Pecos, Texas Train Derailment: Two Union Pacific Employees Killed, Three Injured — Your Legal Rights After a Grade-Crossing Catastrophe
If you are reading this page, someone you love was on that Union Pacific train, or inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce when the train came through the wall, or you are a family member trying to understand what happens now. You are in the first hours or days after a catastrophe that killed two railroad employees and injured three people who were simply at work in a building near the tracks. The scene is still being controlled by federal investigators. The building is closed. The names may not have been released yet. And the insurance machinery has already started turning — on the trucking side, on the railroad side, and on the side of whoever designed or maintained that crossing.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases in Texas, and we are writing this page for one reason: to give you, in plain language, the truth about what your family’s legal situation actually looks like after a train-truck collision and derailment in West Texas. Not a brochure. Not a sales pitch. The law, the deadlines, the evidence that is already disappearing, and the decisions that matter most in the first days. Everything here is legal information, not legal advice — but it is the information a senior trial attorney would want you to have before you talk to anyone from the railroad, the trucking company, or their insurance.
What Happened in Pecos on December 18, 2024
Around 5 p.m. on a Wednesday, a Union Pacific freight train carrying cars loaded with lithium batteries and vehicle airbags struck a tractor-trailer that was stopped on the railway tracks in Pecos City, the county seat of Reeves County, Texas — about an hour west of Odessa on the I-20 corridor. The train derailed. Multiple train cars left the tracks and collided with the nearby Pecos Chamber of Commerce building. One Union Pacific Railroad employee died at the scene. A second died the following morning. Three people inside the building were injured — officials described their injuries as minor. Three train cars carrying potentially hazardous materials were involved in the derailment, though Reeves County officials confirmed no hazardous materials were released. Six investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board responded to the scene. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen issued a statement calling the crash “a wake-up call” for rail safety legislation — improved crossing safety, proper staffing, and regular rail car inspections.
That is what happened. Now here is what it means for your family — and what the law actually says about who is responsible, what you can recover, and how fast you need to act.
The Central Liability Question: Why Was That Truck on the Tracks?
Every train-truck collision case turns on one question, and it is not the question most people think. The question is not “who hit whom” — a train cannot swerve. The question is why the tractor-trailer was on the tracks at all, and whether the crossing, the railroad, the trucking company, or some combination of all three created the situation where a large-load commercial vehicle ended up in the path of a freight train that could not stop.
There are three possible answers, and the truth determines who pays:
The truck stalled. A mechanical failure — bad brakes, a fuel-system problem, a transmission that quit — left the truck immobilized on the tracks. If that is what happened, the trucking company’s maintenance records, inspection history, and the driver’s pre-trip inspection logs become the center of the case. Federal motor carrier safety regulations require drivers to complete a daily vehicle inspection report covering brakes, steering, tires, lights, and coupling devices — and the carrier must retain those reports for only three months. If the truck stalled because of a maintenance failure the company knew about or should have known about, the trucking company’s negligence is the primary cause.
The truck was trapped. The crossing geometry — the angle of the road approach, the distance between the crossing and the stopping point, the traffic queuing pattern — left the truck unable to clear the tracks. A commercial vehicle entering a grade crossing must be able to clear the tracks completely before proceeding. If the road design, traffic signal timing, or crossing configuration created a situation where a truck could legally enter the crossing but could not exit it, the entities responsible for crossing design and the roadway authority may share liability. Rural West Texas grade crossings in small municipalities like Pecos frequently lack advanced active warning systems such as quad gates, cantilever signals, or grade separation — creating documented hazards for oversized-load and low-speed truck incursions onto active tracks.
The truck negligently entered the crossing. The driver failed to assess clearance, was distracted, was fatigued, or simply drove onto the tracks without confirming the vehicle could clear them. Federal regulations and Texas motor vehicle statutes require vehicles to stop, look, and listen at rail crossings and to not proceed unless the tracks can be cleared completely. If the driver violated these rules, that is negligence per se — a violation of a safety statute that the jury can treat as evidence of negligence, or in some applications, negligence on its face.
Each of these answers leads to a different defendant map, a different evidence-preservation strategy, and a different theory of liability. This is why the first investigative question in any train-truck collision is never “whose fault was it” — it is “what was the mechanism that put the truck on the tracks, and what records prove it?”
FELA: The Federal Law That Protects Railroad Employee Families After a Fatal Crash
The two men who died were both employees of Union Pacific Railroad. Their families’ claims do not run through ordinary Texas personal injury law. They run 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 federal tort remedy that is the exclusive remedy for an injured or killed railroad employee against the railroad. The families cannot file a state workers’-comp claim against Union Pacific, and they cannot recover under FELA without showing that the railroad’s negligence played some part in the death.
But here is what makes FELA different from every other injury law in the country — and what makes it uniquely powerful for the families of killed railroad workers:
“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
The phrase “in whole or in part” is the entire ballgame. It means the railroad is liable if its negligence was even one of the reasons the death happened — not the only reason, not the primary reason, not even a substantial reason. Any part. That is the lowest causation standard in American injury law, and it was affirmed by the Supreme Court in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co. in 1957:
“The test of a jury case is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought.”
— Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 352 U.S. 500 (1957)
And in 2011, the Supreme Court reconfirmed this standard in CSX Transportation, Inc. v. McBride, holding that FELA does not incorporate common-law proximate cause — the railroad is liable if its negligence “played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury.” That case was affirmed, and it is the modern controlling authority.
