The Pecos Train Derailment: What Happened on December 18, 2024, and What It Means for the Families
If you are reading this because someone you love went to work on the railroad on December 18 and did not come home, the first thing you need to know is this: a federal law was written more than a century ago specifically for this moment. It is called the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, and it exists because Congress understood that railroad work is dangerous, that the railroad holds the power, and that the families of killed crew members deserve more than a workers’ compensation check and a closed door.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm. We handle wrongful death and catastrophic injury cases in Texas, including the railroad-worker and commercial-trucking cases that most firms do not know how to build. Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in courtrooms, including federal court. Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue people exactly like you — and now sits on your side of the table, in English or in Spanish. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free. The call is 1-888-ATTY-911, and someone answers it at 2 a.m.
Here is what we know happened in Pecos, and here is what no one else is telling you about what comes next.
Your Loved One Went to Work on the Railroad. A Federal Law Was Written for This Moment.
The families of the engineer and the conductor need to hear something that most people never learn: when a railroad worker is killed on the job, the ordinary workers’ compensation system does not apply. Railroads operate under their own federal statute — the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, enacted in 1908 — and that statute was built to give railroad families something better than a capped benefit check. It gives them the right to sue the railroad in court, in front of a jury, for the full measure of what was lost.
“Every common carrier by railroad engaging in commerce between any of the several States… shall be liable in damages to any person suffering injury while he is employed by such carrier… 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.”
That is the text of the federal law — 45 U.S.C. § 51 — and the words “in whole or in part” are the most important four words in any railroad death case. They mean that the railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the death. That is the lowest causation standard in American injury law. The Supreme Court said it plainly: the test is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death. In 2011, the Supreme Court reaffirmed this standard and held that railroads cannot demand the higher proof that ordinary injury cases require.
This matters in Pecos because the central question — why was that truck on the tracks? — does not have to be answered entirely in the trucking company’s direction to hold Union Pacific accountable. If the railroad’s negligence played even a small part — a crossing signal that was malfunctioning, a sightline that was obstructed, a train speed through the downtown corridor that was too high, a crew procedure that was inadequate — the FELA claim against Union Pacific survives and the self-insured railroad pays full tort damages, not a comp schedule.
FELA gives the families of killed railroad workers three protections that no state workers’ compensation system provides:
First, full tort damages. Under FELA, the families can recover everything an ordinary wrongful death case can recover — lost wages, lost future earning capacity, the value of railroad retirement benefits that terminate at death, pain and suffering, loss of companionship, mental anguish — with no statutory cap. Railroad engineers and conductors are typically well-compensated, union-represented workers with significant earning capacity. The economic loss alone can be substantial. The human losses — the spouse who lost a partner, the children who lost a parent, the parents who lost a son — are recoverable in full.
Second, the featherweight causation standard. The railroad is liable if its negligence contributed any part, even the slightest. The jury does not have to find that the railroad was the primary cause, or even a substantial cause. Any part is enough.
Third, comparative negligence that reduces but never bars. Even if the worker was partly at fault, the family still recovers — the award is simply reduced by the worker’s percentage of fault. And if the railroad violated a federal safety statute enacted for the protection of employees, the worker’s own contributory negligence is wiped off the board entirely. The assumption-of-risk defense — “he knew the job was dangerous” — was abolished by Congress. The railroad cannot use it. Ever.
There is one more protection the families need to know about, and it is the one that matters most in the first days after a death: any contract, rule, regulation, or device designed to let the railroad exempt itself from FELA liability is void. That federal statute — 45 U.S.C. § 55 — means that any release or waiver the railroad’s claim agent pushes across a table to a grieving family, in a hospital room or at a kitchen table, is legally worthless. The railroad knows this. The claim agent may not mention it. Now you do.
FELA: The Federal Statute That Protects Railroad Workers Killed on the Job
Let us go deeper into FELA, because this is the statute that governs the claims of the two men who died in the cab of that locomotive — and it is a statute most generalist personal injury lawyers have never handled.
