When a Train Hits a Truck Stuck on the Tracks in Midland — Who Is Really at Fault?
If you found this page, you probably already know the sound. A freight train hitting a trailer is not a crash — it is an industrial event. The steel doesn’t crumple. It shreds. And when the dust settles, the first question everyone asks is the wrong one: “Why was the truck on the tracks?” The real question — the one that decides who pays — is: “Why did the tracks trap the truck?”
We are Attorney911, The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle commercial-vehicle and catastrophic-injury cases across Texas, including the Permian Basin corridor where Union Pacific’s rail lines cut straight through the heaviest oilfield truck traffic in the country. This page is built from the inside of these cases — the federal regulations, the evidence that dies fastest, the insurance plays the railroad runs, and the crossing-design science that most attorneys never learn. It is written for the truck driver who climbed out of the cab before the train arrived, for the carrier staring at a destroyed trailer and a six-figure track-repair bill from Union Pacific, and for anyone who was standing near that crossing when the impact came.
On the morning of May 3, 2022, a Union Pacific freight train collided with the trailer of an 18-wheeler that had become stuck on the railroad tracks near the intersection of Industrial Avenue and Warehouse Road in Midland, Texas. The truck driver exited the cab safely before impact. The train struck the trailer. The surrounding area was closed off while emergency responders and railroad personnel worked the scene. Public reporting described no injuries. What it did not describe — and what matters most — is why the trailer became immobilized on that crossing in the first place. That answer determines the liability architecture of the entire case.
What Happened at Industrial Avenue and Warehouse Road
Midland sits in the heart of the Permian Basin — one of the most heavily trucked oil-production regions in the United States. Industrial Avenue and Warehouse Road fall within Midland’s industrial corridor, where commercial truck traffic converges with Union Pacific rail lines that service oilfield supply, frac sand, and petroleum-related freight. This is not a residential crossing with a school bus stop. This is a working industrial zone where low-bed trailers, frac sand haulers, and heavy-haul trucks with long wheelbases cross active rail lines every day, often on grades that were never designed for the equipment now using them.
The 18-wheeler’s trailer got stuck on the tracks. That is the central fact. Not that the driver was careless. Not that the truck was defective. The trailer became immobilized on the crossing — and the critical question is whether that immobilization was the driver’s fault, the truck’s fault, or the crossing’s fault. In the Permian Basin, the third answer is far more common than most people realize.
The truck driver made it out of the cab before the train struck the trailer. That is where the good news ends and the liability analysis begins. A driver who escapes injury does not erase the property damage — a destroyed trailer, lost cargo, potential locomotive damage, and track infrastructure repair costs that Union Pacific will bill aggressively. And a driver who “walked away” does not always walk away clean — delayed-onset injuries from the impact, the psychological trauma of watching a train bear down on your truck, and the post-incident reporting obligations all create exposure and rights that most people never learn about until the window has closed.
Why Trucks Get Stuck on Railroad Tracks — The High-Centering Trap
Here is what most people — including most lawyers — do not understand about trucks on railroad tracks. The truck did not necessarily “get stuck” because the driver made a mistake. In the Permian Basin’s industrial corridors, trucks get stuck because the crossing itself is a trap.
The mechanism is called high-centering. A railroad track sits on a raised bed — ballast, ties, rails — that creates a hump in the road surface. The road approaches on either side rise to meet the track bed. If those approaches are too steep, or if the track bed hump is too high, a long-wheelbase trailer with low ground clearance will bridge the hump: its front wheels drop down the far side, its rear wheels are still on the near side, and the trailer’s undercarriage catches on the crown of the track. The truck is hung up — its drive wheels may lift off the ground or lose traction — and it cannot move forward or backward. It is stranded on the rails.
This is not a rare event. It is a known, documented, recurring phenomenon at industrial crossings across the Permian Basin and every other oilfield region where heavy-haul trucks cross rail lines. The equipment most vulnerable to high-centering reads like a catalog of Permian Basin trucking:
- Low-bed and removable-gooseneck trailers — designed for heavy equipment transport, with low clearance over the axles
- Frac sand haulers — pneumatic tanks with long wheelbases and heavy suspended loads
- Heavy-haul trucks with extended trailers — the longer the wheelbase, the more likely the trailer bridges the hump
- Any trailer with low ground clearance — the lower the belly, the sooner it catches
The federal standards that govern crossing geometry are supposed to prevent this. The Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices establishes minimum standards for crossing markings, advance warning signs, and signal placement. The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association publishes recommended practices for crossing surface and approach geometry. The Texas Transportation Code incorporates and supplements these federal standards and assigns responsibilities for crossing maintenance between railroad companies and road authorities.