What this means for the Pecos families
The truck was on the tracks. The train hit the truck. The train derailed. Two crew members died. The immediate reaction is to blame the truck — and the trucking company may bear substantial fault. But under FELA, the families do not need to prove the railroad was primarily at fault. They need to prove the railroad’s negligence played any part. That opens doors that ordinary injury law keeps shut:
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Crossing signal maintenance. Did Union Pacific maintain the grade-crossing warning signals at the Pecos crossing in working order? Federal Railroad Administration regulations under 49 CFR Parts 222 through 234 mandate specific warning-device requirements, signal inspection intervals, and crossing safety program standards. If the signals were malfunctioning, inadequately maintained, or insufficient for the truck traffic volume the crossing serves, that is railroad negligence that contributed to the truck being on the tracks.
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Crew training and braking protocols. Was the train crew trained in emergency braking procedures for grade-crossing collisions? Was the emergency brake applied at the earliest possible moment? The train’s event recorder — its black box — captures speed, braking application, horn activation, and throttle position. That data tells us whether the crew responded as trained or whether inadequate training or delayed response contributed to the severity of the collision.
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Track inspection and crossing design. Federal track safety standards under 49 CFR Parts 213 through 217 govern Union Pacific’s track inspection and maintenance obligations. If the crossing surface, sight lines, or approach geometry were inadequate — and the railroad knew or should have known — that is a defect in the railroad’s “roadbed” or “works” under § 51.
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Staffing and inspection protocols. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainten explicitly called for proper staffing and regular rail car inspections. If crew staffing levels or inspection practices contributed to the collision or the severity of the derailment, that is railroad negligence under FELA.
FELA’s Three Protections That Change Everything
Beyond the featherweight causation standard, FELA gives railroad employee families three additional protections that ordinary Texas injury law does not:
Contributory negligence does not bar recovery. Under 45 U.S.C. § 53, even if the employee was partly at fault, the family can still recover — the award is simply reduced by the employee’s percentage of fault. And if the railroad violated a federal safety statute enacted for the protection of employees, the employee’s own contributory negligence is wiped out entirely. The damages are not reduced at all.
Assumption of risk is abolished. Under 45 U.S.C. § 54, the railroad cannot defend itself by saying “the job was dangerous and the employee knew it.” That defense was abolished by Congress. A railroad cannot escape FELA liability by pointing to the inherent hazards of railroad work.
Anti-waiver protection. Under 45 U.S.C. § 55, any contract, rule, or device designed to let the railroad exempt itself from FELA liability is void. A release signed in the hospital, a quick settlement pushed by a claim agent, or a company policy designed to shield the railroad — all are legally worthless if their purpose was to exempt the carrier from liability.
The FELA statute of limitations: three years, not two
FELA claims carry a three-year statute of limitations from the date the cause of action accrued — longer than Texas’s general two-year deadline for personal injury and wrongful death claims. Under 45 U.S.C. § 56, the suit must be “commenced within three years from the day the cause of action accrued.” Jurisdiction is concurrent in state and federal courts — the family, not the railroad, picks the courthouse. And if the family files in state court, the railroad generally cannot remove the case to federal court.
Three years sounds like plenty of time. It is not — because the evidence that proves the railroad’s negligence is on a destruction schedule that runs in months, not years. The three-year clock is the outer boundary. The real deadline is the evidence-preservation deadline, which starts the day of the crash.
For families dealing with a wrongful death on the railroad, FELA is the primary federal remedy — but it may not be the only one. The families can also pursue third-party claims against the trucking company, the truck driver, the crossing-signal maintainer, and any other entity whose negligence contributed to the collision. FELA covers the claim against the employer railroad. Ordinary negligence law covers the claims against everyone else.
What the NTSB Investigation Means for Your Case — and What It Cannot Do
Six NTSB investigators responded to the scene. The National Transportation Safety Board is the premier accident-investigation agency in the United States, and its involvement means this crash is being studied at the highest level. But there is a critical legal fact about NTSB investigations that most families — and many lawyers — do not understand until it is too late:
The NTSB’s final report and probable-cause determination are inadmissible in a civil lawsuit.
Federal law, at 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b), provides that “no part of a report of the Board, related to an accident or an investigation of an accident, may be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages resulting from a matter mentioned in the report.” This means the NTSB’s conclusion about what caused the Pecos crash — the “probable cause” finding that will eventually appear in the final report — cannot be shown to the jury that decides your family’s case.
But there is a crack in that bar. Under 49 CFR § 835.3, NTSB employees may testify as to the factual information they obtained during the investigation — the physical measurements, the recorder data, the witness statements — even though the board’s conclusions are off-limits. The factual record the NTSB builds is the raw material your case is assembled from. The headlines the NTSB generates are not.
The NTSB’s preliminary report is typically issued within 30 days. The factual hearing data comes later. The final report can take 12 to 24 months. Here is what this timeline means for your family: you should not wait for the final NTSB report before consulting counsel. By the time the report lands, evidence will have been destroyed, records will have cycled out of retention, and the scene will have been remediated. The families who are parties to the NTSB investigation get early access to the factual data — but party status requires having a lawyer who has entered an appearance with the NTSB as a party participant.
The railroad’s claim agents will tell you to “wait for the NTSB report” before talking to a lawyer. That advice serves the railroad, not your family. The NTSB process moves slowly. The evidence-destruction clock moves fast.
Who Can Be Held Responsible: The Defendant Map
A train-truck collision and derailment is never a two-party case. The collision mechanism — truck on tracks, train hits truck, train derails, train hits building — creates a chain of causation that can involve multiple defendants, each with different insurance towers and different theories of liability.
The tractor-trailer operating entity. The truck that was stopped on the tracks was carrying a large load. The operating company — which has not been publicly identified — is the primary negligence defendant for the building occupants and potentially a third-party defendant for the FELA claims. Given Pecos’s location in the Permian Basin region, the tractor-trailer may be connected to oilfield services, agricultural hauling, or oversized-load transportation, each implicating different regulatory regimes. Identifying the operating entity, pulling its DOT number, verifying its safety record, and confirming its insurance coverage are the first discovery targets. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations under 49 CFR Parts 390 through 399 govern the tractor-trailer operator — driver qualification, hours of service, vehicle maintenance, and grade-crossing operating procedures for commercial motor vehicles.