The Federal Employers’ Liability Act applies to every common carrier by railroad engaged in interstate commerce. Union Pacific is a common carrier by railroad. The engineer and conductor were employed by that carrier in interstate commerce. The collision resulted in death. The threshold for FELA coverage is met.
What makes FELA different from every other injury law in the country:
The causation standard is featherweight. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co. (1957), affirmed by CSX Transportation, Inc. v. McBride (2011), the jury only needs to find that the railroad’s negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the death. The railroad cannot demand that the family prove proximate cause in the ordinary common-law sense. Any part is enough. This is the lowest causation bar in American tort law, and it exists because Congress decided that railroads — which controlled the workplace, the equipment, the schedules, and the safety protocols — should bear the burden when their workers were hurt or killed.
Assumption of risk is abolished. The railroad cannot defend itself by saying that the engineer or conductor knew the job was dangerous and accepted that risk. That defense was abolished by Congress in the statute itself — 45 U.S.C. § 54. The job is dangerous. Everyone knows it. The railroad still owes the duty.
Comparative negligence reduces but never bars. Under 45 U.S.C. § 53, if the worker was partly at fault, the damages are diminished by the worker’s percentage of negligence — but recovery is never barred entirely. And there is a critical exception: if the railroad violated a federal safety statute enacted for the protection of employees, the worker’s contributory negligence is eliminated completely. The Federal Safety Appliance Act and the Locomotive Inspection Act are two such statutes. If the crossing signal system, the locomotive equipment, or any safety appliance was defective in a way that violated these federal laws, the worker’s own fault — whatever it was — is wiped from the calculation.
The railroad cannot make you sign away these rights. Under 45 U.S.C. § 55, any contract, rule, regulation, or device designed to exempt the railroad from FELA liability is void. A release pushed across a hospital table, a quick settlement offered by a claim agent in the first days after the death, a company policy that says the worker waived his rights — all legally worthless. The railroad’s claim agents know this. They also know that most grieving families do not.
The deadline is three years. Under 45 U.S.C. § 56, a FELA action must be commenced within three years from the day the cause of action accrued. For a fatal collision, that means three years from the date of death. The family can file in state court or federal court — jurisdiction is concurrent — and if the family chooses state court, the railroad generally cannot remove the case to federal court. The family picks the courthouse, not the railroad.
FELA damages are full tort damages, not a benefit schedule. Unlike workers’ compensation — which pays a preset, capped benefit based on a formula — FELA permits recovery of the complete picture: past and future lost earnings, lost earning capacity, the value of railroad retirement benefits that terminate at death, full medical expenses (including the hospitalization in Odessa for the worker who survived long enough to be transported), pain and suffering, and the wrongful death damages available under state law for the beneficiaries. There is no statutory cap on FELA damages.
For the engineer and conductor killed in Pecos, the FELA track provides the most certain recovery path. Union Pacific is self-insured. The railroad’s corporate assets are deep. The causation standard is the lowest in American law. The defenses that would defeat an ordinary claim — assumption of risk, contributory negligence — are either abolished or reduced. The case is not whether the families can recover against the railroad. The case is how much, and whether the railroad’s own negligence — in signal maintenance, in crossing design, in train speed, in crew procedures — can be proven to have played any part in the death.
The Evidence Is Dying Right Now: What Must Be Preserved
This is the section that matters most in the first days after the collision, and it is the section that no one from the railroad, the trucking company, or any insurance adjuster will ever share with you.
Every piece of evidence that will decide this case exists right now. Some of it is already in Union Pacific’s custody. Some of it is on a server at the trucking company. Some of it is on the phones of people who stopped at the crossing and filmed the collision. And every single piece of it is on a clock — a legal, mechanical, or procedural clock that is counting down to the moment when that evidence can be legally destroyed, overwritten, or simply lost.