But here is the gap: those standards are recommended or minimum standards. They were written for ordinary vehicles on ordinary roads. They were not written for a 53-foot low-bed trailer carrying a piece of oilfield equipment across a raised track bed in an industrial zone where the road approach was graded decades ago and never re-engineered for the equipment now using it. When a crossing’s grade is steeper than what the standards accommodate for long-wheelbase trailers, the crossing is a design trap — and the entity that controls the crossing geometry, whether the railroad or the road authority, bears responsibility for creating it.
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51 percent bar: a plaintiff who is 51 percent or more at fault cannot recover, and recovery is reduced proportionally for fault below that threshold. Every percentage point of fault the railroad can pin on the truck driver is money off the recovery — which is exactly why the first thing Union Pacific’s claims team will do is build the narrative that the driver should have known the crossing was too steep.
This is the fight. Not whether the truck was on the tracks — it was. But whether the crossing made the truck get stuck, or whether the driver put it there through inattention or poor equipment. The answer lives in the geometry of the crossing, the wheelbase of the trailer, the clearance height of the undercarriage, and the history of prior stuck-vehicle incidents at that same location. All of that is provable. None of it is obvious. And all of it requires a railroad-grade-crossing engineer to measure the approach geometry against the standards and testify whether high-centering was foreseeable.
Who Is Liable When a Train Hits a Stuck Truck — The Multi-Party Analysis
A train-truck collision is almost never a two-party case. The liability architecture spreads across four potential defendants, each with a different duty, a different insurance tower, and a different story they will tell to push fault away from themselves.
Union Pacific Railroad — The Train Operator
Union Pacific is one of two Class I freight railroads operating in the Permian Basin. It is a deep-pocket defendant with a robust risk-management and claims department that typically moves quickly to secure event-recorder data, crossing-signal logs, and scene evidence under controlled-access protocols. What that means in practice: within hours of the collision, UP’s people are on the scene, documenting it from their perspective, preserving the evidence that helps them, and letting the evidence that hurts them sit on a retention clock that will eventually expire.
Union Pacific’s duties at a grade crossing include maintaining the crossing surface and approach geometry on the railroad’s side of the property line, ensuring adequate warning devices (gates, lights, bells) are present and functional, and operating trains with proper lookout, speed, and braking for crossing conditions. If the crossing grade on UP’s side was steeper than recommended standards — creating a high-centering trap for long trailers — UP bears responsibility for failing to remediate a known hazardous design. If the warning systems failed to activate or were improperly timed, that is UP’s maintenance failure. If the train crew failed to timely apply emergency braking, sound the horn at the required distance, or maintain appropriate speed for the crossing conditions, the locomotive event recorder will show it.
The Trucking Company — The Operating Carrier
The article does not identify the 18-wheeler’s operating carrier. That identification requires the police crash report, a license-plate run, and FMCSA database queries. Once identified, the carrier’s DOT number, fleet size, safety rating, and insurance coverage become the foundation of the defendant landscape on the truck side.
The trucking company’s potential liability turns on why the trailer became stuck. If the truck stalled due to poor maintenance — a fuel system failure, a transmission problem, an electrical fault — the carrier’s negligent maintenance is a cause. If the driver ignored active crossing warnings or failed to assess whether the crossing could accommodate the trailer’s wheelbase before proceeding onto the tracks, that is negligent operation. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations under 49 CFR Parts 390 through 399 govern driver qualification, vehicle maintenance, and pre-trip inspection obligations — and the carrier’s compliance or noncompliance with those regulations is discoverable in litigation.
Any trucking company operating in this Midland industrial corridor likely holds FMCSA minimum financial responsibility of $750,000 to $1,000,000 in liability coverage, potentially with an MCS-90 endorsement if hauling hazardous materials. Identifying the carrier and its insurance stack is the first critical step in assessing the defendant landscape.
The City of Midland and TxDOT — The Road Authority
If the road approach geometry — the slope of the road leading up to the tracks — created a trap that grounded the trailer, the road authority that controls that approach may bear responsibility. In Midland’s industrial corridor, the road authority could be the City of Midland, the Texas Department of Transportation, or both, depending on which entity maintains the road that intersects the rail line.
Claims against governmental entities in Texas are governed by the Texas Tort Claims Act, which imposes notice-of-claim deadlines and damage caps that are significantly narrower than common-law tort recovery. The notice deadline is tight — a governmental entity in Texas generally must receive notice of a claim within months of the incident, not years. Missing that notice deadline can extinguish a claim against the city or state entirely, even if the crossing design was dangerously defective. This is one of the easiest ways a strong claim dies for a paperwork reason, and it is the first thing we screen when a caller describes a crossing-design case.
