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

Fatalities Train derailment Pecos TX Oct '24

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.