Western Railroad Discussion > UP derailment near Lacoste, Texas

Looks like it's been a bad day out along the UP in Texas today. In addition to the two derailments reported previously, they derailed the MEGBZC (Manifest, Eagle Pass, TX to Nicholas, TX/Brazos Yard) on the Sunset Route outside of Lacoste (west of San Antonio). A railfan peer was out chasing this train at the time and witnessed the derailment in his rear view mirror -- he is okay fortunately (just understandably shaken!), as is the crew.

The power stayed on the tracks, but there are a lot of cars on the ground. These are his photos from the scene, shared with permission. 

1) taken shortly before the derailment

2) the derailed cars blocking the road

3) Driving alongside the scene on the other side of the tracks

Looks like around 10 or 12 cars on the ground, all at the head end of the train. Lacoste is on a steep downhill grade going eastbound, so I suspect there were potentially some train handling/makeup issues here, but I don't want to speculate much further.

Maybe the UP/NS merger will create lots of jobs after all -- in the derailment cleanup industry ;) 

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4) The grade profile coming into Lacoste -- bottom to top = west to east (this train was an eastbound)

5) The rough location of the derailment

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/26 15:59 by atx_railfan.

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There has been a long string of days above 100 degrees.  In fact it has been 105- 109 this week, so may be sun kink in some of these derailments.

There is a steep grade coming down into Lacoste, but the pinned location is much closer to Macdona and is actually near the top of a shallow hump in the grade that is shown in the profile.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR