Midland Train-Truck Collision: When a Union Pacific Freight Train Meets an 18-Wheeler Stuck on the Tracks
You are standing beside Warehouse Road in Midland, watching what is left of your truck on the tracks. The train has stopped. The crossing is littered with debris — twisted metal, scattered cargo, the smell of brake dust and diesel. The police haven’t finished their report yet, and someone from the railroad is already on scene with a clipboard. Your driver is shaken but alive — he got out, he called 911, he did exactly what he was supposed to do. The railroad’s own people said so. And now the questions start: who pays for the truck, the cargo, the downtime? Who built a crossing that trapped an 18-wheeler on the tracks in the first place? And how long do you have before the evidence that answers those questions disappears?
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle 18-wheeler and commercial truck collision cases across Texas, including the Permian Basin freight corridors that run through Midland. This page is for the truck driver, the fleet owner, the family — anyone who was on either side of a train-truck collision at a grade crossing in Midland County and needs to understand what just happened, what the law says about it, and what to do in the hours and days before the evidence evaporates. We are writing this as a resource — a full, honest explanation of the legal terrain — not as counsel on this specific December 2018 incident. If you are facing a situation like this one, call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free, and we do not get paid unless we win your case.
What Happened at Warehouse Road and West Industrial Avenue
On December 18, 2018, at approximately 2:20 p.m., a semi-truck became high-centered on the railroad tracks near Warehouse Road and West Industrial Avenue in Midland, Texas. The driver was able to exit the cab and call 911 before a Union Pacific freight train traveling toward Dallas collided with the stranded vehicle. No injuries were reported. Union Pacific confirmed that the truck was high-centered on the tracks and publicly acknowledged that the driver did the right thing by immediately calling 911.
That last fact matters more than most people realize. When the railroad itself says the driver acted properly, the defense cannot easily turn the narrative into “the driver caused this.” The driver did not stall the truck through negligence. The truck became physically trapped — grounded on the rails by the geometry of the crossing itself. That shifts the entire legal battleground from driver conduct to crossing design, signage adequacy, and route planning. It also means the comparative fault exposure on the driver’s side is minimal — which, under Texas law, is the difference between a case that recovers and a case that does not.
The Midland Police Department responded to the scene. A collision report would have been generated within 5 to 10 business days. Union Pacific’s own risk-management and claims personnel would have deployed to the scene within hours — the railroad routinely investigates crossing collisions through its own departments and moves quickly to document conditions from its perspective. That investigation was building the railroad’s version of events while the truck driver was still processing what had just happened. This is not a criticism — it is a fact of how these cases work, and it is exactly why the other side needs its own preservation and investigation effort, started just as fast.
Why Trucks High-Center on Railroad Tracks — and Who Built the Trap
High-centering is a physics problem, not a driver error problem. Here is the mechanism: a semi-truck trailer sits at a fixed clearance height above the road surface — the space between the pavement and the bottom of the trailer frame. When a railroad crossing is built with the tracks elevated above the surrounding road, the approach ramps up to meet the rails and then back down on the other side. If that ramp angle is steep enough, or the trailer’s wheelbase is long enough, the underside of the trailer contacts the raised track surface as the truck crosses. The drive wheels lift off the ground. The truck is stuck — it cannot move forward because the trailer is grounded on the rail, and it cannot back up because the same geometry pins it in place. The truck has been high-centered.
This is not a rare or unpredictable event. It is a known, documented hazard at grade crossings with poor approach geometry. The Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices — the MUTCD — is the national standard for traffic control devices, including grade-crossing signage. The MUTCD includes specific provisions for crossings with known low-ground-clearance risks: advance warning signs are required to alert drivers of vehicles with low ground clearance that the crossing ahead may trap them. The absence or insufficiency of those signs at a crossing where high-centering is a known risk is not an oversight — it is a deviation from a published national safety standard.