The Crossing Signal Manufacturer or Maintenance Contractor
If the warning systems — gates, lights, bells — failed to activate or were improperly timed, the company that manufactured or maintained those systems may face products liability or negligent maintenance claims. Crossing signal systems are governed by Federal Railroad Administration regulations under 49 CFR Part 234, which requires periodic inspections and mandates specific safety protocols. A signal system that was supposed to activate but did not — or that activated too late for the train crew or the truck driver to react — is a failure with a paper trail: inspection records, maintenance logs, and signal event logs that show whether the system was functioning correctly on the day of the collision.
Federal Regulations That Govern Every Railroad Crossing in the Permian Basin
The regulatory framework for railroad crossings is layered — federal, state, and industry standards all interact to define what a safe crossing looks like and who is responsible for keeping it that way.
Federal Railroad Administration regulations under 49 CFR Parts 217, 222, 229, and 234 govern railroad operating safety, locomotive inspection, horn use at public crossings, and grade-crossing signal system safety and inspection intervals. Part 234 is the one that matters most for signal failure cases: it requires railroads to inspect crossing signal systems periodically, to maintain records of those inspections, and to report signal failures. If a crossing’s gates, lights, or bells did not function properly, Part 234’s inspection records are the paper trail that proves whether the railroad knew — or should have known — the system was degraded.
Part 222 governs locomotive horn use at public crossings. The rule establishes when and how the horn must be sounded — typically beginning at a specific distance from the crossing and continuing until the locomotive occupies the crossing. If the train crew failed to sound the horn at the required distance, the locomotive event recorder and the train’s inward-facing camera footage will show it. If the crossing was in a designated “quiet zone” where horns are restricted, that changes the analysis — but quiet zones require supplementary safety measures (such as four-quadrant gates or median barriers) that must themselves be maintained.
Part 229 covers locomotive safety standards, including the event recorder — the train’s “black box” that captures speed, braking application, horn activation, and throttle position. This data is the single most important evidence in any train operation case, and it is controlled entirely by the railroad.
FMCSA regulations under 49 CFR Parts 390 through 399 govern the commercial truck’s operation — driver qualification, vehicle maintenance, hours of service, and pre-trip inspection obligations. If the truck stalled on the tracks due to a mechanical failure that a proper pre-trip inspection should have caught, the carrier’s compliance with these regulations is directly relevant. If the driver was fatigued or had been on duty beyond the hours-of-service limits, the electronic logging device data will show it — but only if it is preserved before the six-month retention floor expires.
The FHWA’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices establishes minimum standards for crossing markings, advance warning signs, and signal placement. A crossing that does not meet MUTCD standards — missing advance warning signs, faded pavement markings, inadequate sight distance — is a crossing where the responsible entity failed to meet the federal floor for safety.
The Texas Transportation Code incorporates and supplements these federal crossing standards and assigns responsibilities for crossing maintenance between railroad companies and road authorities. The interplay between state and federal law in this area is technical, and the assignment of maintenance responsibility is not always intuitive — the railroad may be responsible for the crossing surface and signals while the road authority is responsible for the approach geometry, or the responsibilities may overlap in ways that require careful pleading.
Union Pacific is also subject to its own internal operating rules and the Association of American Railroads’ interchange standards, which are discoverable in litigation. These internal rules often set a higher standard than the federal minimum — and a railroad that violates its own operating rules has created a powerful piece of evidence against itself.
The Evidence That Decides Train-Truck Collision Cases — and How Fast It Dies
Every train-truck collision case turns on evidence that is controlled by the defendants, produced by machines, and subject to retention schedules that can legally destroy it before a claim is ever filed. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can legally disappear.
The Locomotive Event Recorder — The Train’s Black Box
The event recorder captures the train’s speed, braking application, horn activation, and throttle position at the time of impact. This data establishes whether the crew took timely evasive action and whether operating speed was appropriate for the crossing. It is the single most decisive piece of evidence in any train operation case.
Who holds it: Union Pacific. The railroad controls this data entirely and may overwrite or archive it per internal retention schedules. How fast it can die: Event recorder data is typically retained for a period set by the railroad’s own policies — there is no federal mandate that it be preserved indefinitely. A preservation demand is urgent even in a case that is years old, because the data may have been archived to a system where retrieval is difficult or may have been purged entirely. For the May 2022 Midland incident, this data may already be gone absent a prior preservation demand — but archival systems sometimes retain data longer than active systems, and a targeted demand can still surface it.