The locomotive event recorder — the train’s black box. This device captured the train’s speed, throttle position, brake application, horn activation timestamp, and the distance from the crossing when the horn first sounded. It is the single most important record of what the train crew did in the seconds before impact. Union Pacific’s claims department secured the locomotive within hours of the collision — that is what railroad rapid-response teams do. The data is preserved on the recorder, but it must be independently downloaded. The preservation letter demanding that the locomotive and its recorder be held in their post-incident condition should go out within 24 to 48 hours of engagement — not after the NTSB concludes its investigation, which will take months.
The truck’s electronic logging device and telematics data. The truck’s ELD shows the driver’s hours-of-service compliance, speed, GPS position, and brake events approaching the crossing. This data can reveal fatigue, distraction, hours-of-service violations, or failure to stop as required. Here is the problem: ELD data can overwrite on the device itself within approximately 8 days. The motor carrier’s server-side retention varies by provider. The preservation letter to the carrier is not a suggestion — it is the only thing standing between that data and legal erasure.
The grade crossing signal event logs. These records show when the crossing signals activated, when the gates descended (if gates are present at this crossing), and whether any malfunctions were recorded. This data determines whether active warning devices were functioning and whether the truck driver disregarded them — or whether the signals failed and the truck driver never had a warning at all. Signal maintainers may download and clear logs during their post-incident inspection. The preservation letter to Union Pacific and any signal contractor must be issued immediately.
The truck driver’s cell phone records. If the driver was using a mobile device at the time of the crossing collision — texting, calling, reading a dispatch message — that is not just negligence. It is gross negligence, and it opens the door to exemplary damages under Texas Chapter 41 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Cell phone records can be purged by carriers within 30 to 90 days under standard retention policies. Preservation letters and subpoenas are needed now, not after the NTSB preliminary report lands.
Post-accident drug and alcohol test results. Federal law mandates testing after any fatal accident. The alcohol test must be conducted within 8 hours and the drug test within 32 hours. If the test was done, the results are central to negligence, gross negligence, and potentially negligent entrustment theories. If the test was not done, the carrier’s written explanation of why not is itself evidence. Results are typically available within days but must be obtained through formal discovery.
Witness video from social media and nearby business surveillance. Multiple witnesses recorded the collision, and the videos posted to social media show the horn activation, the truck’s position on the tracks, the crossing signal status, and the impact dynamics. This is potentially the single most powerful liability evidence in the case — and social media posts can be deleted within days. Nearby businesses in downtown Pecos may have CCTV cameras that captured the crossing, the truck’s approach, or the signal status. That CCTV may overwrite within 24 to 72 hours. An immediate canvass of the downtown area for surveillance cameras is essential — every business on Oak Street and Dot Stafford Street should be identified and contacted.
The NTSB factual investigation materials. The National Transportation Safety Board’s final probable-cause findings are inadmissible as evidence in a civil action for damages — federal law prohibits it. But the factual data collected by the NTSB — measurements, witness interviews, vehicle inspections, signal tests, and the preliminary report — provides the investigative roadmap and identifies additional discovery targets. The NTSB typically releases a preliminary report within 30 days and a factual report within 6 to 12 months. The trucking company and Union Pacific, as party participants in the NTSB investigation, have access to information that the families’ counsel must independently secure through discovery.
The truck driver’s qualification file and the carrier’s safety records. The driver’s qualification file — required under FMCSA regulations — reveals experience, training, prior violations, CDL status, and medical certification. The carrier’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability scores, crash history, and compliance reviews support negligent hiring, retention, and gross negligence theories. Carriers must retain these records, but early preservation prevents alteration, destruction, or strategic supplementation.
Here is the truth that the insurance industry does not want you to hear: the preservation letter goes out the day you call. Not the week after. Not after the funeral. Not after the NTSB finishes. The day you call. Because every day that passes is a day that the truck’s ELD data is one day closer to overwriting. The crossing signal logs are one day closer to being cleared. The witness video is one day closer to being deleted. The business CCTV is one day closer to being recorded over. We send the letters that freeze that evidence in place — and if a defendant lets required evidence die after receiving that letter, the law answers with an adverse-inference instruction, which tells the jury they may assume the lost record was as bad as the plaintiff says it was.