The question in any high-centering case is not “why did the driver cross the tracks?” The question is “who designed, approved, and maintained a crossing whose geometry traps commercial vehicles — and did they warn anyone?” That question reaches multiple defendants: the railroad that owns the tracks and crossing surface, the municipality or state agency that designed the road approach and installed signage, and any contractor responsible for signal maintenance. Each of them had a duty to keep that crossing safe for the traffic that reasonably travels through Midland’s industrial corridor — and that traffic, in the Permian Basin, is overwhelmingly commercial.
The Permian Basin Freight Reality: Midland’s Crossings Were Not Built for This Traffic
Midland sits in Midland County in the heart of the Permian Basin — one of the most active oil and gas production regions in the United States. The Permian Basin boom has generated extraordinary heavy-truck traffic on roads and crossings that were not originally engineered for industrial-haul volumes. The intersection of Warehouse Road and West Industrial Avenue lies within Midland’s industrial corridor, where numerous at-grade railroad crossings serve both freight rail and oilfield logistics operations. Grade crossings in this corridor are known to present high-centering risks for low-clearance vehicles when track elevation and road grade create a ramped geometry that can ground a trailer’s undercarriage.
The Federal Railroad Administration maintains a grade-crossing inventory for this region — a public database that records the crossing type, warning devices, number of tracks, and prior accident history at each location. That inventory should be pulled immediately in any crossing-collision case to establish the baseline conditions as of the incident date. If the inventory shows prior high-centering or stuck-vehicle incidents at this crossing, that is evidence of notice — proof that the entities responsible for the crossing knew, or should have known, that the geometry was dangerous and did nothing.
This is the Permian Basin reality: the freight volumes that move through Midland’s industrial corridors are not the volumes these crossings were designed for. Oilfield water haulers, frac-sand transporters, crude-oil tankers, equipment movers — all of them ride longer, heavier, lower-clearance trailers than the crossings were built to accommodate. We have spent years working Permian Basin truck collision cases and we know the corridors, the carriers, and the crossing geometry that makes this region different from anywhere else in Texas. A Midland County jury knows it too — the men and women who sit on these juries work in the oilfield, drive these roads, and understand what it means when a crossing traps a truck.
Who Is Responsible: The Defendant Map in a Grade-Crossing Collision
A train-truck collision at a grade crossing is almost never a single-defendant case. The liability map spreads across multiple entities, each with a different role and a different insurance structure.
Union Pacific Railroad operated the train. Union Pacific is one of two Class I freight railroads operating in the western United States, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, with an extensive Texas network including lines through the Permian Basin. UP operates over approximately 32,000 route miles and maintains its own police force, crossing-inspection programs, and signal-maintenance divisions. The railroad may bear responsibility for crossing design and maintenance, signal adequacy, train speed approaching the crossing, and crew response time. The train’s event recorder — the railroad equivalent of a truck’s black box — captured the train’s speed, braking application, horn activation, and approach timing. That data is critical and must be formally demanded before it cycles off the system.
The trucking company operated the semi. The carrier is not identified in the public reporting on this incident, but its identity would be established through the police report and scene investigation. The carrier may bear responsibility for route planning — if it dispatched the driver through a crossing with a known high-centering risk without proper routing guidance or low-clearance warnings, that is a negligence theory. The carrier’s driver-training records, route-planning protocols, and vehicle-maintenance files are all discoverable. If the truck stalled due to a mechanical failure rather than high-centering, the maintenance history becomes central.
The City of Midland or Midland County may bear responsibility for road grade design, crossing approach geometry, and signage adequacy at the Warehouse Road and Industrial Avenue crossing. The entity that designed the road approach to the tracks — the ramp angle, the elevation change, the sight lines — created the geometry that trapped the truck. If low-clearance warning signs required by the MUTCD were absent or insufficient, that is evidence of negligence.
The Texas Department of Transportation may be involved if the crossing or approach road is a state-maintained route with jurisdiction over crossing design standards. TxDOT supplements federal requirements for crossing design and maintenance within Texas.
The crossing signal manufacturer or maintainer — if active warning devices were present at the crossing and failed to activate, or if the signal system was inadequately maintained, the signal vendor or maintenance contractor could share liability. Signal system logs and inspection records would show whether the devices were functioning and when they were last inspected.