The truck driver. Personal negligence for stopping or failing to clear the vehicle from the tracks. Potential distraction, fatigue, or failure to assess crossing geometry and clearance. The driver’s electronic logging device records, cell phone records, and hours-of-service compliance are all discoverable — and all on a destruction clock.
Union Pacific Railroad. FELA liability as employer of the two deceased crew members. Potential negligence claims by building occupants for derailment causation. Union Pacific is one of the largest Class I freight railroads in North America, operating approximately 32,000 route miles with extensive infrastructure throughout Texas. It is a deep-pocket defendant with substantial litigation history involving grade-crossing collisions, derailments, and employee FELA claims. For the FELA claims, UP’s crossing-signal maintenance, crew training protocols, emergency braking procedures, track inspection records, and compliance with FRA standards will be the central discovery questions.
The grade-crossing signal designer or maintainer. If the crossing warning systems were inadequate, malfunctioning, or improperly maintained — and if that entity is separate from Union Pacific — it faces liability for creating a foreseeable trapped-vehicle scenario. Signal event logs and maintenance records are discoverable and on a limited retention cycle.
The roadway authority or crossing design entity. If road geometry, traffic queuing design, or crossing configuration contributed to the truck being unable to clear the tracks, the entity responsible for the crossing design may be liable. The approach angle, clearance distance between the crossing and stopping points, warning-device placement, and whether the crossing design traps long vehicles on the tracks are all questions that require an independent scene survey and 3D reconstruction.
The trucking company’s maintenance provider. If the truck stalled due to mechanical failure, the entity responsible for maintaining the truck may share liability. Brake condition, engine stall history, and mechanical fitness are provable through maintenance records and the truck’s engine control module data.
The corporate-structure shell game
The tractor-trailer’s operating entity has not been identified in public reporting. This is not unusual in the first days after a crash — but it means the defendant identification process is critical and time-sensitive. Commercial trucking companies operate through layered structures: the carrier that holds the federal operating authority, the leasing entity that owns the tractor, the broker that arranged the haul, and sometimes a separate entity that employs the driver. Federal leasing rules under 49 CFR § 376.12 require the authorized carrier to take “exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease” and to “assume complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment.” This means the company whose name is on the truck or the trailer — or the company whose DOT number is on the door — is the company the law put in control of that vehicle on the road, regardless of what the underlying lease or contractor agreement says.
For the 18-wheeler and commercial truck side of this case, naming the right defendant entity is the first move — and getting it wrong can mean suing a company with no assets while the real carrier walks away.
The Evidence Clock: What Disappears and How Fast
This is the section that decides whether your case is strong or whether it is already dying. Every train-truck collision creates a specific set of records — digital, physical, and documentary — and each of those records is on a legal destruction clock. The clocks run whether or not anyone has filed a lawsuit. The clocks run whether or not the railroad has admitted fault. The only thing that stops a clock is a formal preservation demand — a litigation-hold letter — sent to the entity that holds the record.
Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can legally die:
The train’s event recorder — the locomotive black box. This device captured the train’s speed, braking application, horn activation, throttle position, and approach data in the seconds and minutes before the collision. It proves whether the crew responded as trained and whether evasive action was taken. The NTSB controls the scene data, but the railroad’s own retention policies govern how long the raw data is preserved. A litigation hold must go to Union Pacific immediately to freeze this data. Federal Railroad Administration regulations may require preservation of event-recorder data, but the specific retention period for the data most relevant to your case — the pre-collision approach data — needs to be locked down by formal demand, not assumed.
The tractor-trailer’s engine control module — the truck’s black box. This device captured the truck’s speed, braking, throttle, and steering inputs before and during the track incursion. It proves whether the truck stalled, stopped deliberately, or was trapped. Commercial vehicle electronic data can be overwritten within days or when the vehicle returns to service. This is the fastest-dying electronic record in the entire case. Immediate seizure or preservation demand is critical — if the truck is returned to the carrier’s lot and put back into service, the data from the day of the crash may be gone before anyone asks for it.
Video footage. Public reporting references video of the incident — the collision mechanism, the truck’s position on the tracks, the train’s approach, and the derailment sequence. Government surveillance cameras, dash cameras, and nearby business security systems may have captured the event. Video footage has limited retention cycles — government systems may overwrite in 30 to 90 days, business systems may overwrite in a week. Copies must be secured before the overwrite cycle erases them.
Grade-crossing signal logs and maintenance records. Whether the crossing signals activated, the timing of activation relative to the train’s approach, and the recent inspection and maintenance history of the crossing’s warning systems. Signal event logs may have limited retention. Maintenance records must be placed under litigation hold to prevent routine destruction. These records are held by the railroad, the signal maintainer, or both — and they prove whether the crossing was safe.
The truck driver’s electronic logging device records and cell phone records. Hours-of-service compliance, route planning, and potential distracted driving at the time of the track incursion. ELD data is retained for a minimum of eight days on the device; the carrier’s copy is retained for six months under federal law. Cell phone records require prompt preservation demands to carriers before automatic purge. If the driver was on the phone when the truck entered the crossing, that fact may never surface if the records are not preserved.
The truck driver’s qualifications, training, and route-permit records. Driver training on grade-crossing procedures, route planning for oversized loads, and whether proper permits were obtained for the cargo and route through Pecos. Personnel records and training documentation face routine destruction. The driver may leave employment. A preservation demand must go out immediately.
