Midland train crash
2012 railroad accident in Texas
The Midland train crash was a rail crossing accident that occurred on November 15, 2012 in Midland, Texas. A freight train struck a flatbed trailer being used as a parade float carrying 26 passengers (12 of them United States Armed Forces veterans who had been wounded in action), killing four and injuring 16. The parade was en route to a veterans' benefit sponsored by the local charity Show of Support/Hunt for Heroes.
Accident
At 4:36 p.m. on November 15, 2012, an eastbound Union Pacific Railroad freight train hauling intermodal containers, led by Union Pacific ES44AC locomotive no. 7877, Union Pacific SD70ACe 8497, Norfolk Southern C40-9W 8934, and Union Pacific ES44AC 7653, traveling 62 miles per hour (100 km/h) en route to Shreveport, Louisiana from Los Angeles, California, struck a flat-bed semi-trailer that was acting as a parade float. Of the float's 26 passengers, 12 were US Armed Forces veterans that had been wounded in action, 12 were the spouses of the veterans, and two were civilian escorts. The impact killed two veterans immediately and two more died later at Midland Memorial Hospital; sixteen other passengers were injured. The truck driver – Dale Hayden, a 24-year US Army veteran – survived, as did the train crew – Simon "Trey" Terrazas and Nathan Scott.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made a statement expressing condolences to the victims.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6842479. Authority coordinates are 31.986, -102.093. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “Midland train crash” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.