Each of these defendants points at the others. The railroad says the crossing geometry was the city’s design. The city says the railroad owns the tracks. The trucking company says the driver was never warned about the crossing. The signal maintainer says the devices were working. Cutting through that finger-pointing to identify who actually controlled the condition that caused the harm is the core work of a grade-crossing case. It requires the right experts — a railroad-crossing engineering expert to analyze the geometry and grade, a commercial-vehicle accident reconstructionist to establish the high-centering mechanism, and a railroad-operations expert to evaluate train speed and crew response.
Texas Law: Comparative Fault, the Two-Year Clock, and the Government-Claim Trap
Texas applies a modified comparative negligence standard with a 51% bar. In plain English: if you are found to be 51% or more at fault for the collision, you cannot recover anything. If you are found to be 50% or less at fault, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault — but it is not eliminated. Every percentage point the defense can pin on you is money off the recovery, which is exactly why the adjuster works so hard to shift blame.
Texas applies a modified comparative negligence standard with a 51% bar, meaning a plaintiff cannot recover if found 51% or more at fault; recovery is proportionally reduced for fault below that threshold.
In this incident, the driver’s comparative fault exposure is minimal — and the railroad’s own public acknowledgment that the driver “did the right thing” is part of why. The driver did not ignore signals. The driver did not try to beat the train. The truck became physically trapped by the crossing geometry, and the driver escaped and called 911 immediately. The defense will still try to argue that the driver should have recognized the crossing as a high-centering risk or should have taken a different route — but those arguments are weakened by the railroad’s own statement and by the question of whether adequate warning signage existed.
Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury and property damage claims, running from the date of the incident. That means a lawsuit must be filed within two years of the collision or the claim is barred forever. Two years sounds like a long time, but it is not — evidence disappears on much shorter cycles, governmental-entity notice deadlines are far shorter than two years, and building a grade-crossing case with the right experts and discovery takes months.
Claims against governmental entities in Texas — the City of Midland, Midland County, or TxDOT — are governed by the Texas Tort Claims Act. The TTCA imposes specific notice requirements that must be satisfied before a lawsuit can be filed, and damage caps that limit recovery against governmental defendants. These notice deadlines are shorter than the two-year statute of limitations and must be confirmed against current statutes as soon as a governmental defendant is identified. Missing the TTCA notice deadline can kill a claim against the city or state before the two-year clock even becomes relevant. This is one of the most common ways a legitimate claim dies for a procedural reason.
Venue in Midland County would place the case before a West Texas jury pool with strong oilfield-industry familiarity. That matters. A Midland County jury understands Permian Basin truck traffic, industrial safety standards, and the realities of crossing a freight line in an oilfield logistics corridor. They will not need to be educated on why a truck was on that road — they know why. What they will need is proof that the crossing was unreasonably dangerous and that someone with the power to fix it knew or should have known.
The Evidence Clock: What Records Exist and How Fast They Disappear
Every grade-crossing collision case is a race against evidence destruction. The records that prove what happened — and who is responsible — exist right now, but they are on clocks. Some overwrite in days. Some cycle off in months. The preservation letter that freezes them has to go out before the clock runs, not after.
The Union Pacific train event recorder / data logger captured the train’s speed, braking application, horn activation, and approach timing to the crossing. This data is typically preserved per FRA regulations but should be formally demanded within 30 days before routine data cycling. The event recorder is the railroad’s black box — it tells you whether the train was speeding, whether the horn was sounded at the right distance, and whether the crew attempted emergency braking in time. Without it, the railroad’s narrative stands unchallenged.
Grade-crossing signal system logs and inspection records show whether active warning devices were functioning, when they were last inspected, and any history of malfunctions at this crossing. Signal logs may overwrite on 30 to 90 day cycles. Crossing inspection records should be demanded immediately. If the crossing had active warning devices — lights, gates, bells — the signal logs will show whether they activated. If the crossing was passive — just a sign — the absence of active devices is itself a question for the crossing-design expert.