The truck’s maintenance and inspection records. Brake condition, engine stall history, and mechanical fitness. If the truck stalled on the tracks because of a mechanical failure, these records prove it. Federal regulations require six-month retention for records of duty status, but carriers routinely dispose of records after minimum periods. The daily vehicle inspection report — which covers brakes, steering, tires, lights, and coupling devices — must be retained for only three months. That is the shortest retention clock in the entire case. If a prior driver had already written up the brakes on that truck, the company had the warning in its own files — and the law let it destroy that warning after 90 days.
Crew hours-of-service records. Federal regulations require the railroad 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 on duty too long — whether fatigue played a role in the collision response. Two years sounds generous, but it is a hard floor. After that, the records can be legally destroyed.
Scene geometry. The road approach angle, the clearance distance between the crossing and stopping points, the warning-device placement, and whether the crossing design traps long vehicles on the tracks. Scene remediation and crossing modifications will alter the physical evidence within weeks. An independent scene survey and 3D reconstruction must be conducted before the physical evidence is destroyed.
Building structural engineering assessment and occupancy records. The extent of property damage, the structural failure mechanism, and the identities of every individual present in the Chamber of Commerce building at the time of the crash. The building may be demolished or repaired. Engineering assessment must be conducted before structural remediation destroys the evidence of how the train cars interacted with the building and what injuries the impact caused to the people inside.
NTSB factual data packages and witness interviews. The independent federal investigation data — witness statements, physical evidence measurements, and signal testing results — can support civil claims through retained experts even though the NTSB’s own conclusions are inadmissible. The NTSB preliminary report is typically issued within 30 days. Parties to the investigation have early access to the factual data.
The preservation letter
The single most important step in the first days after a train-truck collision is sending a formal litigation-hold and preservation-demand letter to every entity that holds evidence — Union Pacific, the trucking company, the crossing-signal maintainer, the roadway authority, and every third-party data vendor. The letter must name each specific record, each specific device, and each specific data source. It must tell them, in writing, that evidence must be preserved and that destruction will be treated as spoliation.
When a defendant lets required evidence die after receiving a preservation demand, the law answers. A judge can give the jury 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. Sanctions are available. And in some cases, the destruction itself becomes a separate claim. The leverage begins the moment the letter is on file.
This is why the day you call a lawyer is the day the clock starts working for you instead of against you. Every day that passes without a preservation demand is a day the evidence-destruction machinery runs unchecked.
The Injuries: What “Minor” Really Means After a Derailment
The three people injured inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce were described as having “minor injuries.” That description — made in the immediate aftermath of a structural impact from a derailed freight train — is a triage label, not a medical verdict. It means they were not killed and were not transported with obviously life-threatening trauma. It does not mean they are fine.
The delayed-onset injury problem
When a train derails and slams into a building, the people inside experience a combination of forces that produce injuries that may not manifest for hours, days, or weeks:
Traumatic brain injury. A structural impact from a derailed train generates sudden acceleration and deceleration forces. A person inside the building may have been thrown, struck by debris, or simply jarred by the impact. A “mild” traumatic brain injury — the medical term for a concussion — can come with a perfectly normal CT scan. That is the standard presentation, not the exception. Roughly one in seven people with a “mild” TBI still has symptoms three months later: headaches, lost words, short temper, memory gaps. You may see it across the dinner table before any scan sees it. These injuries are proven with neuropsychological testing, advanced imaging, and the testimony of people who knew the person before. Brain injury cases require specific medical documentation that begins with the first emergency visit — and the first responder’s note that the patient was “confused at the scene” may be the single most important piece of proof.
Post-traumatic stress disorder. Having a freight train crash through your workplace is a Criterion A trauma under the DSM-5 — the diagnostic manual’s term for an event involving actual or threatened death or serious injury. PTSD is a formal medical diagnosis with eight separate diagnostic requirements, and a survivor has to meet every one of them: the event itself, the nightmares that will not stop, the avoidance of reminders, the negative alterations in cognition and mood, the hyperarousal and reactivity, and symptoms that last more than a month and disrupt the ability to work or maintain relationships. This is not a soft injury. It is a psychiatric injury with a diagnostic checklist, validated testing instruments, and a measurable lifetime cost.
Orthopedic and cervical injuries. The structural impact can produce whiplash-type cervical trauma, spinal injury, fractures from falling debris, and joint injuries from being thrown. These may not be apparent in the immediate aftermath, when adrenaline masks pain and the priority is evacuation. Delayed-onset cervical and spinal symptoms can worsen over weeks and may require MRI imaging that was not performed in the initial emergency visit.
Vestibular and balance disorders. The concussive force of a building impact can damage the inner ear’s balance system, producing dizziness, vertigo, and balance problems that may be attributed to “anxiety” unless properly diagnosed.
What the building occupants need to do
Every person who was inside the Chamber of Commerce building at the time of the crash — whether they were taken to the hospital or walked out on their own — needs a complete medical evaluation. Not a “I feel okay” check. A full evaluation by a physician who knows what to look for after a structural impact: a neurological exam, a cognitive assessment, cervical spine imaging if indicated, and a documented baseline that can be compared against symptoms that appear later.
The defense playbook in a case like this relies on the symptom gap — the period between the crash and the first medical visit. If a building occupant waits three weeks to see a doctor for headaches, the insurance company will argue the headaches were not caused by the crash. If that person saw a doctor the next day and reported “headache, confusion, dizziness following train collision into workplace,” the symptom gap disappears and the causation argument collapses.
For a deeper look at how these injuries develop and what the workplace accident framework covers people who are hurt at work through no fault of their own — including in a building struck by a third party’s catastrophic failure — the principles of third-party liability apply here.
The Money: What a Case Like This Is Worth
No lawyer can tell you what your case is worth without reviewing the specific facts — the victim’s age, earnings, health, the severity of the injuries, the allocation of fault, and the insurance coverage available. But we can tell you how the value is built and what the framework looks like, because that is how we evaluate every case that comes through our door.
