Pecos Train Derailment: Two Union Pacific Employees Killed, Three Injured When Freight Train Collides With Tractor-Trailer at Reeves County Crossing
If you are reading this page, you or someone you love was connected to what happened in Pecos on December 18, 2024 — the evening a Union Pacific freight train struck a tractor-trailer at a grade crossing and derailed, killing two railroad employees and injuring three people, some of whom were inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce building when the train cars came through. You may be the spouse of a crew member who did not come home. You may be one of the people who was in that building. You may be a parent, a child, a coworker, a neighbor in this town of thirteen thousand people where a train derailment is not an abstract news story — it is a crater at a crossing you have driven over a hundred times. We are writing this page for you. Not to sell you anything. To tell you, in plain language, what your rights actually are, what the law does and does not do, what the railroad and the trucking company are already doing in the hours after this crash, and what evidence is disappearing right now while you grieve. Everything on this page is legal information, not legal advice — but the phone number at the bottom is real, the consultation is free, and the person who answers it is a human being, not a recording.
What Happened in Pecos on December 18, 2024
Around 5 p.m. on a Wednesday evening, a Union Pacific freight train carrying stacked metal shipping containers — some loaded with hazardous materials including lithium-ion batteries and air bags — collided with a tractor-trailer at a railway crossing in Pecos, the county seat of Reeves County, Texas. The train derailed. Two Union Pacific employees were killed. Three people suffered injuries that Pecos Police Chief Lisa Tarango described as minor. Some of those injured were inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce building, which sustained what Reeves County Emergency Services Chief Ronald Lee called “significant enough” damage that officials advised against entering until an engineer could inspect it. The hazardous materials did not release. Leaked diesel fuel was contained. The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team. Cleanup was underway.
Those are the facts as publicly reported. What follows is what those facts mean in law, in evidence, and in money — because the gap between what happened and what can be proven is where a case is won or lost, and that gap is closing every hour.
Two Families, Two Legal Paths: FELA for Railroad Workers, Texas Law for Civilians
The most important thing to understand about this derailment is that the law treats the two groups of victims differently — and the difference is enormous. The two Union Pacific employees who were killed are covered by a federal statute called the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, or FELA, that was written more than a century ago specifically to protect railroad workers and their families. The three civilians who were injured — including the people inside the Chamber of Commerce building — are covered by Texas tort law. These are not minor variations of the same system. They are different statutes, different standards, different deadlines, different damage rules, and different forums. A lawyer who does not know the difference can lose a case before it is filed.
The families of the two deceased UP employees need to hear this first: your loved one’s death is not covered by Texas workers’ compensation. FELA preempts state workers’ comp entirely. That is not a technicality — it is the difference between a capped benefit check and a full tort recovery that includes pain and suffering, complete lost future earnings, and the full measure of what your family lost. FELA was built by Congress in 1908 because railroad work was killing people and the railroads were using every legal device available to avoid paying. The law that protects your family is the same law that was written to fight that fight, and it is far more powerful than standard workers’ compensation.
The three injured civilians need to hear this: your claims run through Texas negligence law, which means you can pursue both the tractor-trailer’s operator and Union Pacific itself, depending on whose acts or omissions contributed to the derailment and your injuries. Texas applies a modified comparative negligence rule — if you are found to be 51 percent or more at fault, you cannot recover, but if you are 50 percent or less at fault, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault, not eliminated. Texas imposes no non-economic damage caps in wrongful death or general personal injury cases. And Texas allows punitive — exemplary — damages upon clear and convincing proof of gross negligence, which is a high but achievable standard if discovery reveals that a company knowingly ignored a dangerous condition or dispatched a driver it knew was unfit.
FELA: The Federal Law Built to Protect Railroad Families
Here is what makes FELA different from every other injury statute in the country, and why the families of the two Union Pacific employees have rights that are broader and more powerful than most people will ever know.
Under FELA, the railroad is liable if its negligence played any part — even the slightest — in producing the injury or death. This is not the ordinary proximate-cause standard that governs most injury cases. The Supreme Court established this standard in a 1957 case called Rogers v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., and it remains the controlling law today:
“The test of a jury case is simply whether the proofs justify with reason the conclusion that employer negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the injury or death for which damages are sought.”