The truck’s EDR, telematics, and Qualcomm GPS data would show the vehicle’s speed, route, braking, and mechanical status leading up to the high-centering event. ELD and telematics data may be overwritten within 8 to 30 days depending on the carrier’s system configuration. This data proves the route the driver was directed to take, whether the truck was operating normally before the high-centering, and whether there was any mechanical failure. If the trucking company’s telematics system shows the driver was routed through this crossing by dispatch or by a navigation system that did not flag the high-centering risk, that is route-planning negligence.
Scene photographs and the police report document the crossing geometry, road grade, signage presence, vehicle positioning, and damage. The Midland Police Department report should be available within 5 to 10 business days. Scene conditions can change — if the crossing is repaired, re-graded, or re-signed after the incident, the post-incident conditions will not match what the driver encountered. Photograph the crossing immediately — the approach angle, the track elevation, the road grade, every sign present or absent, the sight lines in both directions along the track.
The FRA Grade Crossing Inventory database entry for this crossing is a public record maintained by the Federal Railroad Administration. It shows the crossing type, warning devices, number of tracks, and prior accident history at this location. This should be pulled immediately to establish baseline conditions as of the incident date. If the FRA inventory shows prior incidents at this crossing — prior high-centering events, prior collisions, prior complaints — that is evidence of notice. It proves the entities responsible for the crossing knew the geometry was dangerous and did not fix it.
Nearby business surveillance and dashcam footage could provide an independent visual record of the collision, the crossing condition, and whether warning signals activated. Midland’s industrial corridor has warehouses, logistics facilities, and businesses with security cameras. Industrial-area CCTV typically overwrites within 7 to 30 days. Canvassing nearby warehouses and businesses for surveillance footage is urgent — every day that passes is a day closer to the footage recording over itself.
Union Pacific’s crossing inspection and maintenance records are the railroad’s own records of crossing condition assessments, repairs, and any prior high-centering complaints. These must be demanded through a litigation hold letter. Union Pacific’s claims department moves quickly to document its version of events — the railroad typically deploys investigators to the scene within hours of any grade-crossing incident. The railroad is building its case from the moment the train stops. The preservation letter is the counter-move that forces the railroad to preserve the evidence it would otherwise control exclusively.
When a defendant lets required evidence die after receiving a preservation demand, the law answers. A jury may be instructed to assume the lost record was as bad as the plaintiff says it was. The bar for the harshest sanctions is high, but the leverage begins the moment the letter is on file. The point is simpler than that: the letter is what separates a case where the evidence survives from a case where the railroad says “we no longer have that data” and there is nothing to contradict it.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook — and the Counter to Each Move
Within days of the collision, someone will call. They will sound friendly. They are not your friend. Here are the plays the railroad’s claims department, the trucking company’s insurer, and any governmental-entity claims handler will run — and here is the counter to each one.
Play 1: “The driver should have known the crossing was dangerous.” The adjuster will argue that a professional driver should have recognized the high-centering risk or should have taken a different route. The counter: the railroad’s own spokesperson publicly acknowledged that the truck was high-centered and that the driver did the right thing. The driver cannot be blamed for failing to recognize a hazard that the entities responsible for the crossing did not warn about. If the MUTCD-required low-clearance warning signs were absent, the driver had no notice of the risk — and the failure to warn is the defendant’s negligence, not the driver’s.
Play 2: The quick property-damage-only settlement check. A check may arrive fast, with a release printed on the back or attached, before the full extent of damage is assessed — before cargo loss is calculated, before business interruption is quantified, before any latent injuries manifest. The counter: never sign a release before the full damage picture is known. A property-damage-only settlement that releases all claims is the insurance industry’s most efficient tool for closing a case cheaply before the plaintiff discovers the real value. The release is permanent. Once signed, the claim is over — even if the driver develops back pain two weeks later, even if the cargo claim turns out to be six figures, even if the crossing has a documented history of trapping trucks that no one told the carrier about.
Play 3: The recorded statement request. Someone will call to “just check on the driver” and ask him to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording engineered to be quoted against him later. The counter: no recorded statement without counsel present. The adjuster is not gathering facts — the adjuster is building a defense. Every word the driver says will be transcribed, parsed, and offered as evidence that the driver was at fault. The driver’s 911 call and the police report are the official record. Everything else is ammunition for the other side.
Play 4: “It was just an accident — no one’s fault.” The adjuster will frame the high-centering as an unavoidable incident, a freak occurrence that no one could have prevented. The counter: high-centering at a poorly designed crossing is a foreseeable, documented, and preventable event. The MUTCD exists specifically because the federal government recognized that some crossings trap low-clearance vehicles and requires warning signs at those crossings. If the crossing geometry creates a high-centering trap and no warning signs were posted, this was not an accident — it was a failure to follow a national safety standard.
Play 5: The delay tactic. The insurer stalls — “we need more documentation,” “we are still investigating,” “we need more time.” The goal is to run the clock toward the statute of limitations or, more immediately, to let the evidence disappear before anyone demands it. The counter: the preservation letter goes out the day you call a lawyer, and the case is filed within the deadline. Time is the insurer’s ally and the evidence’s enemy — the only way to beat both is to move fast.
What a Train-Truck Collision Case Is Worth
No lawyer can tell you exactly what your case is worth without seeing the police report, the crossing records, the damage documentation, and the medical evaluation. But we can give you an honest frame — and we will not inflate it.
Based on the reported facts of this incident — a high-centered truck struck by a train with no injuries reported — the case value is driven primarily by property damage: destruction of or damage to the semi-tractor and trailer, cargo loss or damage, and potential railroad infrastructure damage including track, signal equipment, and right-of-way restoration costs. In a property-damage-only case of this nature, the value range typically runs from approximately $25,000 on the low end to $150,000 on the high end, depending on the extent of vehicle and cargo destruction and infrastructure repair costs.
If the truck driver or train crew subsequently report injuries — which can manifest 24 to 72 hours after the adrenaline response of a collision event — medical expenses, lost earnings, and pain-and-suffering damages could emerge. Soft-tissue injuries, post-traumatic stress symptoms, and delayed-onset musculoskeletal injuries are common after high-impact collisions even when the initial assessment reports no injury. If latent injuries are documented, or if discovery reveals prior high-centering incidents at this crossing establishing negligent design, the case value could escalate into the $250,000 to $750,000 range.
Business interruption damages may apply to the trucking company for vehicle downtime and cargo delivery delays. Punitive damages would require evidence of conscious indifference — proof that the entity responsible for the crossing knew about the high-centering risk and ignored it. That is a discovery target, not a currently supported claim from the public reporting alone. If the FRA crossing inventory or the railroad’s own inspection records show prior high-centering complaints at this crossing that were never addressed, the punitive-damages theory becomes viable.
A governmental-entity defendant with Texas Tort Claims Act damage caps would further limit recovery if the municipality or state is the primary liable party. The TTCA’s caps are real and they bind — which is why identifying all defendants, not just the governmental one, is critical to maximizing recovery.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. We have recovered $50 million plus across our firm’s history, including $2.5 million plus in a truck-crash recovery. Those are our firm’s documented results, not a promise about your case. What we can promise is that we will value your case honestly — not high to get you in the door and not low to settle it fast.
The First 72 Hours After a Grade-Crossing Collision
Hour 1 to 24: Medical first, always. Even if no injuries were reported at the scene, the driver should receive a full medical evaluation. Adrenaline masks pain. Soft-tissue injuries, cervical strain, and post-traumatic stress symptoms can manifest 24 to 72 hours after a collision of this magnitude. A delayed medical visit creates a gap in the record that the defense will exploit — “if he was really hurt, why did he wait three days to see a doctor?” The answer should be: he did not wait.
Hour 1 to 48: Evidence preservation. This is the window that decides the case. The preservation letter goes out to Union Pacific, the trucking company’s carrier, and any nearby businesses with surveillance cameras. The letter demands that they freeze the train event recorder data, the signal system logs, the crossing inspection records, the truck’s telematics and ELD data, and any surveillance footage. Every day without a preservation letter is a day the evidence can legally disappear.