Crossing Signal System Logs and Inspection Records
These records show whether the gates, lights, and bells activated properly and on schedule, and whether the crossing received the required periodic inspections under 49 CFR Part 234. Signal event logs may have limited retention windows, while FRA inspection records are maintained but crossing-specific data requires targeted requests.
Who holds it: Union Pacific and potentially the signal maintenance contractor. How fast it can die: Signal event logs have limited retention windows that are vendor- and railroad-specific. The inspection records are more durable but require formal discovery or FRA database queries to surface. This is a discovery priority rather than a decay issue.
Train Forward-Facing and Inward-Facing Camera Footage
The visual record of the crossing approach, the truck’s position, signal activation, and the collision itself. This is the most compelling evidence of whether warnings functioned and whether the truck was visibly stuck. Modern locomotives are increasingly equipped with camera systems that capture both the track ahead and the crew’s actions inside the cab.
Who holds it: Union Pacific. How fast it can die: UP typically retains camera footage for 30 to 90 days unless a litigation hold is placed. For a 2022 incident, this footage is almost certainly gone absent a prior preservation demand. This is the fastest-dying evidence in the entire case — and the most irreplaceable.
Truck EDR, Telematics, and Engine ECM Data
The truck’s electronic data captures vehicle speed, braking, throttle position, and engine fault codes — showing whether the truck stalled or experienced mechanical failure on the tracks. If the truck was destroyed in the collision, the EDR may have been salvageable only in the immediate aftermath.
Who holds it: The trucking company or its insurer. How fast it can die: If the truck was destroyed and the EDR was not salvaged, this data is gone. If the trucking company’s insurer preserved the EDR module, the data may still be extractable. By now — more than two years after the incident — it is likely scrapped unless preserved.
Police Crash Report and Scene Photographs
The official documentation of the crossing geometry, vehicle positions, weather conditions, and witness statements. This is foundational for any reconstruction and is already fixed in the record. It must be obtained from the responding agency — likely the Midland Police Department or the Midland County Sheriff’s Office.
Who holds it: The responding law enforcement agency. How fast it can die: Already fixed in the record — the crash report is a permanent document. But scene photographs may not be part of the formal report and may exist only in individual officers’ files or body-camera footage, which has its own retention schedule.
Prior Incident History at This Crossing
The Federal Railroad Administration crossing inventory database and Union Pacific’s internal records of prior stuck-vehicle or near-miss reports at this location are the notice-and-punitives engine. If other trucks have gotten stuck at this same crossing — if there is a pattern of high-centering incidents that the railroad or road authority knew about and did nothing to fix — that pattern transforms the case from a single accident into evidence of a known, ignored hazard.
Who holds it: The FRA database (publicly queryable) and Union Pacific’s internal files (requires formal discovery). How fast it can die: Historical records are maintained but require formal discovery or FRA database queries. This is a discovery priority rather than a decay issue — the records exist, but getting them requires a lawyer who knows to ask.
Texas Law on Railroad Crossing Accidents
Texas law provides the framework for who can recover, how much fault they can carry and still win, and what damages are available. Every one of these rules has a practical effect on the case.
Modified Comparative Negligence — The 51 Percent Bar
Texas applies a modified comparative negligence standard with a 51 percent bar. A plaintiff who is 51 percent or more at fault cannot recover anything. A plaintiff who is 50 percent or less at fault can recover, but the recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault. This means every percentage point of fault the defense can pin on the truck driver or the trucking company is money directly subtracted from the recovery. The railroad’s entire defense strategy in a crossing-design case is to push the truck driver’s fault above 50 percent — because at 51 percent, the plaintiff recovers nothing. This is why the crossing-design evidence is not optional. It is the only thing that keeps the fault allocation below the bar.
The Statute of Limitations — Two Years
Texas personal injury actions carry a two-year statute of limitations from the date of injury. Wrongful death actions carry the same two-year period running from the date of death. For the May 3, 2022 Midland incident, the two-year limitations period for personal injury claims expired in May 2024. This means that any new personal injury claim arising from that specific incident would require tolling analysis — a legal doctrine that can extend the deadline in narrow circumstances — or would be time-barred.
Property damage claims may carry a different limitations analysis, and any claim against a governmental entity (the City of Midland or TxDOT) is governed by the Texas Tort Claims Act, which imposes its own notice-of-claim deadlines that are far shorter than the two-year SOL. If you are reading this page about a recent crossing collision — one that happened within the last two years — the clock is running right now, and the evidence is dying faster than the deadline.
If you are reading this about the May 2022 incident specifically, we will tell you honestly: the personal injury limitations period has likely expired, and an immediate limitations analysis is the first step before any case can be filed. Do not assume the door is closed until a lawyer has checked every tolling fact — but do not wait to find out.