The Supreme Court reaffirmed this standard as recently as 2011 in CSX Transportation, Inc. v. McBride, holding that FELA does not incorporate common-law proximate cause and that the “any part, even the slightest” standard governs. That means the railroad cannot escape liability by arguing that the tractor-trailer was the primary cause of the collision. If the railroad’s own negligence contributed in any part — inadequate crossing signals, excessive speed, failure to sound the horn, obstructed sight lines, deficient crew training, or any other breach — the railroad is liable to the families of its killed employees.
Under FELA, even if the employee was partly at fault, the family still recovers — the award is simply reduced by the employee’s percentage of fault. Contributory negligence does not bar recovery; it only diminishes it. And if the railroad violated a federal safety statute — such as the Federal Railroad Administration’s track-safety standards or grade-crossing signal regulations — the employee’s own contributory negligence is wiped off the board entirely. The railroad cannot raise it as a defense at all.
The railroad also cannot raise assumption of risk. Congress abolished that defense in the same statute. The railroad cannot say “the job was dangerous and the employee knew it.” That excuse is gone. And any contract, waiver, or company policy designed to let the railroad exempt itself from FELA liability is void as a matter of federal law.
FELA gives the family a three-year statute of limitations from the date of the incident. That is longer than Texas’s two-year deadline for most personal injury and wrongful death claims, but it is still a hard deadline — miss it and the case is dead, no matter how strong the facts are. The family can file in state or federal court, and if they choose state court, the railroad generally cannot remove the case to federal court — Congress gave the worker the right to choose the forum.
FELA damages are full tort damages, not a workers’-comp benefit schedule. The estate of a killed railroad employee can recover the present value of the decedent’s lost future earnings — and railroad engineers and conductors are typically high-wage earners — plus loss of consortium for surviving spouses, loss of guidance and nurture for surviving children, pre-impact conscious pain and suffering, and funeral expenses. There is no statutory cap on these damages. The only limitation is that punitive damages are generally not available under FELA — but the full compensatory measure, including pain and suffering and complete lost earning capacity, is recoverable.
For a deeper look at wrongful death claims and how they are built, see our wrongful death practice page.
The Tractor-Trailer: The Unidentified Defendant That Drives the Civilian Case
The article does not name the tractor-trailer’s operating entity. That is not a minor gap — it is the single most important unknown fact in the civilian case. Identifying the truck’s operating company, its DOT number, its insurance carrier, and its safety record is the first investigative priority, because it drives the entire civilian-claim architecture.
Here is why. The three injured civilians — including the people who were inside the Chamber of Commerce building when the derailment struck it — have claims against whoever caused the tractor-trailer to be on that crossing at that moment. That means the truck driver, the trucking company, and potentially the entity that dispatched the truck on a route through a known grade-crossing conflict zone. In the Permian Basin, where Pecos sits, heavy commercial truck traffic servicing oilfield operations shares rural grade crossings with freight trains — and the collision risk at those crossings is well documented. The Texas oilfield commercial truck page on our site covers the specific dangers of this corridor in depth.
Once the truck’s operating entity is identified, the case opens several lanes. If the truck driver violated Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Hours-of-Service regulations — driving too long, falsifying logs, operating while fatigued — that regulatory violation can serve as evidence of negligence. If the truck stalled on the tracks because of a mechanical failure, the carrier’s maintenance records become the spine of the case. If the driver was distracted — cell phone records can establish that. And the trucking company is vicariously liable for its driver’s negligence under the doctrine of respondeat superior, regardless of the company’s own direct negligence.
The trucking company may also be directly liable for negligent hiring, training, supervision, or route planning. Federal law requires motor carriers to build and maintain a Driver Qualification File for every driver — including the employment application, the motor vehicle record, the road-test certificate, the annual driving-record review, and the medical examiner’s certificate. If that file is missing, incomplete, or reveals a driver who should never have been behind the wheel, the company’s own negligence — separate from the driver’s — becomes a separate claim. Our 18-wheeler accident practice page covers these commercial-trucking liability theories in detail.
The insurance reality matters here. A regular freight carrier operating interstate is federally required to carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage. If the truck was hauling hazardous materials, the federal minimum rises to $1 million or even $5 million depending on the cargo. But the legal minimum is a floor, not a ceiling — many carriers carry far more. The actual policy limits are unknown until discovery, and identifying the correct insurance tower is half the value of the case.
Union Pacific: A $150 Billion Railroad With Sophisticated Defense Lawyers
Union Pacific Railroad is one of the two largest Class I freight railroads in the United States. Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, UP operates approximately 32,000 route miles across 23 western states and maintains a market capitalization consistently exceeding $150 billion. The railroad’s deep pockets ensure full collectibility on any judgment — but UP also maintains sophisticated in-house counsel and a national network of retained defense firms that specialize in railroad litigation. This is not a defendant that rolls over. It fights, and it fights with resources.
For the FELA claims, the railroad’s own negligence is the target. Potential railroad negligence in a grade-crossing collision includes: inadequate crossing protection (no gates, malfunctioning signals, or signals that were known to be unreliable); excessive train speed through the crossing area; failure to sound the locomotive horn as required by federal regulation; deficient sight lines at the crossing (vegetation, buildings, or stored equipment obstructing the view); inadequate crew emergency procedures; and failure to address known hazards at this specific crossing. The Federal Railroad Administration regulates track safety standards, grade-crossing signal systems, train speed restrictions, and locomotive event recorder requirements — and violations of any of these regulations can serve as evidence of negligence.
For the civilian claims, Union Pacific can also be a defendant if the railroad’s acts or omissions contributed to the derailment and the resulting injuries. If the crossing signals were inadequate, if the train was traveling too fast, if the horn was not sounded, or if the crew failed to take appropriate emergency action, the railroad shares liability alongside the trucking company. Texas’s modified comparative negligence framework allows recovery from any defendant whose fault contributed to the harm, as long as the plaintiff is not more than 50 percent at fault.
One of the most powerful discovery targets in a crossing-collision case is Union Pacific’s own internal crossing-hazard rankings. Railroads maintain internal databases that rank grade crossings by risk level — considering factors like train speed, traffic volume, sight distance, accident history, and signal equipment. If the crossing where this collision occurred was ranked as a known hazard and UP failed to remediate it, that is not just negligence — it is notice. It is the railroad’s own document proving it knew the danger was there and chose not to fix it. Prior incident reports at this specific crossing, FRA deficiency notices, and crew complaints about signal reliability are all discoverable — but they must be demanded before UP’s records-retention schedule allows them to be destroyed.
The Crossing: Where the Evidence Lives and How Fast It Dies
This is the section that matters most in the first days after a derailment, because the evidence that decides who is responsible is disappearing on a clock — and that clock is already running.
The train event recorder / locomotive black box. Every locomotive carries an event recorder — the railroad equivalent of an airplane’s black box — that records train speed, throttle position, brake application, and horn activation timestamps. This data is critical to establishing whether the crew responded appropriately and whether speed contributed to the severity of the derailment. Union Pacific controls this data. Event recorder data can be purged on routine maintenance cycles if no preservation demand has been issued. The preservation letter must go out immediately.
Grade-crossing signal system logs and maintenance records. These establish whether the crossing signals — gates, lights, bells — were functioning at the time of the collision and whether they were properly maintained. This is the central liability battleground in any crossing-collision case. Signal event logs may auto-purge on short cycles. The maintenance history must be preserved before records are archived or destroyed. If the signals were malfunctioning, the railroad and whatever entity is responsible for signal maintenance are on the hook. If the signals were working, the truck driver’s failure to yield becomes the primary liability theory. Either way, the signal logs decide the case — and they are on the shortest clock in the file.
The tractor-trailer’s electronic logging device and GPS telematics data. The truck’s ELD records the driver’s speed approaching the crossing, hours-of-service compliance, route selection, and potential distraction indicators. Federal law requires ELD data to be retained — but the data overwrites on an 8-day cycle per FMCSA requirements. The carrier may not retain it without a litigation hold. If the trucking company is not identified and the preservation letter is not sent within days, the ELD data that proves whether the driver was fatigued, distracted, or speeding can be legally erased.
Dash-camera footage from the train and the tractor-trailer. Visual evidence of the collision sequence, the crossing-signal status, and the truck’s approach is potentially dispositive on fault allocation. Dashcam systems auto-overwrite on 7-to-30-day cycles depending on configuration. This footage is the single most visual, most persuasive piece of evidence in the case — and it is erasing itself.
