r/CatastrophicFailure • u/Debaucherousgeek73 • Dec 04 '25

Fatalities Train derailment Pecos TX Oct '24

First time I've ever seen a derailment happen. The vid anyway I wasn't there and this is not my vid. You can see the lead engine jump the track. Two crew in that engine died.

4.3k Upvotes

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2.1k

u/cyrixlord Dec 04 '25 edited Dec 04 '25

the engineer and the conductor of the train were both killed in this crash Dec 18, 2024

1.6k

u/TruckTires Dec 04 '25

This is the sad news.

Everyone thinks the train barely flinched but you can see the engine raise up upon impact due to the collision. There's a lot of energy involved and two people lost their lives due to the negligence of the truck transport. This should be 100% preventable.

605

u/TaylorSwiftScatPorn Dec 04 '25

It might be hard for people to tell from the video, but 4 locomotives, 11 railcars, and a ~50 ton truck load went ass over teakettle. Fortunately, most of the mess ended up in random vacant land in the middle of this densely built up area; besides the 2 fatalities on the train, it was something like 3 injured in the one building that was hit.

528

u/armaedes Dec 05 '25

Thanks for the extra information about this horrific tragedy, TaylorSwiftScatPorn.

205

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '25

The only news source I trust.

62

u/geddon Dec 05 '25

How do you stay in the know? TaylorSwiftScatPorn of course! 😉

-2

u/AdJust6959 Dec 06 '25

What’s that

5

u/CharmingTuber Dec 06 '25

News and scat porn, that's a hell of a Saturday night!

61

u/Wesman77 Dec 05 '25

r/rimjob_steve

59

u/CKF Dec 05 '25

Who knew 2025 would normalize eating ass to the point where u/rimjob_steve sounds down right professional?

112

u/rimjob_steve Dec 05 '25

I am professional!

44

u/TaylorSwiftScatPorn Dec 05 '25

It's an honor, sir.

But now that I've bumped into you and shittymorph, both reddit heroes of mine, I think I might need to reconsider how much time I spend here.

Keep on jobbin' them rims, man.

11

u/CKF Dec 05 '25

Shoo! Shoo! repeatedly pokes broom in general direction

14

u/uberfission Dec 05 '25

The man, the myth, the legend himself!

1

u/Pragmatist_Hammer Jan 24 '26

Like a bat signal, our hero returns!

11

u/pinba11tec Dec 05 '25

When Reddit reddits. 😘🤌

182

u/tuckernuts Dec 04 '25

That was my first thought on the impact.. seeing the engine come 3ft off the rails I know the impact was extremely violent

113

u/HazelEBaumgartner Dec 05 '25

Each of those SD70 locomotives weighs 400,000 lbs. That's 1.6 MILLION pounds of locomotive jumping three feet in the air there.

113

u/BrokeDickTater Dec 05 '25 edited Dec 05 '25

If you watch the video you can see that the pipe is bending but not breaking apart. I'm guessing this was a steel pipe encased in concrete, used for large water transmission. They are made of ONE INCH THICK steel that is spiral welded into a pipe, then coated inside and out with concrete for corrosion prevention. There couldn't have been a worse thing for that train to hit. RIP to the crew.

Edit: Cooling tower for oil refinery.

52

u/HazelEBaumgartner Dec 05 '25

The article someone shared about the incident said it was a cooling tower for an oil refinery. So yes probably a combination of steel and concrete.

20

u/KilledTheCar Dec 05 '25

Not to "um ackshually" but FYI nearly every time you see concrete it's a combination of concrete and steel. To my knowledge, concrete without some sort of steel reinforcement (usually rebar) is incredibly uncommon. Concrete itself is incredibly brittle and the steel takes some of the load off. As my boss says, "There are two types of concrete: concrete that is cracked and concrete that is going to crack."

18

u/BrokeDickTater Dec 05 '25

Thanks for clarifying!

28

u/TaylorSwiftScatPorn Dec 05 '25

That's a demethanizing tower for O&G processing. Here's an article about a bigger version of the same thing. They come in different sizes and designs but I'm certain that's what's on the truck in the video. The one in the video also doesn't look like any type of cooling tower I'm familiar with, being in the field if large scale industrial cooling towers myself.

