Although railroad regulation and a decrease in the number of un-gated railroad crossings has led to fewer railroad crossing collisions, the increased rail congestion resulting from higher fuel prices has led to increased danger of derailment and collisions with trains. According to the most recent statistics available from the National Transportation Safety Board, 896 people were killed and 8,402 people were injured in railroad related accidents in 2004 alone. While the installation of lights and gates at crossings has generally made crossings safer, more than half of all railroad crossings in Texas still have no lights or gates, and lights and gates which do exist, like other man-made devices, can sometimes fail. There are more than 16,000 railroad crossings in the state of Texas. More than half of all crossings have no lights or gates to warn that a train is approaching.

Injury cases involving rail carriers can be very complex, due to the tangled web of federal regulation, industry standards, and federal pre-emption law which must be sorted out to evaluate the merits of a case, and to determine the remedies available.

Few attorneys are qualified to handle the complexity of a railroad case. Robert S. Hogan, for the last several years, has devoted a significant portion of his professional practice to handling railroad grade crossing cases, and other rail safety matters. Mr. Hogan is also active in the railroad litigation section of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), and has been a featured speaker on railroad litigation at the American Association for Justice’s national convention.