CCTV from nearby Pecos businesses and the Chamber of Commerce. An independent visual record of the collision and derailment, including the debris field and the building-impact sequence. Most retail CCTV systems overwrite within 24 to 72 hours. The footage of the train cars striking the Chamber of Commerce building — the footage that shows what the people inside experienced — is already gone if no one demanded it be saved within the first three days.
The truck driver’s cell phone records. Call, text, or app activity at the time of the crossing approach can establish distraction — which is negligence per se and, if the company knew the driver had a pattern of distracted driving, can support gross negligence. The carrier’s retention policies vary. A preservation letter to the carrier and a subpoena to the mobile provider are both needed.
Track and crossing inspection records from Union Pacific and the FRA. The history of crossing inspections, deficiencies noted, and remediation timelines is the notice-and-priors engine for both the FELA and the civilian negligence claims. These records exist on UP’s retention schedule — preservation letters must issue now to prevent routine destruction.
Union Pacific internal communications. Emails, dispatch logs, and internal reports may reveal institutional knowledge of the crossing’s hazard profile, prior near-miss reports, or crew complaints about signal reliability. These records are subject to UP’s records-retention schedule — a litigation hold must issue before any retention cycle purges them.
NTSB factual investigation data. The NTSB’s factual findings — vehicle positions, signal status, speed data, track condition — are discoverable and admissible in civil litigation, even though the NTSB’s probable-cause conclusions are generally inadmissible. The NTSB itself has stated that it “doesn’t determine or speculate about the cause during the on-scene phase of the investigation.” The factual reports typically issue within 6 to 12 months; final reports can take 12 to 24 months. The families cannot wait for the NTSB — they need their own investigation running in parallel.
Tractor-trailer maintenance and inspection records. If the truck stalled or was unable to clear the crossing due to mechanical failure, the maintenance records establish whether the carrier knew or should have known of the defect. FMCSA requires 12-month retention, but carriers may not preserve without a hold.
Hours-of-service records for the train crew. Federal law requires railroad hours-of-duty records to be retained for two years. These records show whether the crew had been on duty too long — a core fatigue-and-error record that can prove the railroad’s negligence contributed to the collision.
Every one of these records is on a clock. Every one of them is controlled by someone who is not the family. And every one of them can be legally destroyed if no one demands they be saved. That is why the preservation letter goes out the day you call — not the month, not the season. The day.
Hazardous Materials: Lithium-Ion Batteries, Air Bags, and the Fear-of-Exposure Claim
The train was carrying hazardous materials — lithium-ion batteries and air bags. None were released. The leaked diesel fuel was contained. But the presence of hazmat on the derailed train matters for the civilian claims in two ways.
First, the people who were in the Chamber of Commerce building and the surrounding area were exposed to the fear of a hazmat release — and in Texas, that fear is compensable if it was reasonable. The sight of derailed train cars, the smell of diesel fuel, the knowledge that lithium-ion batteries were aboard and that those batteries can undergo thermal runaway and release toxic gases — all of this creates a documented basis for emotional-distress damages and, potentially, medical-monitoring costs. The fact that no hazmat was actually released does not eliminate the claim; it shapes the damages.
Second, the hazmat cargo is relevant to the railroad’s duty of care. A train carrying hazardous materials through a community owes a heightened obligation to operate safely — not just because the FRA says so, but because the foreseeable consequences of a derailment with hazmat on board are catastrophic. If Union Pacific’s crossing-safety practices were deficient and the train was carrying hazmat, the railroad’s negligence is magnified by the foreseeable harm it created.
The Chamber of Commerce Building: When a Derailment Reaches Into a Workplace
Three people were injured in this derailment, and some of them were inside the Pecos Chamber of Commerce building when the train cars struck it. The building sustained “significant enough” damage that officials advised against entering until an engineer could inspect it. That means derailed train cars — metal shipping containers stacked two high — came to rest against or inside a building where people were working.
The people inside that building are civilian injury claimants. Their injuries were described as “minor” by police — but the word “minor” in a police report is not a medical diagnosis. It is a triage classification made at the scene, often before the full extent of injuries is known. Delayed-onset injuries — concussions that do not show symptoms for hours, soft-tissue injuries that stiffen overnight, internal injuries that do not bleed visibly — are common after blunt-force trauma from a building impact. And the psychological impact of having a train derail into your workplace is not minor by any clinical measure.
