PECOS, Texas — The Union Pacific train involved in Wednesday’s fatal derailment was going about 68 mph before beginning an emergency brake application, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement today (Friday, Dec. 20).
Maximum speed on most of UP’s Toyah Subdivision, including in Pecos, is 70 mph.
Two Union Pacific crew members were killed when the train hit a truck stopped on a grade crossing of U.S. Route 285 (Cedar Street) on Wednesday afternoon [see “Two crew members killed …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 19, 2024]. That truck was carrying an oversized load — a base for a wind turbine, which was thrown by the impact into the nearby Pecos Chamber of Commerce building, a former Texas & Pacific Railway station.
All four head-end locomotives and 25 intermodal well units derailed. The event recorder from the lead unit has been recovered and is being transported to the NTSB material lab in Washington.
Still to be determined, the NTSB said, is how long the truck was on the tracks prior to the collision or if anyone had attempted to contact the railroad through the emergency number posted on a placard at the crossing. The agency is also asking eyewitnesses or anyone with video of the collision to contact the NTSB at witness@ntsb.gov.
The agency will release a preliminary investigation report within 30 days. A final report will take 12 to 24 months.
Meanwhile, Joe Keese, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, told KOSA-TV that he and two other people were in the building at the time of the derailment.
“I thought I was going to die,” Keese said. “For the grace of God, we’re still here. … I put my back against the wall and stood there while the building fell around us, and what we didn’t realize is the train kept coming, because those cars kept piling up on top of each other. It was banging the front wall.”
Keese was uninjured; his assistant had problems from dust inhalation, he said, while a schoolteacher who was also in the office was thrown into a desk and injured. The Chamber of Commerce will be moving to a temporary home because of damage to the building, he said.