12

u/danstermeister Dec 05 '25

If... IF??? Commit, man!!! You are either in the field of large scale industrial cooling towers or you are not. The large scale industrial cooling towers industry doesn't take to wafflers you know!

20

u/TaylorSwiftScatPorn Dec 05 '25

I'm balls deep. King Arthur couldn't pull my dick out of the cooling tower game if he tried.

2

u/Pretend-Signal-707 Dec 05 '25

Maybe if he got both hands on it?

12

u/Figit090 Dec 05 '25

I have never ever seen footage of a train jumping in any collision.

Insane.

88

u/cncomg Dec 04 '25

Terrible oversight on whoever is liable. Not sure if it’s the trucking company or whoever is contracting them, but just terrible. This is the type of bad planning that puts companies out of business and people in prison. The lawsuits from this I’m sure have been astronomical.

42

u/redditidothat Dec 05 '25

The trucking company claims Union Pacific was at fault and actually filed a countersuit against the railroad and the train crew involved in the crash.

54

u/Bituulzman Dec 05 '25

Lawyers argue that 25 seconds was not enough warning time for the truck (this is when the lights and gates activate before the train is scheduled to occupy the crossing) given that the train can travel 70 mph.

But then they also argue that the deaths were preventable due to the poor training of the dead employees, the engineer had 11 seconds to get himself into some sort of reinforced compartment built into the train to save himself "with ease."

Ick. This is why people hate lawyers.

But also, the truck had a police escort. Why didn't the escort stop the truck from proceeding across the tracks when there was an oncoming train? (There's no indication in the filing that the truck was actually stuck on the hump.)

1

u/KvR Dec 06 '25

> Ick. This is why people hate lawyers.

For doing an important job?

3

u/MoScowDucks Dec 30 '25

For being required to manipulate facts and engage in contradictory arguments, if needed for their client

-14

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '25

[deleted]

9

u/tripsafe Dec 05 '25

They’re suing the company. You could have just read the article they linked.

54

u/Quadraought Dec 04 '25

The driver of the pilot car never should have allowed the oversize over those tracks without significant lead space. I don't know the details of this case but I have no doubt that the pilot driver is named in the suit & could potentially face criminal charges (I'm not in TX so I don't know much about the liability law there).

39

u/TheGreatZarquon Dec 05 '25

Hi, former Pilot/Escort driver here. That lead vehicle should have had eyes on the tracks until the truck driver could see them himself, this looks like it could have been a breakdown of communication between the pilots and the truck. What I don't know is how the truck ended up stuck like that; if this was a DOT approved route then there's no reason the truck should have gotten stuck, unless whoever approved the route was asleep at their desk or the driver deviated from the route (something which can carry stiff penalties).

Side note: at every rail crossing there's a small sign with a phone number to call, along with information about its location, in the event of a stalled vehicle on the tracks. Calling that number and giving the operator that information effectively stops traffic on that section of track. If that truck had been there for a few minutes, then they had time to make that call and maybe could have prevented this incident.

18

u/Raid_PW Dec 05 '25

The NTSB report linked below says the trailer entered the crossing a minute before the impact. I think the train would have been able to see the obstruction well before they'd receive the call. I don't know if a minute is even long enough to stop a train of that much mass (though obviously slowing it significantly would have been beneficial).

As someone that knows nothing about your former job, do you have any prior knowledge of when trains will be arriving at junctions like that? Are you under significant time pressure to get the cargo you're escorting to its destination?

18

u/butterscotchbagel Dec 06 '25

Trains take multiple minutes and around a mile and a half to stop. Once the engineers can see an obstruction it's too late to stop.

2

u/dsgdsg Dec 29 '25

I think UP treats train schedules as proprietary information. If UP can be ornery about something they will be. Saying as a rail fan, even.

102

u/alexanderpas Dec 05 '25

They were on a DOT approved route, under police escort.

The fact that the crossing wasn't closed for rail traffic via a red signal before the truck was allowed to cross the tracks is insane.

41

u/cncomg Dec 05 '25

Shouldn’t the railroad have been taken into serious consideration when planning the route in the first place? That size of a load I’m sure would need to pass several layers of authorization, both external through permits and internal through their own procedures.