FELA wrongful death claims — the two Union Pacific employees
Railroad employees typically have strong compensation packages — wages, benefits, retirement contributions, and healthcare — that make the economic loss from a fatal injury substantial. Under FELA, the families of the two killed employees can recover the full tort measure of damages, not a workers’-comp benefit schedule. That means:
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Lost future earnings and benefits. A forensic economist projects the earning capacity the family lost, using worklife expectancy tables derived from federal labor data, adjusted for the employee’s age, seniority, training, and expected career trajectory. Railroad compensation includes not just wages but employer-paid benefits — health insurance, retirement contributions, paid leave, and employer-side payroll taxes — which can add roughly 30% on top of the base wage. All of it is part of the loss.
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Conscious pain and suffering. For the employee who survived until Thursday morning, the survival claim is significant. The period between the collision and death — the awareness, the fear, the physical suffering — is compensable. This is a separate claim from the wrongful-death claim, brought by the estate rather than the beneficiaries.
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Loss of consortium and companionship. The surviving family’s loss of the relationship, guidance, and support of the deceased.
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Funeral expenses. The cost of burial or cremation, transportation, and related expenses.
FELA has no statutory cap on damages. The railroad’s comparative-fault arguments — if any — reduce the recovery proportionally but never bar it, thanks to the § 53 framework. And if the railroad violated a federal safety statute, even the employee’s own contributory negligence is eliminated.
Based on the case-value framework supplied in our analysis, individual FELA wrongful death claims in a case like this can range from $2 million to $8 million or more per employee, depending on age, earnings, seniority, and the degree of railroad negligence established. The case value is driven by the economic loss — a younger, higher-earning employee with decades of expected career ahead produces a larger economic-damages figure — and by the non-economic losses, which in a death case include the value of the life itself, the lost relationship, and the family’s grief.
Building-occupant injury claims — the three injured individuals
The three people injured inside the Chamber of Commerce have ordinary negligence claims against the trucking company and potentially against Union Pacific. These claims are governed by Texas law — modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar, meaning their recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault (likely near zero, since they were inside a building) but barred only if they are 51% or more at fault.
The value of each building-occupant claim depends entirely on the severity of the injuries documented. “Minor” injuries that resolve in weeks may be worth $50,000 to $100,000. Injuries that involve documented TBI, PTSD requiring long-term treatment, or orthopedic injuries requiring surgery can push the value to $500,000 or more per person. The key variable is the medical record — if the injuries are documented early, treated appropriately, and shown to have lasting effects, the value rises. If the injuries are undocumented or the symptom gap allows the defense to contest causation, the value falls.
Property damage
The Chamber of Commerce building sustained significant structural damage requiring engineering assessment. The building is closed until it can be deemed safe. Property-damage claims cover the cost of repair or replacement, the loss of use during the closure, and any personal property or equipment destroyed in the collision.
Exemplary damages
Texas allows exemplary — punitive — damages when the plaintiff proves by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant acted with fraud, malice, or gross negligence. If discovery reveals that the truck operator knowingly entered a crossing without adequate clearance, or that the crossing authority ignored documented prior incidents or known design hazards, the gross-negligence standard may be satisfied. Exemplary damages in Texas are subject to a statutory cap tied to the amount of economic damages, but the availability of the claim itself is a leverage point in settlement negotiations.
Total case value
Looking at the combined portfolio — two FELA wrongful death claims, three building-occupant injury claims, significant property damage, and potential exemplary damages — the total case value range for the Pecos derailment spans from approximately $3 million on the low end to $25 million or more on the high end. The primary value drivers are the economic losses in the FELA claims and the severity of the building-occupant injuries once fully documented. The primary value deflator is the allocation of fault between the truck operator and Union Pacific — if the truck operator bears primary fault and has limited coverage, the FELA claims against UP require establishing railroad negligence independently, which the featherweight standard makes achievable but not automatic.
The rural Reeves County venue is a secondary deflator compared to urban Texas jurisdictions with higher verdict histories. But a jury of Reeves County residents who know the crossing, who know the building, and who know what it means when a train comes through downtown Pecos may respond differently than the defense expects.
The Insurance Playbook: What the Adjusters Will Try
The insurance machinery started moving within hours of the collision. Here is what the adjusters and claim agents on both sides will try — and what your family needs to know to counter each move.
Play 1: The “just checking in” recorded statement. Within days, someone friendly will call the family of a deceased employee or an injured building occupant. The tone will be warm, sympathetic, professional. The request will seem reasonable: “We just want to understand what happened — can you tell us about that day?” The call is recorded. Every word is transcribed. And every answer will be parsed for anything that can be used to reduce the railroad’s or the trucking company’s exposure. A casual “he loved the job and knew the risks” becomes the foundation for an assumption-of-risk argument — even though FELA abolished that defense for railroad employees. A “I think the truck just pulled out in front of them” becomes the railroad’s argument that its own negligence played no part.
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance representative — the railroad’s, the trucking company’s, or any third-party adjuster — without independent counsel present. You are not required to give a statement. You are not being uncooperative by declining. You are protecting your family.
Play 2: The fast settlement check. A check may arrive quickly — sometimes before the medical results are in, sometimes before the funeral. It will come with a release attached. The release, once signed, extinguishes every claim the family has against that defendant — the FELA claim, the wrongful-death claim, the survival claim, everything. The amount will seem substantial in the moment and inadequate the moment the full extent of the loss becomes clear.
Under FELA’s anti-waiver provision at 45 U.S.C. § 55, any contract, rule, or device designed to exempt the railroad from liability is void. A release pushed by a claim agent in the immediate aftermath — when the family is grieving, when the facts are unknown, when the NTSB has not even issued its preliminary report — may be challengeable if its purpose was to shield the carrier from the full extent of its liability. But challenging a release is harder than not signing one.