For the people who were in that building, the claim runs against both the trucking company (whose negligence caused the tractor-trailer to be on the tracks) and Union Pacific (whose negligence, if any, contributed to the derailment). The building damage itself is a separate property claim likely pursued by the city or the building owner — but the injuries to the people inside are personal-injury claims that belong to the individuals, not the institution.
If you were in that building, you need a medical evaluation — even if you feel fine. The adrenaline of the moment masks injuries. A concussion can present as a headache that you attribute to stress. A cervical injury can present as neck stiffness that you attribute to sleeping wrong. The medical record from the day of the incident is the baseline against which every future symptom is measured — and if there is no baseline, the defense will argue that your injuries came from somewhere else.
The NTSB Investigation: What It Can and Cannot Do for Your Family
The National Transportation Safety Board dispatched a team to Pecos. The NTSB is the premier transportation-safety investigative body in the United States, and its involvement means this crash is being taken seriously at the federal level. But the NTSB investigation is not a substitute for a private legal investigation, and the families need to understand what the NTSB can and cannot do for them.
The NTSB’s job is to prevent the next crash, not to determine who pays for this one. By law, its investigations are fact-finding proceedings with no adverse parties — they are not conducted for the purpose of determining the rights, liabilities, or blame of any person or entity. The NTSB itself has stated that it “doesn’t determine or speculate about the cause during the on-scene phase of the investigation.”
The NTSB’s final report — including its conclusion about the probable cause of the collision — is inadmissible in a civil action for damages. Federal law keeps that conclusion out of the courtroom. A family still has to prove what happened with their own experts, their own evidence, and their own investigation.
But the NTSB’s factual findings — the raw data its investigators measured and recorded — can come in. The vehicle positions, the signal status, the speed data, the track condition, the witness statements — those facts are discoverable and admissible, even though the board’s opinion about what caused the crash is locked out. This distinction is the single most important thing to understand about the NTSB investigation: the facts are usable, the conclusion is not.
This is why the families need an independent investigation running in parallel with the NTSB. The NTSB will take 12 to 24 months to produce a final report. The evidence that the families need — the crossing signal logs, the event recorder data, the CCTV footage, the truck’s ELD data — will be gone long before the NTSB report is finished if no one acts to preserve it. The NTSB is not the families’ lawyer. It is not preserving evidence for the families’ civil case. It is preserving evidence for its own safety investigation — and when it is done, the evidence goes back to the entities that control it, who are then free to destroy it on their own retention schedules.
How Much Is a Case Like This Worth?
The honest answer is that the value depends on facts that are not yet known — the age and earnings of the two deceased UP employees, the severity of the three civilian injuries, the identity and insurance limits of the tractor-trailer’s operating entity, and the degree of railroad negligence that discovery reveals. But the framework for valuing the case is knowable now, and it is built from the following components.
The two FELA wrongful death claims anchor the value. Each estate can recover the present value of the decedent’s lost future earnings. Railroad engineers and conductors are typically high-wage earners — Union Pacific crew compensation can range well into six figures, and the work-life expectancy of a railroad employee who was killed in the prime of their career can produce a lost-earnings figure of $1.5 million to $4 million per decedent before any non-economic damages are added. On top of that: loss of consortium for the surviving spouse, loss of guidance and nurture for surviving children, pre-impact conscious pain and suffering (if the crew had any awareness of the impending collision before impact), and funeral expenses. FELA’s “any negligence” standard keeps the liability threshold low — if any railroad deficiency is shown, the family recovers, reduced only by the employee’s comparative share of fault.
The three civilian injury claims add incremental value. The civilian injuries were reported as minor, which limits the individual value of each claim to medical expenses, modest pain-and-suffering, and potential PTSD or fear-of-exposure damages given the hazmat context. Individual civilian claims may range from $25,000 to $250,000 each, depending on the actual medical outcome — which may not be knowable for weeks or months.
The upper range requires clear railroad crossing-safety negligence, high-earning decedents with dependents, and identification of a well-insured tractor-trailer carrier. If discovery reveals that Union Pacific maintained a known-dangerous crossing without remediation, or that the trucking company knowingly dispatched a fatigued or unqualified driver through a known grade-crossing conflict zone, the value of the civilian claims can increase substantially — and punitive damages become available under Texas law for the civilian claims, though not under FELA for the employee claims.
