PECOS — For Joe Keese, nothing had been out of the ordinary about that Wednesday last December. A teacher from the nearby elementary school had stopped by the Chamber of Commerce to pick up some stickers for her classroom, which Keese, then the chamber’s president, helped with. As the clock neared 5 o’clock, the chamber’s administrator tidied up for the day in the neighboring office — then she looked out the window.
“Is that a rocket?” she asked.
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Keese, looking more closely, realized the massive object his administrator had mistaken for a rocket was a demethanizer tower, used for processing natural gas, on the bed of a motionless truck at a railroad crossing. And just beyond it, a freight train rode full-speed in its direction.
The train struck the lowboy tractor-trailer just seconds later, sending the giant container rolling through a parking lot before it slammed against the chamber’s building and obliterated its brick walls. Keese crawled through the debris amid a plume of smoke and dust, yelling out the names of his coworkers, Marina and Lorena. Once all three found each other, they walked out of the building, covered in debris.
“I was convinced I was dead,” Keese said. “As each of those rail cars were banging in, I said, ‘The next one’s coming in to get me. We’re dead. We’re all dead.’”
By the time the three came to, the frenzy of the aftermath had begun to set in. People in nearby downtown trickled out of stores. First responders, police officers, the sheriff and his deputies swarmed the scene. Two train workers were dead. And the busy oil field traffic, unable to drive through the crossing, turned to their only alternative: residential neighborhoods. Within minutes, Pecos had been engulfed in crisis.
A year after the collision, resident and local government officials said they remain vulnerable to more crashes and deaths.
What’s worse, these same West Texans spent nearly two decades warning state officials that such incidents were bound to occur — a premonition that became true last year.
To be sure, this is only the second train derailment in Pecos since 1973. But the oil business in Pecos has boomed since then. The amount of traffic has ballooned. The local officials who’ve spent the last two decades trying to avoid a major accident like the one on Dec. 18, 2024, said the state should provide them with more support and equip Pecos. They argue the town is a key to the industry that contributes to the state’s wealth through oil and gas production taxes.
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More specifically, county and city government officials had been campaigning for an alternative bypass, called a relief route, to redirect the spiking industrial traffic. They also appealed to Union Pacific, a railroad company operating roughly 7,700 locomotives across 32,000 miles in the U.S., to consider lowering speed limits and spending less time stopped at the town’s railroad crossing.
The town hasn’t gotten either concession. Union Pacific maintains that its speed limits adhere to federal regulations. And Texas Department of Transportation officials said the agency is still scouring its $146 billion budget within its 10-year plan to pay for an alternative bypass to alleviate the industrial traffic congestion in town. TxDOT estimates the project to cost $194 million.
“We’ve been frustrated for a long time because this should have been handled a long time ago,” said Venetta Seals, a City Council member who served as mayor from 2010 to 2019. “Sometimes we feel like we’re the redheaded stepchild west of I-35.”
A blessing, curse
Pecos is an oilfield town of 12,000 people, about 100 miles southwest of Midland. At least 15,000 trucks drive through there daily, City Manager Charles Lino said. That places a tremendous strain on its roads.
Truckers plow along Interstate 20, which runs east and west, and Highway 285 — also known as death highway by locals for its high number of vehicle accidents — which goes north and south.
Local officials have for years attempted to rein in the frenzied, industrial traffic by passing more than 100 ordinances and codes, including those that govern where truckers can park and on which roads they can drive, Lino said. But the truckers don’t always follow the rules, and the city’s law enforcement isn’t nearly staffed enough to keep up with the traffic.
“The oil and gas industry is a blessing to our economy and a curse to our infrastructure,” Lino said. “Our roads are not built for those types of vehicles, and it’s one of the reasons why we try to police as much as we can and keep them off of our residential streets, because they just tear them up.”
They tried to regulate the train industry as well — with no luck. In 2017, the city council passed an ordinance reducing the amount of time a train could stop at a railroad crossing to avoid traffic jams. A violation incurs up to $2,000 in fines. Union Pacific, which the city fined four times, did not pay the fees. And although local officials have floated the idea of imposing speed limits, they have no authority to do so.
A relief route could alleviate much of that pressure, Lino said.
It’s unclear when local officials first asked about a relief route, though some officials point to as far as twenty years ago. A Texas Department of Transportation spokesperson said the agency held the first virtual public hearing in 2021. Increased traffic, the presence of hazardous materials transiting through town and issues with the railroad crossing prompted the discussions, the spokesperson said.
It is unclear why the project stalled.
The agency held two additional public hearings in 2025 — but only after the crash.
It will take the agency at least another six years before it can start building the road, TxDOT said. And even then, the new road would likely have to cross the train tracks farther east of town.
The agency, which held a round of public hearings in April, must first find the money, then map out the private property the relief route will pass through and work with landowners to secure that needed land. The agency must also work with utility companies in the area to make adjustments to other infrastructure to accommodate the road.
The two companies involved in the crash — Union Pacific and Boss Heavy Haul — said they were compliant with rules meant to keep residents safe while disputing each other’s account of the collision.
“The speed of our train, along with the timing of the crossing signal, was in full compliance with federal regulations,” a Union Pacific spokesperson said. “The crossing, which handles a high volume of truck traffic daily without incident, was also safe.”
Boss Heavy Haul pointed to a counterclaim the company filed earlier this month. It said Union Pacific had a history of incidents across Texas.
Litigation between the two is ongoing.
The Federal Railroad Administration, which regulates railroads and train companies, did not comment.
TxDOT is considering eight bypasses
Pecos and Reeves County are not the first localities to request a relief route.
Several cities across the state have requested roadway alternatives to alleviate traffic congestion. These proposals, which involve lengthy environmental studies, mapping and land acquisition, can take years to come to fruition — and on occasion, a town may decide to drop the discussion altogether. There are at least eight relief routes under consideration in TxDOT’s most recent 10-year plan.
In Fredericksburg, for instance, plans for a relief route had begun in the 1980s. According to local media coverage, the Central Texas project was started and stopped due to financial reasons. TxDOT officials began a formal study in 2017, followed by public engagement. In a 2019 report, city and state officials said the city had been “plagued by congestion.” Discussions about the $40 million ceased in 2022, as the city focuses on other transportation projects, a city spokesperson told The Texas Tribune.
In the Rio Grande Valley, officials said construction for a $240 million relief route would begin this month to alleviate traffic congestion, a project they said had been in the works for at least two decades.
And in Rogers, north of Austin, officials began discussions for a relief route in 2017. The new road, built to improve traffic mobility and safety, opened on Dec. 3.
State and local officials agreed that the town desperately needs a relief route. And they’re hoping they don’t have to wait longer than the current six-year timeline.
“National attention in a disaster situation is not anything that a community ever wants,” said Jerry Bullard, emergency management coordinator for Reeves County, referring to the derailment. “But it shed light on what we’ve been trying to emphasize for a long time.”
State Rep. Eddie Morales, D-Eagle Pass, represents the city and county, and said the traffic congestion in town “poses significant safety concerns.”
“Providing this relief route is essential on numerous fronts to improve the conditions in the city limits and improve safety across the board,” Morales said. “This has been an issue discussed for well over a decade, it’s past time to make it a reality.”
When that reality will come to fruition remains unclear.