The Texas Tort Claims Act — Governmental Defendants
Claims against the City of Midland or TxDOT for dangerous road approach geometry require compliance with the Texas Tort Claims Act. The Act imposes notice-of-claim deadlines that are significantly shorter than the two-year SOL — a governmental entity must receive formal notice of the claim within a specific period, and missing that deadline can extinguish the claim entirely. The Act also imposes damage caps that are narrower than common-law tort recovery. If the road approach to the Industrial Avenue crossing was dangerously steep — steeper than the standards accommodate for long-wheelbase trailers — the governmental entity that controls that approach may be liable, but only if the notice deadline was met and the claim was properly pleaded within the Act’s framework.
Punitive Damages — Gross Negligence
Punitive damages are available in Texas under the standard requiring a showing of gross negligence — which Texas law defines as an actual, conscious indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others. In a railroad crossing case, punitive damages become theoretically available if the railroad or road authority had prior notice of the high-centering hazard at this specific crossing — prior stuck-vehicle incidents, prior complaints, prior near-misses — and ignored a cheap, available remedy (regrading the approach, adding warning signage, reducing the approach angle). The prior incident history at the crossing is the engine that drives both notice and the punitive damages argument. Without it, punitive exposure is weak. With it, the case transforms.
No General Cap on Non-Economic Damages
Texas does not impose a general cap on non-economic damages in commercial trucking or railroad cases outside of medical-liability claims. This means that if injuries are proven — pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life — those damages are not capped by statute. This is a significant advantage for plaintiffs in serious-injury railroad cases compared to states that cap non-economic damages.
For more information on our 18-wheeler accident practice, including how we handle the commercial vehicle side of these collisions, visit our dedicated practice page.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook — What the Railroad Will Try
Union Pacific’s claims department and the trucking company’s insurer both have well-rehearsed plays for train-truck crossing collisions. Every one of them is designed to shift fault onto the truck driver and minimize the railroad’s exposure. Here are the plays, named before they run, with the counter to each.
Play 1: “The Truck Was on the Tracks — It’s the Driver’s Fault”
This is the opening move. The railroad frames the case as simple: the truck was on the tracks, the train hit the truck, therefore the truck is at fault. The narrative is clean, intuitive, and wrong if the crossing was a high-centering trap.
The counter: A railroad-grade-crossing engineer measures the approach geometry against AREMA and FHWA standards and testifies that the crossing grade was steeper than recommended standards accommodate for long-wheelbase trailers. The truck did not “get stuck” because the driver was careless — it was trapped by a crossing design that made high-centering foreseeable. The prior incident history at this crossing — other trucks that got stuck, other near-misses that were reported — proves the hazard was known. The narrative shifts from “the driver put the truck on the tracks” to “the crossing put the truck on the tracks.”
Play 2: The Quick Property Damage Settlement
Because this incident resulted in no reported injuries, the railroad or the trucking company’s insurer may move quickly to settle the property damage claim — a check for the destroyed trailer, maybe the cargo loss, with a release attached. That release may be printed on the back of the check or included in a short settlement agreement that, once signed, extinguishes every other claim — including any injury claim that surfaces later and any crossing-design liability claim against the railroad.
The counter: Do not sign anything, do not deposit any check, and do not give any recorded statement before consulting counsel. A property damage settlement that looks fair on its face may be a fraction of the real exposure if the crossing was dangerously designed. And if delayed-onset injuries surface — and they can, days or weeks after the impact — a signed release kills the injury claim before it is born.
Play 3: “The Driver Should Have Checked the Crossing First”
The defense argues that a professional truck driver should have assessed the crossing geometry before proceeding onto the tracks — should have seen that the approach was too steep for the trailer’s wheelbase and chosen a different route. This play puts the fault entirely on the driver’s judgment.
The counter: Industry standards for crossing design exist precisely because drivers cannot be expected to survey crossing geometry with engineering precision from the cab of a moving truck. If the crossing met federal standards for ordinary vehicles but was dangerous for the long-wheelbase trailers that regularly use this industrial corridor, the hazard was a design defect — not a driver failure. The question is not “should the driver have known?” but “should the railroad and the road authority have known that this crossing traps the trucks that use it every day?” If there were prior stuck-vehicle incidents at this crossing, the answer is yes — they knew, and they did nothing.
Play 4: The Recorded Statement Trap
Within days of the collision, someone friendly will call the driver to “check on them” and ask them to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording engineered to be quoted against them later. The questions are designed to elicit statements that support the railroad’s narrative: “You saw the tracks before you crossed?” “You didn’t check the grade?” “You felt the truck hang up before the train came?” Every answer is a building block for the 51 percent fault allocation.