The total case value range, across all claims and all defendants, is approximately $3 million to $20 million. The low end assumes contested liability between the truck and the railroad, rural Reeves County venue, and absence of catastrophic civilian injuries. The high end assumes clear railroad crossing-safety negligence, high-earning decedents with dependents, a well-insured truck carrier, and punitive-damages exposure on the civilian claims. Union Pacific’s substantial assets ensure full collectibility on any judgment — the money is there. The question is whether the proof is there, and that depends on how fast the evidence is preserved.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
The Insurance Adjuster’s Playbook: What They Will Try
Within days of this derailment, the insurance machinery will begin moving. Union Pacific’s claim agents will be on scene. The trucking company’s insurance carrier will be notified. Adjusters will begin calling the families. Here is what they will try, and here is how to counter each play.
Play 1: The “just checking in” recorded statement call. Someone friendly will call to “check on you” and ask you to “just tell us what happened” — on a recording built to be quoted against you. Statements given in the immediate aftermath, while grieving, while medicated, while in shock, are routinely used to minimize or deny claims. The counter is simple: do not give a recorded statement to anyone without your lawyer present. Not the railroad’s investigator. Not the trucking company’s insurance adjuster. Not Union Pacific’s claim agent. No exceptions.
Play 2: The fast settlement check with a release buried under it. A check may arrive fast — sometimes within weeks — with a release printed on the back or enclosed with it. The check is designed to arrive before the medical results are in, before the full extent of injuries is known, before the family has had time to grieve, let alone evaluate a claim. Signing that release extinguishes the right to seek full compensation. The counter: never sign anything from an insurance company without having a lawyer read it first. A check that arrives in the first weeks is almost always worth a fraction of what the case is actually worth.
Play 3: The “minor injuries” minimization. The police described the civilian injuries as minor. The insurance adjuster will repeat that word — “minor” — every chance they get. But the word “minor” in a police report is a triage classification, not a medical diagnosis. Delayed-onset concussions, cervical injuries, and post-traumatic stress disorder can all develop in the days and weeks after an impact, and a “minor” classification at the scene does not foreclose any of them. The counter: get a full medical evaluation, follow up on every symptom, and let the medical record — not the police report — define the injury.
Play 4: The “wait for the NTSB report” delay. The railroad or the trucking company’s insurer may tell the family to “wait for the NTSB report” before taking any action. This is a delay tactic designed to run out the evidence clock. The NTSB report will take 12 to 24 months. By the time it is finished, the crossing signal logs will be gone, the CCTV footage will be erased, the truck’s ELD data will be overwritten, and the dashcam footage will be long dead. The counter: do not wait. The preservation letter goes out the day you call a lawyer, not the day the NTSB finishes.
Play 5: The comparative fault blame-shift. The railroad will argue the truck driver was at fault. The trucking company will argue the railroad was at fault. Both will argue the victims were partly at fault. Under FELA, comparative negligence reduces but does not bar recovery — so even if the employee was partly at fault, the family still recovers. Under Texas law, the 51 percent bar means a plaintiff more than 50 percent at fault cannot recover — but the civilians in this case were not driving the truck and were not operating the train; they were in a building. The counter: let the evidence allocate the fault, not the adjuster. Every percentage point the adjuster tries to pin on the victim is money, and every point is worth fighting.
How a Railroad Crossing Collision Case Is Actually Built
Here is the chronological walk of how a case like this is built, from the day you call to the day a number is put on the table.
Week one. The preservation demand goes out — to Union Pacific, to the trucking company (once identified), and to every third-party data holder. The letter orders them to freeze the event recorder data, the crossing signal logs, the ELD data, the dashcam footage, the CCTV from every business within sight of the crossing, the truck driver’s cell phone records, the track and crossing inspection records, the hours-of-service records, and every internal communication about this crossing. The train event recorder is downloaded before it can be “serviced.” The truck’s ECM is imaged before the truck moves. The crossing signal system is photographed and its event logs are pulled.
