevents loss of urgent-care or walk-in documentation. Some smaller facilities have shorter retention for minor-treatment records.
Why they decide the case: The three people who were inside the Chamber of Commerce and suffered minor injuries have their own claims — against both the truck operator and the railroad. The chain of events from crossing collision to derailment to building impact was foreseeable and preventable with reasonable care. Their medical records are the proof of the harm that chain caused.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What the Railroad and the Trucking Company Will Try
Within days of the derailment, the families of the deceased crew members will be contacted by Union Pacific’s claim representatives. The building occupants may hear from the trucking company’s insurer. These contacts will feel sympathetic. They are not your friends. They are professionals whose job is to reduce the amount the company pays, and they have a set of plays they run in every case. Here are the ones to watch for, and the counter to each.
Play 1: The “Just Checking In” Recorded Statement
A claim agent calls the family, expresses condolences, and asks the family to “just tell us what happened” or “help us understand” — on a recording. Everything said on that recording is built to be quoted against the family later. A widow who says “I think the truck just pulled out in front of them” has just given the railroad a free witness statement that the truck was the sole cause — which is the railroad’s defense to the FELA claim.
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement. Not to UP’s claim agent, not to the trucking company’s insurer, not to anyone. You are under no obligation to do so. The FELA anti-waiver statute (45 U.S.C. § 55) voids any release or “device” meant to exempt the carrier from liability, but a recorded statement is not a release — it is a weapon. Say: “I am not prepared to give a statement at this time. Please contact my attorney.”
Play 2: The Fast Check With a Release Attached
A settlement check may arrive quickly — sometimes before the funeral. It will come with a release document that, if signed, extinguishes the family’s right to pursue the full claim. The amount will look significant in the moment. It will be a fraction of what the case is worth once the evidence is preserved, the economist has run the numbers, and the full scope of the railroad’s negligence is documented.
The counter: Do not sign anything. Do not cash any check from the railroad or the trucking company’s insurer. Do not sign authorizations permitting the railroad to access the decedent’s employment or medical files. Every document the claim agent brings is designed to close the case cheaply. FELA makes any contract or device meant to exempt the railroad void — but a signed release that the family did not understand is still a document that has to be unwound, and unwinding it is a fight you should not have to win.
Play 3: The “It Was the Truck’s Fault” Narrative
The railroad’s defense in a FELA grade-crossing case is almost always the same: the truck pulled into the train’s path, the crew could not stop in time, and the railroad is not responsible for a third party’s negligence. This narrative will be planted early — in press statements, in the FRA’s preliminary findings, and in the claim agent’s conversations with the family.
The counter: FELA’s “any part, even the slightest” standard is the answer. The truck’s negligence does not erase the railroad’s. If the crossing signals were inadequate, if the train was traveling too fast for the corridor, if the horn was late, if the sightlines were obscured by vegetation the railroad was responsible for maintaining — each of those is a FELA negligence fact independent of the truck. The case is built on two tracks simultaneously: the truck driver’s crossing negligence and the railroad’s own FELA negligence. The railroad hopes the family pursues only one.
Play 4: The Delay Aimed at the Evidence Clock
The insurer may seem cooperative, may ask for “more time” to investigate, may promise to “get back to you” — while the evidence that would prove the railroad’s negligence is being overwritten, auto-purged, or physically destroyed by scene remediation. Delay is not neutral. Delay is the defense’s friend, because delay erases proof.
The counter: The preservation letter is the answer to delay. The day counsel is retained, letters go out to Union Pacific, to the trucking company (once identified), to the signal maintainer, and to every third-party data vendor holding evidence. Those letters convert automatic deletion into sanctionable spoliation. If the railroad lets the camera footage die after receiving a preservation demand, the jury can be told to assume the missing footage would have been unfavorable to the railroad. That is leverage the railroad understands.
Play 5: The IME Doctor the Insurer Picks
For the building occupants with minor injuries, the insurer may request an “independent medical examination.” The doctor is not independent — the insurer picks the doctor, and the doctor’s business model depends on producing reports that minimize the injury. The report will say the injuries are minor, pre-existing, or unrelated to the derailment.