The counter: Do not sign anything from the railroad, the trucking company, or any insurance company without having an independent lawyer review it. A document that arrives in the first week after a fatal crash is not a gift. It is a strategic move by a professional who has done this hundreds of times.
Play 3: The “wait for the NTSB report” delay. The railroad’s representatives will tell the family that the NTSB investigation is ongoing and that it would be “premature” to talk to a lawyer. This advice serves the railroad, not the family. The NTSB process takes 12 to 24 months for a final report. The evidence-preservation clock runs in days, weeks, and months. Every day the family waits is a day the railroad’s own records are one day closer to legal destruction.
The counter: Consult counsel immediately. The NTSB report is inadmissible in your civil case anyway — the factual data is usable, but the conclusion is not. Waiting for the report means waiting for a document the jury will never see, while the evidence the jury would need is being erased.
Play 4: The symptom-gap argument. For the building occupants, the insurance company will look for any gap between the crash and the first medical visit. If an injured person did not go to the hospital the day of the crash, the adjuster will argue the injury was not caused by the derailment. If the person went to the hospital a week later with headaches, the adjuster will argue something else happened in that week.
The counter: Seek complete medical evaluation immediately — even for symptoms that seem minor. A documented medical visit within days of the crash, reporting symptoms attributable to the structural impact, closes the symptom gap and defeats the defense argument before it is made.
Play 5: The low initial reserve. In the first 48 hours after a crash, the insurance adjuster sets a “reserve” — an internal estimate of what the claim is worth. That reserve number drives every subsequent settlement offer. If the adjuster sets a low reserve before the full injuries are diagnosed, before the FELA liability is developed, and before the economic losses are calculated, every offer will be anchored to that low number. Lupe Peña — our associate attorney who spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — knows this process from the inside. He knows how reserves are set, how valuation software works, and how the adjuster’s first impression becomes the ceiling on every negotiation.
The counter: Build the full case — medical records, economic projections, liability evidence, expert reports — and present it in a way that forces the adjuster to re-set the reserve. The insurance claim process is not a conversation. It is a negotiation between two sides who both know the numbers, and the side with the better-documented case sets the terms.
Texas Law: Deadlines, Fault Rules, and Damage Frameworks
The legal framework that governs the Pecos derailment is a blend of federal and state law — FELA for the railroad employee claims, and Texas tort law for the building-occupant and property-damage claims. Here is what each framework provides:
Statutes of limitations
FELA claims: three years. Under 45 U.S.C. § 56, a FELA action must be commenced within three years from the date the cause of action accrued. For the families of the two deceased UP employees, the three-year clock started on December 18, 2024 — the date of the collision. The FELA deadline is longer than the Texas general personal-injury deadline, which is an advantage for the employee families.
Texas wrongful death and personal injury: two years. Texas’s general statute of limitations for personal injury and wrongful death claims is two years from the date of injury or death. This governs the building-occupant injury claims and any third-party claims against the trucking company. The two-year clock also started on December 18, 2024.
Texas survival action: two years. The survival claim — which belongs to the estate of the employee who survived until Thursday morning — also carries a two-year limitations period under Texas law, though the FELA survival component runs on the three-year federal clock.
The practical effect: the families of the deceased UP employees have until December 2027 to file their FELA claims. The building occupants have until December 2026. But the evidence-preservation deadlines — measured in days, weeks, and months — are the deadlines that actually matter.
Comparative fault
FELA claims: proportional fault that never bars recovery. Under 45 U.S.C. § 53, the employee’s own contributory negligence reduces the recovery proportionally but never bars it. There is no 51% threshold. If the employee was 30% at fault, the recovery is reduced by 30% — but 70% of a substantial award is still a substantial recovery. And if the railroad violated a federal safety statute, even the employee’s contributory negligence is eliminated entirely.
Texas claims: modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar. For the building-occupant claims and any non-FELA claims, Texas applies a modified comparative negligence standard. A plaintiff cannot recover if they are 51% or more at fault. If they are 50% or less at fault, their recovery is reduced by their percentage. For the building occupants — who were simply inside a building when a train hit it — their fault percentage is likely near zero. The real fault-allocation fight is between the trucking company and Union Pacific.
Damages
No cap on economic damages. Texas does not impose a cap on economic damages in personal injury or wrongful death cases outside of medical liability claims. Lost earnings, medical expenses, future care costs, and funeral expenses are recoverable in full.
Non-economic damages generally uncapped. Outside of medical malpractice cases, Texas does not cap non-economic damages — pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of companionship — in personal injury or wrongful death cases. FELA likewise imposes no cap.
Exemplary damages. Texas requires clear and convincing evidence of fraud, malice, or gross negligence for exemplary damages, and subjects them to a statutory cap tied to the amount of economic damages. The cap formula is the greater of: (a) two times the economic damages plus the non-economic damages (up to $750,000), or (b) an amount equal to economic damages. The exact current formula should be confirmed at the time of any demand, as legislative amendments can modify these provisions.
The Stowers demand
In Texas, once liability and damages are sufficiently clear to establish a reasonable settlement value, a policy-limits demand letter — known as a Stowers demand — creates leverage. If the defendant’s insurer refuses a reasonable settlement offer within policy limits and the case later results in a verdict exceeding those limits, the insurer may be liable for the excess. The timing strategy is to issue the Stowers demand after the NTSB preliminary findings are available and the medical picture is clear, but before the final NTSB report — maximizing settlement leverage while preserving bad-faith exposure.