Weeks two through four. The tractor-trailer’s operating entity is identified — its DOT number, its insurance carrier, its safety record. A FMCSA SAFER snapshot is pulled. The driver’s qualification file is demanded. The truck’s maintenance records are demanded. The driver’s post-crash drug and alcohol testing records are demanded — federal law required testing within 8 hours for alcohol and 32 hours for controlled substances, and if the test was not done, the carrier had to document why.
Months one through three. Experts are retained. A railroad-safety expert examines the crossing-signal adequacy and FRA compliance. An accident reconstructionist reconstructs the collision sequence — the truck’s approach, the train’s speed, the braking distance, the time available for the crew to react. A forensic economist begins the FELA lost-earnings calculations — the present value of the decedent’s future wages, benefits, and household services.
Months three through twelve. Discovery proceeds. Union Pacific produces its crossing-hazard rankings, prior incident reports at this crossing, FRA deficiency notices, and internal communications. The trucking company produces its ELD data, driver qualification file, hours-of-service records, and maintenance records. Depositions are taken — the safety director, the signal maintainer, the dispatchers, the truck driver.
The number. The number at the end is built from all of it — the lost earnings, the medical costs, the pain and suffering, the loss of consortium, the fear of exposure, the funeral expenses, and, where the facts support it, the punitive damages. It is not a number an adjuster hands you in the first weeks. It is a number built from the evidence, the medicine, and the law, and it is worth waiting for — because the first number the adjuster offers is almost always a fraction of the last number a jury would return.
The First 72 Hours: What to Do and What Never to Do
Do this:
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Get medical evaluations for every person who was injured or near the derailment. Even if you feel fine. The medical record from the day of the incident is the baseline against which every future symptom is measured. Without it, the defense will argue your injuries came from somewhere else.
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Call a lawyer. Not next week. Not after the funeral. Now. The preservation letter that freezes the evidence has to go out in days, not months. Every day you wait is a day the crossing signal logs, the CCTV footage, the ELD data, and the dashcam recordings are one day closer to being legally erased.
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Identify the tractor-trailer’s operating entity. If you know the company name on the truck, the license plate, or any identifying information, write it down. This is the single most important unknown fact in the civilian case.
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Photograph everything. The crossing, the signals, the debris field, the truck, the train cars, the building damage. Your phone photos are evidence. Take them from every angle.
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Preserve the victims’ personal belongings. Clothing, personal effects, anything that was with the victims. These items are evidence and should not be discarded.
Never do this:
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Never give a recorded statement to any insurance adjuster, railroad investigator, or trucking-company representative without your lawyer present. These statements are engineered to be quoted against you.
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Never sign any document from an insurance company without having a lawyer read it first. A release signed in the first weeks can extinguish your family’s right to full compensation forever.
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Never post about the crash on social media. Insurance adjusters and defense investigators monitor social media. A photo of you smiling at a family event can be used to argue you are not suffering. A comment about the crash can be taken out of context. Say nothing publicly.
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Never assume the NTSB investigation is the only path to answers. The NTSB’s probable-cause conclusion is inadmissible in your civil case. You need your own investigation.
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Never let the truck, the train, or the crossing signal equipment be repaired, moved, or destroyed before it has been documented and examined by your experts. These objects are evidence. Once they are gone, the proof is gone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can the families of the two Union Pacific employees sue the railroad?
Yes. The families of railroad employees killed on the job are covered by FELA, a federal statute that allows them to sue the railroad directly. Unlike workers’ compensation, FELA requires proof that the railroad’s negligence contributed to the death — but the standard is extraordinarily favorable to the family. The railroad is liable if its negligence played any part, even the slightest, in producing the death. The family can recover full tort damages, including lost future earnings, loss of consortium, loss of guidance for children, pre-impact pain and suffering, and funeral expenses. There is no cap on these damages.
What if the truck driver was at fault — can the railroad still be liable?
Under FELA, yes. The railroad is liable to its employees if its own negligence played any part in the death — even if the truck driver was the primary cause. If the crossing signals were inadequate, if the train was traveling too fast, if the horn was not sounded, or if the crew was not properly trained, the railroad shares liability regardless of the truck driver’s fault. For the civilian claims, Texas’s comparative negligence framework allows recovery from any defendant whose fault contributed to the harm.
How long do the families have to file a claim?