What a Case Like This Is Worth: The Money
No lawyer can tell you exactly what a case is worth before the evidence is developed. But we can tell you how the number is built, what the deflators are, and what the honest range looks like — because that is what a trial lawyer does.
The aggregate exposure across all claims in this case — two FELA wrongful death claims against self-insured Union Pacific, wrongful death claims against the commercial trucking company, three personal injury claims of undetermined severity, and potential punitive damages — ranges from approximately $15,000,000 on the low end to $50,000,000 or more on the high end.
Here is how that range is built:
The two FELA wrongful death claims against Union Pacific. Each claim is potentially worth $5 million to $20 million depending on the decedent’s earning capacity, seniority, age, and the degree of railroad negligence established. Railroad engineers and conductors are typically well-compensated, union-represented workers with significant earning capacity and valuable railroad retirement benefits that terminate at death. The economic loss alone — lost wages, lost future earning capacity, the present value of railroad retirement benefits — can be substantial. The human losses — loss of companionship, mental anguish, loss of inheritance — are recoverable in full with no statutory cap under Texas wrongful death law. And one victim survived long enough to be transported 75 miles to Odessa before succumbing — a meaningful survival period that supports significant conscious pain and suffering damages under a survival action. Union Pacific’s self-insurance and corporate assets provide deep collectibility certainty. The FELA track is the most certain recovery path in this case.
The wrongful death claims against the commercial trucking company. These claims are subject to the trucking company’s insurance limits and comparative fault allocation with Union Pacific. If the carrier is a standard interstate freight carrier, the federal minimum financial responsibility floor is $750,000 under 49 CFR § 387.9 — but many carriers carry far more. If the carrier is an oilfield service operator in the Permian Basin, the insurance structure may be different. The real coverage is unknown until the carrier is identified through the NTSB investigation and the Texas DPS crash report.
Three personal injury claims of undetermined severity. The three victims treated at Reeves Regional Health in Pecos may have injuries ranging from emergency treatment and release to severe blunt-force trauma, crush injuries, or traumatic brain injury from the derailment dynamics. Their legal relationship to each defendant — whether they were railroad employees with FELA claims, truck occupants with claims against the railroad, or bystanders with claims against both the truck and the railroad — determines the applicable theory and the defendant stack.
Potential punitive damages. Under Texas Chapter 41 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, exemplary damages require proof of gross negligence — and the statutory caps that apply in some postures do not eliminate the leverage. If discovery reveals the truck driver ignored active crossing signals, was using a mobile device, or the carrier had prior knowledge of crossing-safety violations or knowingly dispatched a fatigued or unqualified driver on a route with grade crossings, the heightened gross negligence standard supports exemplary damages. The discovery target is the intersection of what the driver did and what the carrier knew.
The deflators. The rural Reeves County venue has a small jury pool and historically more conservative verdict trends than metropolitan Texas venues. Comparative fault allocation between the truck operator and Union Pacific — including potential crossing design and signal adequacy disputes — will reduce the net recovery against either defendant. The unidentified trucking carrier’s insurance limits and financial strength are unknown. The three injured parties’ legal status and injury severity are uncertain. These are the honest factors that a real lawyer weighs — not to diminish the case, but to build it accurately.
This firm has recovered $50 million-plus in aggregate for clients, including a $5 million-plus brain injury settlement, a $3.8 million-plus amputation settlement, and a $2.5 million-plus truck-crash recovery. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But those numbers tell you that we have been in the rooms where serious cases are valued, and we know what it takes to build a number that a jury or an insurer will respect.
The First 72 Hours: A Practical Roadmap
If you are reading this in the first days after the collision, here is what needs to happen — in order, without delay.