The First 72 Hours: A Roadmap for Families
What you do in the first 72 hours after a train-truck collision and derailment will affect the outcome of your case more than anything that happens later. Here is what needs to happen, in order:
Hour 1 through 24: Medical first. If anyone in your family was in the building or on the train, get a complete medical evaluation. Not a “I feel okay” check — a full evaluation by a physician who knows what to look for after a structural impact or a high-energy collision. Document everything. Keep every record. Take photographs of any visible injuries. Write down what you remember about the moments before, during, and after the crash — your own contemporaneous notes, made while memory is fresh, are evidence.
Hour 24 through 48: Do not talk to insurance. Do not give a recorded statement to the railroad’s claim agent, the trucking company’s insurer, or any third-party adjuster. Do not sign anything. Do not accept any check. Do not discuss the incident with union officials or company representatives without independent counsel present. Statements made in the first days — when you are exhausted, grieving, and in shock — may be used to minimize the railroad’s exposure for years to come.
Hour 48 through 72: Contact independent counsel. This is the window where a preservation letter can still freeze the evidence before it disappears. The truck’s electronic data may already be on a overwrite cycle. The crossing-signal logs may have limited retention. The video footage from nearby cameras may be approaching its overwrite date. The sooner a lawyer sends formal preservation demands to every entity that holds evidence, the more evidence survives.
Do not post on social media. Do not discuss the crash on Facebook, Instagram, X, or any other platform. Insurance companies monitor social media. A photograph of you smiling at a family gathering — even a gathering that was an act of comfort in the midst of grief — can be presented out of context to minimize the severity of your loss. A casual comment about “we’re hanging in there” can become the defense’s evidence that the family is doing fine.
Do not discuss the case with anyone except your lawyer. Friends, coworkers, neighbors, and even other family members may be contacted by insurance investigators. The only conversations that are protected are those between you and your attorney.
Preserve everything. Keep all medical records, medical bills, prescription receipts, and documentation of any expenses related to the crash. Keep a journal — dated, handwritten — of your symptoms, your emotional state, and the impact on your daily life. If you are a family member of a deceased employee, keep records of the funeral expenses, the travel costs, the lost wages from missed work, and every way the death has affected the family’s finances and well-being.
How We Build a Train-Truck Collision Case
If you call us, here is what happens — not in the abstract, but in the specific sequence a senior trial attorney follows when a train hits a truck and derails into a building in West Texas:
Week one: the preservation letter. The day you call, a litigation-hold and preservation-demand letter goes out to Union Pacific, to the trucking company (once identified), to the crossing-signal maintainer, to the roadway authority, and to every third-party data vendor. The letter names every specific record: the train’s event recorder, the truck’s engine control module, the crossing-signal logs, the video footage, the driver’s ELD and cell phone records, the maintenance records, the crew hours-of-service records, the building’s structural engineering assessment. Each letter tells the recipient: preserve this evidence. Destruction will be treated as spoliation.
Week one through four: evidence collection. We pull the FMCSA SAFER Company Snapshot for the trucking company — its DOT number, operating authority status, power-unit count, crash and inspection summary, and insurance filings. We pull the Federal Railroad Administration safety data for Union Pacific and the specific crossing. We request the building’s occupancy records to confirm every person who was inside. We secure copies of all video footage before the overwrite cycle erases it. We send a separate preservation demand for the truck’s electronic data — the fastest-dying record in the case.
Month one through three: the medical picture. For the building occupants, we ensure every injury is documented by the right specialist. If there is a potential traumatic brain injury, we arrange neuropsychological testing. If there are PTSD symptoms, we connect the survivor with a treating clinician who can diagnose using validated instruments. The medical record is the foundation of the damages case, and it must be built correctly from the first visit.
Month three through six: the expert team. We retain a railroad safety engineer to examine the crossing design and signal adequacy. We retain a grade-crossing design specialist to survey the crossing geometry — the approach angle, the clearance distance, the warning-device placement, and whether the design traps long vehicles. We retain an accident reconstructionist to model the collision sequence — the train’s speed, braking distance, horn activation, and the truck’s path onto the tracks. For the building occupants, we retain a structural engineer to assess the impact forces and a trauma medicine specialist to document the injury mechanisms.
Month six through twelve: discovery and depositions. The records come out in discovery — the railroad’s crossing-signal maintenance history, the trucking company’s driver-qualification file and hours-of-service logs, the crossing designer’s engineering studies. Then the depositions, where the safety director and the signal maintainer explain the company’s choices under oath. The NTSB preliminary report is available by this point, and its factual data — though not its conclusions — feeds into our expert analysis.
The number. At the end of this process, a number is built. It is not pulled from the air. It is built from the economic-loss projection, the life-care plan, the medical records, the expert reports, and the liability evidence. The forensic economist reduces the future losses to present value. The life-care planner prices out every future treatment, every therapy session, every medication, and every piece of equipment the injured person will need. That number — the full, documented, defensible number — is the floor of the demand, not the ceiling.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the families of the Union Pacific employees sue the railroad?
Yes. The families of the two killed employees have claims under FELA — the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. §§ 51 through 60. FELA is a federal law that allows railroad employees (or their families, in the case of death) to recover damages from the railroad if the railroad’s negligence contributed “in whole or in part” to the injury or death. This is a lower causation standard than ordinary injury law requires — the railroad’s negligence need only have played any part, even the slightest, in the death. The families can also bring third-party claims against the trucking company and any other entity whose negligence contributed to the collision.
How long do the families have to file a claim?
The FELA statute of limitations is three years from the date the cause of action accrued — in this case, three years from December 18, 2024. For non-FELA claims — the building-occupant injury claims and any third-party claims against the trucking company — Texas’s general two-year statute of limitations applies, running from the same date. The FELA three-year deadline is more generous, but the real deadline is the evidence-preservation deadline, which runs in days and weeks, not years.
What if the truck was primarily at fault?