The counter: Do not give a recorded statement to Union Pacific’s claims adjuster, the trucking company’s insurer, or any railroad investigator before consulting counsel. Statements given without representation routinely become defense exhibits. The driver is not required to narrate the incident for the other side’s benefit — and anything said in those first conversations, while shaken and uncertain, will be transcribed and presented as settled fact at trial.
Play 5: The Surveillance and Social Media Watch
The insurer’s investigators will monitor the driver’s social media accounts, looking for posts that contradict injury claims — a photo of physical activity, a comment about feeling fine, a check-in at a location that suggests mobility. Surveillance cameras may be placed near the driver’s home or workplace.
The counter: Assume every post, every photo, every comment is being read by someone who is building a case against you. Do not post about the incident, your injuries, your activities, or your case. Set social media accounts to private. Do not discuss the case with anyone except your lawyer. This is not paranoia — it is standard insurance defense practice, and it works because people post honestly while being watched dishonestly.
For a deeper look at how we approach commercial truck accident cases — including the FMCSA regulatory framework, the evidence preservation protocols, and the carrier identification process — visit our dedicated truck accident practice page.
What a Train-Truck Collision Case Could Be Worth
Case value in a train-truck collision is binary — it depends almost entirely on whether injuries are proven and whether a dangerous crossing condition is established. Without those two elements, this is a commercial property damage dispute. With them, it becomes a multi-party catastrophic-vehicle case against a Class I railroad in a plaintiff-friendly West Texas venue.
Property damage only — $10,000 to $75,000: If no injuries are documented and no crossing design defect is proven, the case resolves as a commercial property dispute. The destroyed trailer, the cargo loss, and any incidental costs are the measure. The railroad and the trucking company’s insurer will argue over who pays, and the driver’s recovery is limited to the property and any minor associated costs.
With proven injuries and crossing design liability — $250,000 to $1,500,000 or more: If investigation reveals train crew injuries, delayed-onset truck driver injuries, or a proven dangerous crossing condition with prior similar incidents and Union Pacific’s knowledge, the value scales dramatically. The deep-pocket defendant, the gross-negligence exposure, and the West Texas jury pool create a case profile that can drive significant recovery. A proven crossing-design defect with prior notice transforms the case from an accident into a conscious corporate decision to ignore a known hazard — and that is what punitive damages are built to punish.
These ranges are honest frameworks, not predictions. Every case turns on its own facts. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. What we can tell you is that the difference between a $25,000 property settlement and a $750,000 injury-and-design-liability recovery is not luck — it is investigation, expert work, and a lawyer who knows to look for the crossing geometry instead of accepting the “truck was on the tracks” narrative.
For cases involving serious injury or death at a railroad crossing, our wrongful death and catastrophic injury practice handles the full measure of damages — including lost earning capacity, future medical care, and the human losses that no spreadsheet can capture.
The First 72 Hours After a Train-Truck Collision — What to Do
If you are reading this page after a recent crossing collision — not the May 2022 Midland incident but one that happened days or weeks ago — the clock is running on multiple fronts simultaneously. Here is the hour-by-hour roadmap.
Hour 1 through 24 — Medical first, always. Even if you walked away from the cab, get a full medical evaluation. The impact of a freight train hitting a trailer transmits forces through the entire vehicle — cervical strain, concussive symptoms, and post-traumatic stress can manifest days or weeks later. A medical evaluation on the day of the incident creates a contemporaneous record that connects any subsequent symptoms to the collision. Without that record, the defense will argue the symptoms came from somewhere else.
Do not give a recorded statement. Not to Union Pacific’s claims adjuster. Not to the trucking company’s insurer. Not to any railroad investigator. “Just tell us what happened” is a recorded statement engineered to be quoted against you. You are not required to narrate the incident for the other side’s benefit.
Do not sign anything. No release, no settlement agreement, no authorization form. A quick check for property damage may arrive with a release that extinguishes every other claim — including any injury claim — before you know you have one. Do not deposit it. Do not sign it. Bring it to a lawyer.
Hour 24 through 72 — Evidence preservation. The evidence in a train-truck collision is dying on multiple clocks simultaneously. Train camera footage may overwrite in 30 to 90 days. Truck EDR data may be lost if the vehicle is scrapped. The scene will be cleared. Witness memories will degrade. The preservation letter that freezes this evidence has to go out in days, not months — and it has to name every record, every device, every system by name so the other side cannot later say “you didn’t ask for that.”
Do not post on social media. Assume every post is being read by the insurer’s investigators. Do not post about the incident, your condition, your activities, or your case. Set your accounts to private. Do not discuss the collision with anyone except your lawyer.