Day 1 to 5: Document the crossing. Photograph everything — the approach geometry from both directions, the track elevation, the road grade, every sign present and every sign absent, the sight lines along the track in both directions, the crossing surface condition, any signal equipment and its condition. If the crossing is repaired, re-graded, or re-signed after the incident, the post-incident photographs are the only record of what the driver actually encountered. Pull the FRA Grade Crossing Inventory entry for this crossing immediately — it is a public record and it establishes the baseline conditions as of the incident date.
Day 1 to 10: Retrieve the police report. The Midland Police Department report should be available within 5 to 10 business days. The report will identify the trucking company, the train crew, the crossing, and the responding officers’ observations. It is the official record of the incident — get it and read it carefully.
What NOT to do:
– Do not sign anything from the railroad, the trucking company’s insurer, or any claims adjuster without having a lawyer review it. A release is permanent.
– Do not give a recorded statement to any insurer without counsel present. The adjuster’s recording is built to be quoted against you.
– Do not post about the collision on social media. The defense will mine every post, photo, and comment for evidence that the driver was not injured, was not affected, or was at fault.
– Do not assume the railroad’s investigation is neutral. Union Pacific’s claims department is building the railroad’s defense, not your case.
– Do not wait. The two-year statute of limitations sounds generous, but the TTCA notice deadlines for governmental defendants are far shorter, and the evidence clocks run in days and weeks, not years.
When to call a lawyer: The day of the collision. Not because you need to file a lawsuit that day — you do not. But because the preservation letter, the crossing documentation, the FRA inventory pull, and the independent investigation all need to start immediately. The railroad’s team was on scene within hours. Your team needs to be just as fast.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue Union Pacific if my truck was stuck on the tracks?
Yes — if the crossing’s design, maintenance, or signaling contributed to the truck becoming trapped, Union Pacific may bear responsibility. The railroad owns the tracks and the crossing surface and may share responsibility for the crossing geometry that caused the high-centering. The train’s event recorder data — speed, braking, horn activation — is critical to evaluating whether the train crew responded appropriately. A preservation letter demanding that data should go out immediately.
Who is at fault when a truck gets high-centered on railroad tracks?
Fault in a high-centering case is rarely singular. The crossing geometry that trapped the truck was designed and maintained by someone — the railroad, the municipality, the state DOT, or some combination. If low-clearance warning signs required by the federal MUTCD were absent, the entity responsible for signage is negligent. If the trucking company routed the driver through a crossing with a known high-centering risk without warning, the carrier may share fault. The driver’s conduct — escaping and calling 911, which the railroad itself acknowledged was correct — is unlikely to be the primary cause.
What if there were no warning signs about low ground clearance at the crossing?
The absence of low-clearance warning signs at a crossing with a known high-centering risk is a deviation from the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which specifically requires advance warning signs at crossings known to present low-ground-clearance hazards. If those signs were absent, the entity responsible for signage — the municipality, the state DOT, or the railroad — is negligent. That negligence is the spine of the case.
How long do I have to file a claim after a train-truck collision in Texas?
Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury and property damage claims, running from the date of the incident. However, if a governmental entity — the City of Midland, Midland County, or TxDOT — is a defendant, the Texas Tort Claims Act imposes shorter notice deadlines that must be met before a lawsuit can be filed. Missing the TTCA notice deadline can bar the claim against the governmental defendant before the two-year clock becomes relevant. Do not assume two years is the operative deadline — confirm the specific deadlines for your case with a lawyer immediately.
The railroad said my driver did the right thing — does that help the case?
Yes, significantly. When Union Pacific’s own spokesperson publicly acknowledged that the truck was high-centered and that the driver did the right thing by calling 911, the railroad made an admission that undermines any defense theory blaming the driver. Under Texas’s modified comparative negligence standard, the defense will try to pin percentage points of fault on the driver to reduce the recovery. The railroad’s own statement makes that effort harder — the driver cannot be blamed for failing to act properly when the railroad itself said he acted properly.
No one was injured — is there still a case worth pursuing?
Yes. A property-damage-only case can still be significant — a destroyed tractor and trailer, lost cargo, infrastructure repair costs, and business interruption during vehicle downtime can total tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand dollars. If the crossing has a history of high-centering incidents that was never addressed, there may also be a broader safety claim worth pursuing. And if injuries manifest in the days after the collision — which is common even when the initial scene assessment reports none — the case value changes substantially.