Under FELA, the railroad can still be liable even if the truck was primarily at fault. The “in whole or in part” language of 45 U.S.C. § 51 means the railroad is liable if its negligence played any part — inadequate crossing signals, insufficient crew training, delayed braking response, track inspection failures — in the collision or the severity of the outcome. The featherweight causation standard from Rogers v. Missouri Pacific means the jury only needs to find the railroad’s negligence played “any part, even the slightest.” For the building occupants, their claims can be brought against both the trucking company and the railroad — the allocation of fault between them is for the jury to decide.
Can the building occupants sue even though they were not on the train or in the truck?
Yes. The three people injured inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce have negligence claims against the trucking company, the truck driver, and potentially Union Pacific. The chain of causation — truck on tracks, train hits truck, train derails, train hits building, building occupants injured — creates liability for every entity whose negligence contributed to the sequence. The building occupants were not at fault — they were at work in a building near the tracks — and their recovery should not be reduced by comparative-fault arguments. Their claims are governed by Texas law, not FELA.
What about the hazardous materials on the train?
Three train cars carrying potentially hazardous materials — lithium batteries and vehicle airbags — were involved in the derailment. Officials confirmed no hazardous materials were released and there is no danger to the public. The battery container was not compromised, and the airbag container is not considered a serious threat. However, the presence of hazmat cars in the derailment is relevant to the case because it implicates federal hazardous-materials transportation regulations and the railroad’s duty to secure and protect hazmat loads during a derailment. If the hazmat containers had been compromised, the damages — including potential evacuation costs, environmental remediation, and medical monitoring for exposed individuals — would have been dramatically higher.
The NTSB is investigating. Should we wait for their report?
No. The NTSB’s final report and probable-cause determination are inadmissible in a civil lawsuit under 49 U.S.C. § 1154(b). The NTSB’s factual data — measurements, recorder data, witness statements — can be used through retained experts, but the conclusion cannot. Waiting 12 to 24 months for a report the jury will never see, while the evidence the jury would need is being destroyed, is the worst strategic choice a family can make. Consult counsel immediately. The preservation letter is the first step, and it must go out before the evidence-preservation clocks run.
The railroad’s claim agent wants to talk. Should we cooperate?
No. The railroad’s claim agent — and the trucking company’s insurance adjuster — are professionals whose job is to minimize the company’s financial exposure. They are not your friends. They are not neutral. A recorded statement given in the first days after a fatal crash, when you are grieving and in shock, will be transcribed and parsed for every word that can be used to reduce the company’s liability. Under FELA’s anti-waiver provision, any release or “device” designed to exempt the railroad from liability is void — but it is far easier to avoid signing a bad release than to challenge one after the fact. Talk to an independent lawyer before you talk to any insurance representative.
What is the case worth?
No lawyer can give you a number without reviewing the specific facts. But based on the framework — two FELA wrongful death claims with strong earning-capacity losses, three building-occupant injury claims whose value depends on the documented severity of the injuries, significant property damage to the Chamber of Commerce building, and potential exemplary damages — the total case portfolio ranges from approximately $3 million on the low end to $25 million or more on the high end. The individual FELA claims may range from $2 million to $8 million or more per employee, depending on age, earnings, seniority, and the degree of railroad negligence established. The building-occupant claims may range from $50,000 to $500,000 or more per person, depending on the medical documentation. These are framework estimates, not predictions. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
How much does it cost to hire a lawyer for a train derailment case?
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% of the recovery if the case settles before trial, and 40% if the case goes to trial. The first consultation is free. We advance the costs of investigation — the preservation letters, the record requests, the expert fees — and those costs are repaid from the recovery if we win. If we do not win, you owe us nothing for our time. We have live staff available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not an answering service, but people who can take your call right now and start the process.
Can we still pursue a claim if the employee who survived until Thursday morning was conscious?
Yes — and the survival claim may be significant. Under Texas survival law and FELA, the estate of the employee who survived until Thursday morning can recover for the conscious pain and suffering the employee experienced between the collision and death. The period of awareness — the fear, the physical suffering, the knowledge of what was happening — is compensable. This is a separate claim from the wrongful-death claim, brought by the estate rather than the surviving family members. The survival claim can substantially increase the total recovery, particularly if the period of consciousness was extended.
Why This Firm
Ralph P. Manginello is our managing partner. He has been licensed in Texas since November 6, 1998 — 27+ years of trial practice, including admission to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association. Before he was a lawyer, he was a journalist — he knows how to find the story the defendant does not want told. He handles wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases with the specific intensity of a trial attorney who has been in courtrooms for nearly three decades.
Lupe Peña is our associate attorney. He is a former insurance-defense attorney who spent years inside a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like the families reading this page. He knows how claims are valued from the inside, how the recorded-statement trap is engineered, and how the quick-check-with-a-release play works. He is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. If your family prays in Spanish, Lupe speaks your language. Learn more about Lupe.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. Based in Houston, we take cases across Texas. We have recovered more than $50 million for our clients — a marketing aggregate, not a promise. Our fee is contingency: 33.33% before trial, 40% at trial. We do not get paid unless we win. The first consultation is free, and it is confidential.
Hablamos Español.
If Your Family Was Affected by the Pecos Train Derailment
The evidence is disappearing. The insurance adjusters have already started. The railroad’s claim agents are already building their file. The trucking company’s records are on a destruction clock. The crossing-signal logs have limited retention. The video footage is approaching its overwrite date.
Every day you wait is a day the evidence-destruction machinery runs unchecked. The preservation letter — the single document that freezes the evidence before it disappears — is the first thing we send, the day you call.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. We have live staff available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But the information on this page is the information a senior trial attorney would want you to have before you talk to the railroad, the trucking company, or their insurance. Now you have it. Call us.