The counter: The family’s own treating physicians are the real medical authority. The IME is the insurer’s tool, not a neutral evaluation. Any IME should be attended by counsel or a representative, and the treating physician’s records — not the insurer-picked doctor’s report — are what the jury should hear.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do and What Not to Do
If you are in the first hours or days after the derailment — whether you are the family of a crew member or a building occupant — here is the practical roadmap.
Medical first. If you were in the building and have not been fully evaluated, go now. Minor injuries can mask serious ones. Concussion symptoms can appear 24 to 48 hours after impact. Neck and back injuries can declare themselves days later. Document everything — every visit, every symptom, every receipt. The medical record is the foundation of the injury claim, and a gap between the incident and the first documented treatment is a gap the defense will exploit.
Do not sign anything. Not from Union Pacific. Not from the trucking company. Not from any insurer. Not from any “investigator” who shows up at your door. If someone puts a document in front of you and says it is routine, it is not routine. It is designed to close your claim. Say: “I need to speak with an attorney before I sign anything.”
Do not give a recorded statement. To anyone. Not to UP’s claim agent, not to the trucking company’s insurer, not to an “adjuster” who sounds sympathetic. Every word you say on a recording will be transcribed and used. You are not required to give a statement. You are not obligated to help the railroad “understand what happened.” The railroad has its own investigators. It does not need your help.
Do not post on social media. Nothing about the incident. Nothing about your injuries. Nothing about your loved one. Nothing about the railroad or the trucking company. Insurers monitor social media. A photograph of you at a family event — even one where you are in pain but smiling — will be presented to a jury as proof you are fine. A comment about the incident will be taken out of context. Silence on social media is the safest posture.
Preserve evidence. If you have photographs or video from the scene, save them. Do not delete anything. If you have the names or contact information of witnesses, write them down. If you were in the building, photograph the damage and your injuries. Every piece of physical evidence you hold is evidence the defense does not control.
Call a lawyer. Not next month. Not after the funeral. Not after the investigation is complete. Now. The preservation letter — the document that freezes the evidence before it is erased — goes out the day you call. Every day you wait is a day the locomotive data, the camera footage, the signal logs, and the truck’s ELD are closer to being legally destroyed. The three-year FELA deadline is real, but the evidence clock runs in hours and days. The gap between “you can still sue” and “the proof is already gone” is the defense’s quiet advantage. Close that gap now.
Reeves County and the Permian Basin: Why This Happened Where It Happened
Pecos is not a random location. It is a convergence point — a place where the forces that caused this collision have been building for years.
Reeves County is the county seat of the Permian Basin’s western edge. Interstate 10 runs east-west through Pecos. US Highway 285 runs north-south, connecting the oilfields of the Delaware Basin to the railheads and processing facilities that serve them. The energy boom that began in the early 2010s and accelerated through the 2020s has put truck traffic on Reeves County roads that those roads were never built to carry. Water-haul trucks, frac-sand transporters, crude-oil tankers, equipment movers, and supply trucks run these corridors in numbers that dwarf what the infrastructure was designed for.
Union Pacific’s Sunset Route runs through Pecos on its way from Los Angeles to El Paso and east. It is a high-density freight corridor — intermodal containers, chemicals, energy-related freight, and, as this incident showed, hazardous materials including lithium batteries. The rail line crosses city streets at grade level — meaning the road and the track are at the same elevation, separated only by signals and, at some crossings, gates. Rural West Texas grade crossings frequently lack the quad-gate protection and active warning systems that are standard in urban corridors. The crossing at Oak Street and Dot Stafford Street — in a commercial district dense enough to include the Chamber of Commerce — is a crossing that handles mixed traffic: local commuters, commercial trucks, and oilfield equipment transport, all interacting with a transcontinental freight line.
The Permian Basin’s truck-traffic surge is not unknown to the railroad or to the regulators. It is documented. It is the subject of industry reports, safety studies, and federal data. A crossing that was adequate for the traffic volume of twenty years ago may not be adequate for the volume today — and the question of whether the crossing’s protection was upgraded to match the increased risk is a question that the signal-maintenance records and the crossing-improvement history must answer.