The FELA claims have a three-year statute of limitations from the date of the incident — December 18, 2024. The Texas civilian personal injury and wrongful death claims have a two-year statute of limitations. These are hard deadlines. Missing them ends the case, no matter how strong the facts are. But the evidence that the case depends on — the crossing signal logs, the CCTV footage, the ELD data — dies on a much shorter clock, measured in days and weeks, not years. That is why the urgency is about evidence, not just deadlines.
The police said the civilian injuries were minor — does that mean the claims are small?
Not necessarily. The word “minor” in a police report is a triage classification made at the scene, not a medical diagnosis. Delayed-onset injuries — concussions, cervical injuries, internal injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder — can develop in the days and weeks after an impact. The medical record from the day of the incident is the baseline. If you were injured, get a full medical evaluation and follow up on every symptom. The medical record, not the police report, defines the injury.
What does the NTSB investigation mean for the families?
The NTSB is investigating the crash, and its factual findings — vehicle positions, signal status, speed data, track condition — are discoverable and usable in civil litigation. But the NTSB’s probable-cause conclusion is inadmissible in a civil action for damages under federal law. The NTSB is not the families’ lawyer. It is not preserving evidence for the families’ civil case. The families need their own investigation running in parallel, preserving the evidence that the NTSB is not obligated to keep for them.
The train was carrying hazardous materials — does that matter even though nothing was released?
Yes. The presence of hazmat on the derailed train creates a basis for fear-of-exposure damages and medical-monitoring costs for the civilians who were in the area. The knowledge that lithium-ion batteries were aboard — and that those batteries can undergo thermal runaway — creates a reasonable fear that is compensable under Texas law. The hazmat cargo is also relevant to the railroad’s duty of care: a train carrying hazardous materials through a community owes a heightened obligation to operate safely.
Can the people who were inside the Chamber of Commerce building file a claim?
Yes. The people who were inside the building when the derailed train cars struck it have personal-injury claims against both the trucking company and potentially Union Pacific. Their claims include medical expenses, pain and suffering, lost wages, and potential PTSD. The building damage itself is a separate property claim likely pursued by the city or building owner, but the injuries to the people inside belong to the individuals.
How much does it cost to hire a lawyer for a case like this?
Nothing up front. We work on contingency — we do not get paid unless we win your case. The fee is 33.33 percent of the recovery if the case settles before trial, and 40 percent if it goes to trial. The consultation is free. The call is free. The preservation letter that freezes the evidence is sent the day you call — at no cost to you. You pay nothing unless and until there is a recovery.
Why This Firm: Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
Ralph Manginello has spent 27 years in courtrooms, including federal court. He is the managing partner of the Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — Attorney911 — admitted to the Texas Bar in 1998 and to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He was a journalist before he was a lawyer, which means he knows how to find the story the evidence tells — and how to tell it to a jury. He is lead counsel in the active $10 million hazing lawsuit against Pi Kappa Phi and the University of Houston, filed in Harris County in November 2025. He handles workplace accident cases and wrongful death cases with the same intensity he brings to every file on the desk. You can read more about Ralph on his attorney bio page.
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 the families reading this page. He knows how claims are valued from the inside, how reserves are set in the first 48 hours, how IME doctors are selected, and how surveillance and delay tactics work. He now sits on your side of the table. He is fluent in Spanish and conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. You can read more about Lupe on his attorney bio page.
Together, Ralph and Lupe bring 27 years of trial experience and the insider’s knowledge of how insurance companies build their defense — and how to break it down. The firm has recovered more than $50 million for injured clients. Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. But the approach does not change: we find the evidence, we build the proof, and we fight until the number reflects what was actually lost.
This page is legal information, not legal advice. Every case is different. The facts of this derailment are still developing. But the evidence is disappearing on a clock that does not wait for the facts to settle — and the families who act quickly will be the ones whose questions get answered.
If your family was connected to what happened in Pecos on December 18, 2024 — whether you lost someone on that train crew, whether you were inside the Chamber of Commerce building, or whether you are searching for answers about a loved one who was hurt — call us. The consultation is free. The call is confidential. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
1-888-ATTY-911. 1-888-288-9911.
We serve your family fully in Spanish. Hablamos Español.
The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC — Attorney911. Legal Emergency Lawyers™. Houston. Austin. Beaumont. 24/7. We do not get paid unless we win your case.