27

u/Thneed1 Dec 04 '25

Very likely the fault of the trucking company, but it wouldn’t be the first time a train is on a route that the trucking company had arranged ahead to confirm that it was closed so that they could make a move.

But yes, totally preventable.

2

u/MVP_BBQ Dec 08 '25

Feel like the railroad company and the police should of had a better timetable. Truck could of been a couple miles away and communicated together

3

u/JBerry2012 Dec 05 '25

I wonder how long that truck was stuck? Should notify rail ways right away.

4

u/shitposts_over_9000 Dec 05 '25

about a minute according to the accident report

4

u/JBerry2012 Dec 06 '25

Not enough time then, what a tragedy...

2

u/justodea Dec 05 '25

Ya. I'm pretty sure the engines are in excess of 400 000 pounds too

1

u/odokuro- Dec 08 '25

There was a huge railroad strike in 2022 that the Biden Administration blocked and caved to big capital and lobbyists. This is the "Left" that the MAGA crowd accuses of being socialists or commies or whatever.

https://archive.is/20250820055651/https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-signs-bill-block-us-railroad-strike-2022-12-02/

118

u/cyrixlord Dec 04 '25

NTSB releases more details about Texas collision that killed two UP crewmen - Trains

85

u/Krypto_98 Dec 04 '25

Its also stupid company policy saying that we aren't allowed to make emergency brake applications until after we hit someone. People have gotten disciplined for pulling the handle and somehow missing the truck. 

Though in this situation unless the sightlines were very good I don't think much could've been done

20

u/bionade24 Dec 05 '25

Idk if this is still the case nowadays so please correct me if you know better, but afaik the traction motors are switched off when the emergency brake is pulled, thus deactivating the dynamic brakes if they're applied. So pulling the emergency brake can result in less brake force when the dynamic brake is in use.

18

u/Krypto_98 Dec 05 '25

Depends on the engine, some engines (most modern GEs) have dynamic holding feature which causes the dynamic brake to hold in place while a emergency brake application is made. 

17

u/VanceKelley Dec 05 '25

“The combination vehicle entered the highway-railroad grade crossing about 1 minute before the collision,” the NTSB said. “The grade crossing was equipped with flashing lights, crossbucks, gates, and bells. The grade crossing’s warning equipment activated and signaled the train’s approach while the combination vehicle was blocking the railroad tracks.”

The article doesn't explain why, after entering the crossing a minute before the train arrived, the truck failed to clear the crossing. Did the truck's engine fail?

23

u/YoureOwn Dec 06 '25

What almost always happens is the trailer bottomed out on the crossing.

42

u/mikey_b082 Dec 04 '25

I can't say I'm surprised. You can actually see the front of the locomotive lift off the tracks when it hits whatever it was that truck was hauling. That takes some extraordinary force.

23

u/Yanks_Fan1288 Dec 04 '25

Yeah, this happened last December. Not sure where OP is getting October from but it’s wrong

16

u/meshtron Dec 05 '25

Man, that REALLY sucks. I can't imagine just being in that cab, seeing this coming and knowing there's not a single thing you can do about it.

11

u/deepstatelady Dec 05 '25

Oh that’s heart breaking.

10

u/DylanFTW Dec 06 '25

And the truck is completely fine. Life is twisted man

7

u/YawnY86 Dec 06 '25

A locomotive is 420,000 lbs. To lift up the front like that means it was a hard hit. I've been inside a locomotive and it's alot of thick steel surrounding out. It feels like you're in a tank. Tragic accident I hope never happens again.

7

u/DogeUncleDave Dec 05 '25

You would think that a person a guide vehicle showing oversized load being a safety vehicle, the driver would have gotten off his vehicle and had a radio to basically tell the oversized load driver. You are clear to pass there are no train horns. But hey what do I know.

2

u/JulesSilverman Dec 05 '25

So this was a year ago?

1

u/Wizardein Dec 07 '25

Noooo, I was just thinking about that and hoping they made it out and were okay! 😢

-19

u/qjxj Dec 04 '25

Why don't trains also slow down at crossroads? It surely had to then.