A jury in Reeves County understands this. They drive these roads. They see these trucks. They know what it means when a train comes through town. The choice to file in state court — in the county where the collision happened, where the building was hit, where the crew members lived and worked — is a choice that puts the case in front of twelve people who do not need a PowerPoint to understand why a truck and a train on the same road in Pecos, Texas, is a problem someone should have addressed before two people died.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the families of the railroad employees sue Union Pacific?
Yes. The families of the two Union Pacific employees killed in the derailment have a federal cause of action under FELA — the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. FELA is the exclusive remedy for injured or deceased railroad employees against their employer. It requires proof that the railroad’s negligence played any part — even the slightest — in causing the injury or death. The standard is deliberately lower than ordinary negligence, and the families have three years from the date of the incident to file suit.
How long do the families have to file a claim?
The FELA limitations period is three years from the date the cause of action accrued — typically the date of injury or death. For the building occupants’ claims against the trucking company and the railroad under Texas common-law negligence, the Texas statute of limitations for personal-injury and wrongful-death claims is two years from the date of injury. These are different deadlines running on different clocks, and the evidence that proves the case dies far faster than either deadline. The preservation letter — not the lawsuit — is the time-critical first step.
What if the truck driver was at fault — does that mean the railroad is not responsible?
No. Under FELA’s “any part, even the slightest” causation standard, the railroad’s negligence does not have to be the sole cause or even the primary cause of the death. If the railroad’s own negligence — in crossing-signal maintenance, train speed, horn activation, crew training, or track condition — played any part in what happened, the railroad is liable. The truck driver’s fault and the railroad’s fault are not mutually exclusive. They are independent theories that can both be pursued simultaneously. The railroad hopes the families pursue only the truck. The right approach is to pursue both on parallel tracks.
Does workers’ compensation cover the families of the railroad employees?
Railroad workers are generally excluded from state workers’-compensation systems. Instead, FELA is their exclusive remedy against the employer. FELA is not a no-fault benefit schedule — it is a fault-based tort claim that requires proof of the railroad’s negligence. But in exchange for that requirement, FELA provides full tort damages — lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, loss of companionship — with no statutory cap and a causation standard so low that even the slightest railroad negligence is enough.
What should the families do if a Union Pacific claim agent contacts them?
Do not give a recorded statement. Do not sign any document. Do not cash any check. Do not provide authorizations for the railroad to access the decedent’s employment or medical records. Say: “I am not prepared to give a statement or sign anything at this time. Please contact my attorney.” FELA’s anti-waiver statute (45 U.S.C. § 55) voids any contract or device designed to exempt the railroad from liability — but a signed release is still a document that has to be unwound, and unwinding it is a fight the family should not have to wage. The claim agent is a professional whose job is to reduce the company’s payout. Treat every contact accordingly.
Were the building occupants inside the Chamber of Commerce at risk from the hazardous materials?
No breach of the hazmat cars occurred, meaning the lithium-battery containers were not compromised. However, the presence of hazmat cars in a derailment near a populated building creates a foreseeable risk of toxic exposure, fire, or explosion. The building occupants who experienced reasonable fear of harm during the incident and evacuation may have claims for negligent infliction of emotional distress, even without physical toxic exposure. The hazmat dimension also triggers specific FRA reporting and investigation protocols that generate their own evidentiary records.
How much is a FELA wrongful-death case worth?
The value depends on the specific facts: the deceased worker’s age, earnings, seniority, dependent structure, and the degree of the railroad’s proven negligence. Veteran railroad employees’ compensation packages — base pay, overtime, railroad-retirement contributions, and benefits — can produce lifetime earning-capacity figures well into seven figures per decedent. Non-economic damages for the statutory beneficiaries (loss of companionship, society, mental anguish) are uncapped under FELA. Punitive damages may be available under Texas standards if gross negligence is proven by clear and convincing evidence. The overall case value range for the Pecos derailment, based on the available framework, runs from approximately $3,000,000 to $15,000,000, driven primarily by the two FELA wrongful-death claims. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
What evidence needs to be preserved immediately?