Get the police crash report. The responding agency — likely the Midland Police Department or the Midland County Sheriff’s Office — will complete a formal crash report. This report is foundational: it documents the crossing geometry, the vehicle positions, the weather conditions, and any witness statements. It is a public record, but it must be requested from the responding agency.
Contact counsel. The preservation letter, the FMCSA records pull, the FRA crossing inventory query, and the crossing-geometry expert retention all need to begin within days of the collision. The longer the evidence sits on its retention clocks, the more of it dies — and the railroad’s claims department is already working the scene from their perspective while you are still deciding whether to call a lawyer.
For Permian Basin oilfield trucking cases specifically — including water haulers, frac sand transporters, and the heavy-haul equipment that dominates Midland’s industrial corridors — our Texas oilfield commercial truck accident practice covers the regulatory framework and the oilfield-specific evidence that these cases demand.
Why This Firm — The People Who Will Fight for You
We are not a referral mill. We are not a billboard. We are a trial firm that takes commercial-vehicle, catastrophic-injury, and wrongful-death cases across Texas, and we build them from the evidence out.
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. Before he was a lawyer, he was a journalist — which means he was trained to find the story the facts actually tell, not the story the other side wants told. He is a member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the Houston Bar Association, and the Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas. He hates losing more than he likes winning, and that difference shows up in every file. Read more about Ralph.
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 claims exactly like yours. He knows how the reserve is set in the first 48 hours, how the recorded-statement call is engineered, how the claim is fed into valuation software that discounts pain it cannot see, and how the quick check arrives with a release printed on the back before the medical results do. Now he sits on your side of the table. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full client consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Read more about Lupe.
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33 percent before trial and 40 percent if the case goes to trial. The first consultation is free. We have live staff available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — not an answering service, but people who can start the evidence-preservation process the day you call.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue the railroad if my truck got stuck on the tracks?
Yes — if the crossing design contributed to your truck becoming stuck. The railroad is responsible for maintaining safe grade crossings on its property, including the crossing surface and approach geometry on the railroad’s side. If the crossing grade was steeper than recommended standards for long-wheelbase trailers — creating a high-centering trap — the railroad bears responsibility for the resulting collision. The key is proving the crossing was dangerous, not just that the truck was on the tracks. A railroad-grade-crossing engineer who measures the approach geometry against industry standards is the expert who makes this case.
Who pays when a train destroys a stuck trailer?
That depends on who is at fault for the truck becoming stuck. If the crossing design caused the high-centering, the railroad or the road authority may be liable for the trailer, the cargo, and any resulting injuries. If the truck stalled due to poor maintenance, the trucking company’s insurance may bear the cost — and Union Pacific will likely file a counterclaim for track damage and locomotive repair. If both the crossing design and the truck’s condition contributed, Texas’s comparative negligence rules allocate fault by percentage. The insurance towers on both sides — the trucking company’s FMCSA-minimum $750,000 to $1,000,000 policy and the railroad’s self-insured retention and excess layers — determine where the money actually comes from.
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 claims, running from the date of the injury. For wrongful death, the two-year period runs from the date of death. Property damage claims follow a similar limitations framework. However, if the claim is against a governmental entity — the City of Midland or TxDOT for dangerous road approach geometry — the Texas Tort Claims Act imposes notice-of-claim deadlines that are far shorter, sometimes a matter of months. Missing the governmental notice deadline can kill the claim even if the two-year SOL has not run. For the May 2022 Midland incident specifically, the two-year personal injury limitations period has likely expired — but any current or recent crossing collision should be evaluated immediately, because the clocks are running and the evidence is dying faster than the deadlines.
What if the truck driver was partly at fault?
Texas follows a modified comparative negligence rule with a 51 percent bar. If the driver is 50 percent or less at fault, they can still recover — but the recovery is reduced by their percentage of fault. If the driver is 51 percent or more at fault, they cannot recover anything. This is why the railroad’s defense strategy is entirely focused on pushing the driver’s fault above 50 percent. The crossing-design evidence is the counter — if the crossing was a high-centering trap, the fault shifts toward the railroad and the road authority, keeping the driver’s percentage below the bar. Every point of fault is money, which is why the fight over fault allocation is the fight over the value of the case.
Can I still recover if the crossing had no gates or lights?
Possibly. The presence and type of warning devices at a crossing are determined by federal standards and the crossing’s classification. A crossing with no gates or lights may be legal if it meets the minimum standards for its classification — but if the crossing’s traffic volume, sight distance, or hazard profile warranted upgraded warning devices that were never installed, the railroad or road authority may be liable for failing to provide adequate warnings. The MUTCD and FRA regulations establish the standards for what warning devices are required at what types of crossings, and a crossing that should have had gates but did not is a crossing where the warning system was inadequate.