How fast does evidence disappear after a grade-crossing collision?
Fast. Train event recorder data should be formally demanded within 30 days. Grade-crossing signal system logs may overwrite on 30 to 90 day cycles. Truck telematics and ELD data may overwrite within 8 to 30 days. Nearby business surveillance footage typically overwrites within 7 to 30 days. The police report takes 5 to 10 business days. The FRA Grade Crossing Inventory is a public record that should be pulled immediately. The preservation letter that freezes the perishable evidence is the first move — not something that happens after the case is filed.
Can I sue the city or state if the crossing was poorly designed?
Yes, but the Texas Tort Claims Act governs claims against governmental entities and imposes specific notice requirements and damage caps. The notice deadlines are shorter than the two-year statute of limitations and must be confirmed against current statutes immediately. The TTCA limits governmental liability — which is why identifying all defendants, not just the governmental one, is critical. If the railroad and the trucking company also share responsibility, the case may recover from those defendants without hitting the governmental caps.
What if the trucking company sent the driver through that crossing?
If the carrier dispatched the driver through a crossing with a known high-centering risk without providing routing guidance or low-clearance warnings, the carrier may be negligent for route planning. FMCSA regulations under 49 CFR Parts 390 through 399 govern commercial motor vehicle operation, driver qualification, and route planning responsibilities. The carrier’s telematics and dispatch records would show whether the driver was directed through this crossing or chose the route independently. That distinction matters — a dispatched route is the carrier’s choice, and the carrier’s negligence is separate from the driver’s.
How much is a train-truck collision case worth?
Based on the reported facts of this incident — no injuries, property damage — the case value typically ranges from $25,000 to $150,000, driven by vehicle and cargo destruction and infrastructure repair costs. If latent injuries are documented, or if discovery reveals prior high-centering incidents at this crossing establishing negligent design, the value could escalate to $250,000 to $750,000. Punitive damages require evidence of conscious indifference — prior notice of the dangerous condition that was ignored. No lawyer can give you an exact number without seeing the records, but we will give you an honest range and we will not inflate it.
Why Attorney911 — Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
We are not a firm that handles every kind of case. We handle the cases where the stakes are highest and the other side is strongest — commercial truck collisions, catastrophic injuries, wrongful death, and the kind of corporate-accountability fights that require a trial lawyer who knows how to build and try a case, not just settle one.
Ralph Manginello has spent 27 plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer — he knows how to find the story the evidence tells, and he knows how to tell it to a jury. He is the managing partner of this firm and he tries cases. Ralph is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association and the Houston Bar Association, and he leads the active $10 million plus hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi at the University of Houston — a case that is being litigated right now, in Harris County, because the stakes were too high to settle quietly.
Lupe Peña is a former insurance-defense attorney. He spent years inside a national defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you. He knows how claims are valued from the inside, how reserves are set in the first 48 hours, how IME doctors are selected, how surveillance is deployed, and how delay tactics work. He now sits on your side of the table. Lupe is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Hablamos Español.
We handle commercial truck collision cases across Texas, from Houston to the Permian Basin. We have recovered $50 million plus across our firm’s history, including $2.5 million plus in a truck-crash recovery, $5 million plus in a brain-injury settlement, and $3.8 million plus in an amputation settlement. Those are our firm’s documented results. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes — but they tell you what kind of firm this is and what kind of cases we build.
We work on contingency. That means 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. We have 24/7 live staff — not an answering service, actual people who can take your call at 2 a.m. when you are standing beside the tracks wondering what to do next.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. That is 1-888-288-9911. Or call our direct line at 713-528-9070. We serve clients from our Houston offices and we take cases across Texas, including Midland, Midland County, and the entire Permian Basin. If we are not the right fit for your case, we will tell you. If we are, we will tell you that too — and then we will get to work.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case is different. The facts of your situation — the crossing geometry, the signage, the train’s speed, the carrier’s routing, the driver’s record — will determine what your case is worth and how it should be pursued. Contacting us is free and confidential. The call costs nothing. Not calling could cost everything.