The most time-critical evidence is: the locomotive forward-facing camera footage (may overwrite within 72 hours to 7 days), the tractor-trailer’s ELD and dashcam data (ELD may overwrite within 8 days, dashcam within 24 to 72 hours), the grade-crossing signal system event logs (may auto-purge within 30 to 90 days), Union Pacific dispatch audio (may auto-delete within 30 days), and the physical scene evidence (being altered daily by remediation and track repair). The preservation letter — the formal demand that each evidence holder freeze specific records — is the single most urgent action. It goes out the day counsel is retained.
Can the families choose where to file the lawsuit?
Under FELA, jurisdiction is concurrent in state and federal court. The families can file in state court — in Reeves County, where a jury of their neighbors would decide the case — and the railroad generally cannot remove the case to federal court. This is a significant strategic advantage. A jury in Reeves County understands the oilfield-truck traffic, the rail corridor, and what it means for a railroad to run through their town. The railroad’s defense lawyers come from elsewhere. The home field is the family’s.
How do contingency fees work in a case like this?
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win the case. The fee is 33.33% of the recovery if the case is resolved before trial, and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. The first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. The preservation letter, the evidence demands, the expert retention — all of that is fronted by the firm and repaid from the recovery, if there is one. If there is no recovery, the family owes no fee. That is the structure, and it is designed so that a family in crisis can access the same quality of legal representation that the railroad buys with its in-house counsel and its defense firm — without paying a retainer.
What the First Call Looks Like and What It Costs
The first call is free. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing. You call 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911 — and you reach a live person, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Not an answering service. A member of our staff who can take your information and get you to an attorney.
On that first call, we listen. We want to know who you are, what happened, what you have been told, and what you are worried about. We will ask whether anyone from the railroad or the trucking company has contacted you, and what they said. We will ask whether you have signed anything, given any statement, or received any documents. We will explain — in plain language, not legal jargon — what FELA is, what the evidence clock is, and what the preservation letter does.
If we take the case, the preservation letter goes out within days — sometimes within hours. That letter is the first shot. It tells Union Pacific and the trucking company that evidence must be frozen. It names the specific records — the locomotive data, the camera footage, the signal logs, the ELD, the dashcam, the dispatch audio. It warns that destruction after notice is sanctionable. It is the document that converts automatic deletion into a legal problem for the defense.
The fee is contingency. 33.33% if the case resolves before trial. 40% if the case goes to trial. No fee unless we win. The expenses — the expert fees, the record-retrieval costs, the filing fees — are fronted by the firm and repaid from the recovery. If there is no recovery, the family owes nothing.
If we are not the right fit for your case, we will tell you. We will refer you to counsel we trust. We will not string you along. The standard is simple: we want the family in the best hands for their specific situation, whether that is us or someone else. But the first call — the call that starts the evidence-preservation clock — should be made now. Not next week. Not after the funeral. Not after the investigation is complete. Now. Because the evidence that tells the full story of what happened to your loved one is being erased on a schedule that the railroad designed and that the law permits — and the only thing that stops that schedule is a letter from a lawyer who knows exactly what to demand and exactly how fast to demand it.
The Bottom Line for the Families in Pecos
Two veteran Union Pacific Railroad employees went to work on a Wednesday evening and did not come home. A tractor-trailer met their train at a grade crossing in a town where the Permian Basin’s truck traffic runs on roads that were built for a different era. The train derailed and hit a building where people were working. Three of those people went to the hospital. Hazmat cars carrying lithium batteries sat in the wreckage while investigators checked whether they were secure.
The railroad has its investigators. The trucking company has its insurer. The FRA has its team. All of them are working to understand what happened — and some of them are working to shape the narrative in ways that limit the company’s exposure. The families need their own team. They need a preservation letter that freezes the evidence before it is erased. They need a forensic economist who can put a number on what a veteran railroad career was worth. They need a trial lawyer who knows FELA, who knows the Sunset Route, who knows what the Permian Basin’s truck traffic does to rural crossings, and who knows how to build a case that a Reeves County jury will understand.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free. The fee is contingency — no fee unless we win. The evidence clock is running. The first call is the one that starts working against that clock instead of with it.
Hablamos Español. Your family does not need an interpreter to be heard.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case depends on its own facts. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. Contacting the firm is free and confidential. The firm has not been retained in connection with the Pecos derailment and nothing on this page states or implies that it has been. This page is a resource for families and individuals who may be affected by a situation like this one.