What evidence do I need to prove the crossing was dangerous?
The evidence that proves a crossing-design defect includes: the crossing’s physical geometry (measured by a railroad-grade-crossing engineer against AREMA and FHWA standards); the signal system inspection and maintenance records (showing whether warning devices were functional); the locomotive event recorder data (showing train speed, braking, and horn use); the prior incident history at the crossing (FRA database queries and the railroad’s internal records of prior stuck-vehicle or near-miss reports); the police crash report and scene photographs; and the truck’s EDR or telematics data (showing whether the truck stalled or was trapped by the geometry). The prior incident history is the most powerful evidence — if other trucks have gotten stuck at this same crossing, the hazard was known, and the failure to fix it is the basis for both liability and punitive damages.
Does the railroad have to maintain the crossing?
Yes — but the scope of the duty depends on which side of the property line the maintenance issue sits on. The railroad is generally responsible for the crossing surface, the signal system, and the approach geometry on the railroad’s side of the property line. The road authority — the City of Midland or TxDOT — is responsible for the road approach on the public road side. The Texas Transportation Code incorporates and supplements federal standards and assigns these maintenance responsibilities. In practice, the responsibility can overlap at the intersection of the road and the rail, and identifying which entity controlled the specific geometry that caused the high-centering is a threshold question that requires careful pleading and discovery.
What if I wasn’t injured but my truck and cargo were destroyed?
A no-injury crossing collision is primarily a property damage dispute — but it can still involve significant value. A destroyed trailer, lost cargo, and the downtime costs while the truck is out of service can add up quickly. The railroad will likely file a counterclaim for track infrastructure repair and locomotive damage, which can exceed the value of the destroyed truck. In a property-damage-only case, the liability analysis is the same — whether the crossing design caused the high-centering — but the damages profile is different, and the case may be better suited for a commercial litigation or property-damage attorney rather than a personal-injury practice. We screen cases honestly: if your case is property-only with no injury exposure, we will tell you and refer you to the right resource.
Can train crew members sue after a collision?
Yes — railroad employees are covered by the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, a century-old federal statute that gives railroad workers a fault-based tort remedy against their employer with a deliberately low causation standard. Under FELA, the railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury. A train crew member who suffered whiplash, concussive symptoms, or psychological trauma from a crossing collision has a FELA claim against Union Pacific — separate from and independent of any claim the truck driver or trucking company might have. FELA also abolishes the assumption-of-risk defense and applies a pure comparative fault standard (recovery is reduced but never barred by the worker’s own negligence). The FELA three-year statute of limitations is longer than Texas’s two-year SOL, giving railroad workers more time to file.
How much is a train-truck collision case worth?
The value depends entirely on whether injuries are proven and whether a dangerous crossing condition is established. Property damage only: $10,000 to $75,000. With proven injuries and crossing-design liability: $250,000 to $1,500,000 or more. The wide range reflects the binary nature of these cases — without provable injuries, this is a commercial property dispute; with injuries and crossing-design liability, it becomes a multi-party catastrophic-vehicle case against a Class I railroad. The prior incident history at the crossing is the multiplier that transforms the case — if the railroad knew about the high-centering hazard and ignored it, punitive damages enter the picture, and the value scales accordingly. We evaluate cases honestly and will tell you where your case falls on that spectrum after a full review.
If You Were Involved in a Railroad Crossing Collision in the Permian Basin
Here is what we want you to know, plainly, before you make any decision.
The fact that a truck became stuck on these tracks does not mean the driver was at fault. In the Permian Basin’s industrial corridors, crossings are used every day by the same kinds of long-wheelbase heavy-haul trucks that are most vulnerable to high-centering — and if the crossing geometry traps those trucks, the hazard is in the design, not the driver. Determining which is which requires investigation: the crossing geometry measured against standards, the signal history pulled from the railroad’s own records, the prior incident history queried from the FRA database. That investigation is what we do.
If you were involved in the May 2022 Midland incident, we will be honest with you: the personal injury limitations period has likely expired, and the first step is a limitations analysis to determine whether any tolling facts extend the deadline. If you were involved in a more recent crossing collision anywhere in the Permian Basin, the clocks are running right now — the two-year statute of limitations, the governmental notice deadline, and the evidence retention clocks that can legally destroy the proof before you ever file.
The call is free. The consultation is free. We do not get paid unless we win your case. We have live staff available 24 hours a day. Hablamos Español.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911. Or contact us through our website. The conversation costs nothing. The evidence is dying. The clock is running. And the railroad’s claims department is already working the case from their side.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.