Medical first — and why symptoms lie. If anyone in your family was injured, even if they were treated at Reeves Regional Health and released, get a full follow-up evaluation. The adrenaline of a traumatic event masks pain. A concussion may not declare itself for 24 to 72 hours. Internal injuries may not produce symptoms until they become emergencies. The medical record built from the moment of injury forward is the spine of any injury claim — and a gap between the ER visit and the first follow-up is a gap the defense will exploit.
Do not give recorded statements. To anyone. Not to Union Pacific’s claim representative. Not to the trucking company’s insurer. Not to any third-party investigator. Not to the NTSB without counsel present (though NTSB interviews are typically conducted with party representatives). You are not required to give a recorded statement to any insurance company. If someone asks you to, the answer is: “I will consult with an attorney and get back to you.”
Do not sign anything. No release. No waiver. No settlement agreement. No authorization for the insurer to obtain your medical records. No document of any kind from any representative of the railroad, the trucking company, or any insurance carrier. Under FELA, any release designed to exempt the railroad from liability is void — but the cleaner path is never to sign it.
Do not post on social media. Nothing about the collision. Nothing about the investigation. Nothing about the family’s emotional state. Nothing about injuries or treatment. Assume every post, every photograph, every comment is being read by someone who is building a file to minimize your loss. Set your accounts to private. Tell your family to do the same.
Preserve everything you have. If you have photographs from the scene, save them. If you have video, save it. If you received any documents from any agency, any hospital, any insurer — keep them in one place. Do not throw anything away. Do not delete anything.
Contact an attorney. The preservation letters — the documents that freeze the evidence before it disappears — go out the day you call. Not the day after. Not the week after. The day you call. The locomotive event recorder, the truck’s ELD data, the crossing signal logs, the driver’s cell phone records, the business CCTV from downtown Pecos — all of it is on a clock, and the clock does not wait for the NTSB.
If the deceased was a railroad employee, ask about FELA. Most lawyers do not handle FELA cases. The statute is federal, the causation standard is unique, the defenses are different, and the strategy is distinct from any ordinary wrongful death case. Ask any lawyer you speak with whether they have handled FELA cases before. The answer matters.
Why This Firm
Ralph Manginello has spent 27-plus years in Texas courtrooms, including federal court — the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he learned to find the story in the documents before he learned to argue it to a jury. He is admitted to practice in Texas (Bar #24007597, licensed November 6, 1998) and in federal court, and he has built this firm around the cases that are too complex, too technical, and too hard for generalists.
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-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. He knows how the recorded-statement call is engineered. He knows how the claim is fed into valuation software that discounts the pain it cannot see. He knows because he was the person doing it. Now he uses that knowledge for injured clients. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter — because in West Texas, in Reeves County, in the Permian Basin, the language a family prays in is the language their lawyer should speak.
We work on contingency. That means we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33% before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. The consultation is free. The call is 1-888-ATTY-911 — and we answer it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with live staff, not an answering service.
We handle commercial truck accident cases, wrongful death cases, workplace accident cases, and FELA railroad worker cases across Texas. The Pecos train derailment sits at the intersection of all four — a railroad worker death, a commercial truck collision, a workplace fatality, and a wrongful death case — and it requires a firm that understands the federal statutes, the FMCSA regulations, the FRA crossing standards, and the evidence-preservation clock that is running right now.
If we are not the right fit for your family, we will tell you. But if we are, the first thing we do is send the letters that freeze the evidence before it disappears. Because the evidence is what wins the case — and the evidence is dying.
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. The firm takes commercial-vehicle, catastrophic-injury, and wrongful-death cases in Texas and works with local counsel or pro hac vice where required. The firm was not contacted by, has not been retained by, and has taken no action on behalf of any party in the Pecos derailment. Everything on this page is written for the person searching for answers at 2 a.m. — because that is who we are here for.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Free consultation. No fee unless we win. Hablamos Español.