By Rick Shapiro, Injured Railroad Worker Attorney and FELA Specialist

A conductor crewing a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train traveling through the small town of Navasota, Texas (TX), lost his life when he struck his head on the crossbeam of a railroad bridge and fell from the locomotive. According to a report from the United Transportation Union (UTU), to which the BNSF employee belonged, the conductor had been leaning over the running board of his moving locomotive to check a fuel level sight gauge when he was killed in this on-the-job accident.

The Bryan-College Station Eagle identified the deceased rail worker as 41-year-old Stacy Lee Rieger of Lumberton, TX, and noted that both BNSF and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the workplace accident. At the risk of being presumptuous, but also as an attorney who has represented railroad employees and their survivors in injury and wrongful death lawsuits for nearly 25 years, allow me to tell the rail company and the federal safety officials why the conductor was killed on the job: The sight gauge was located outside the crew cab, placed in such a position that he had to risk his safety to get an accurate reading.

Investigators may discover that the conductor performed his visual check at the wrong time or that he extended his head and body beyond the distance deemed safe for standard operating procedures. Neither finding would be relevant, however, because the gauge’s placement made checking it while under way inherently dangerous.

Throughout my decades of helping plaintiffs in Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), Locomotive Inspection Act, and Safety Appliance Act cases, I have consistently held railroads to their strict liability for protecting workers. Rail corporation fail their employees when they supply poorly designed equipment, and that leaves companies such as BNSF and, in my hometown of Norfolk, Virginia (VA), Norfolk Southern, CSX and Amtrak, responsible for any workplace accident attributable to equipment that cannot be used or operated safely. And even if the equipment itself is fine, federal laws require all equipment to be safely accessible. Certainly, the location of the sight gauge would leave anyone shaking their heads bemusedly.

EJL

About the Editors: The Virginia- and Carolina-based attorneys at Shapiro, Lewis & Appleton have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases and of helping victims of rail crossing accidents. Lawyers at our firm have served as chairmen of the railroad section of the American Association for Justice, the largest national victim’s injury attorney organization, and one of our attorneys wrote a major legal encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Be sure to get your free reports about railroad injury, disease and wrongful death FELA cases: The Do’s and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). Also, our railroad injury lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, FELA Attorney in Virginia

As a Virginia-based attorney who specializes in representing railroad employees who get injured on the job and helping rail workers’ families recover fair compensation when a loved one loses his or her life due to a rail company’s negligence, I make it my business to stay up to date on accidents in rail yards, on tracks and aboard trains. Still, I was taken aback by the first line of an e-mail I just received from a fellow layer who handles personal injury and wrongful deaths cases brought under the provisions of the Federal Employers Liability Act, or FELA.

Here’s that shocking sentence: “During the first six months of 2011, 37 serious injuries occurred during switching operations, resulting in three fatalities and eight amputations, while over the past two years, five rail workers have died in accidents involving rolling rail equipment.”

What this means is far too many lives have been shattered and ended by accidents in which rail workers have been struck by or crushed between rail cars and locomotives that have rolled back into each other or collided. Those dangers are ever-present for the engineers, conductors, switchmen and trackmen who must go between rolling stock to connect car and engines.

Organizations representing railroad employees such as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the United Transportation Union have long recognized the safety risks and have worked with the Federal Railroad Administration since the early 1990s to reduce the number of rollback and crush injuries and deaths. Now, the FRA has issued a 2011-2012 Safety Advisory about how rail employees can protect themselves while working between cars and locomotives.

As published in the October 11, 2011, Federal Register, the advisory urges workers and railroad corporations to

• Review current operating and safety rules that specifically address both remote control locomotive and conventional switching operations that require employees to go between rolling equipment, and determine whether those rules provide adequate protection to employees or need to be updated or revised.
• Develop, implement, and monitor sound communication protocols that require employees on multiperson switch crews to notify their fellow crewmembers when the need arises to enter between two pieces of rolling equipment — regardless of whether the employee is the primary RCO [remote control operator] or working on a conventional crew.
• Review the Switching Operations Fatality Analysis (SOFA) Safety Recommendation 1, Adjusting Knuckles, Adjusting Drawbars, and Installing End of Train Devices [please follow the link] and communicate its procedures implementing that recommendation to employees working in yards or other locations where the possibility of entering between rolling equipment exists.
• Convey to employees that their own personal safety is their responsibility and that railroad management supports and encourages those employees that make safety their number one priority, regardless of their immediate assignment.
• Convey to employees that they should encourage fellow employees to perform their tasks safely and in compliance with established railroad rules and procedures.

The recommendations and reminders from FRA apply equally to Amtrak, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and all other long- and short-haul passenger and freight railroads. And while the advice for workers to take responsibility for their own on-the-job safety is apt, the rail companies truly do bear the ultimate responsibility for developing and enforcing procedures and practices that put employees at the least risk for suffering injuries or getting killed.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper, Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, FELA Attorney in Virginia

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway has been ordered by a jury to pay a Billings, Montana (MT), railroad engineer who suffered a permanent back injury after tripping over a radio headset cord while operating a BNSF locomotive. Ten years after the 2001 workplace accident, the man continues to suffer high degrees of pain and may have to take medical retirement because of the herniated discs in his back.

One thing I found particularly interesting about this case is how unprofessionally lawyers and executives for BNSF acted. I learned from the engineer’s attorneys, Montana-based Jon Moyers and Russ Yerger, that the defense

• Inappropriately contacted the engineer’s treating physician
• Got rid of the radio cord so it couldn’t be admitted into evidence
• Tried to hide other evidence and  misrepresent statements already given as part of the discovery process, and
• Took disciplinary actions against the engineer that were clearly related to the injured man’s chronic pain from his on-the-job injury and the filling of his lawsuit for compensation.

Railroads often try to deny liability for employees’ injuries, and my Virginia (VA) and North  Carolina (NC) FELA attorney colleagues and I have written about several cases of rail companies retaliating against and trying to intimidate workers who report workplace injuries and unsafe working conditions. It is in the interests of corporations to not fairly compensate its employee’s for harms the corporations caused or allowed to happen.

I’m glad BNSF was not successful in deterring this engineer from exercising his legal rights and holding the railroad accountable. I congratulate my fellow railroad employee injury attorneys on securing this verdict for the engineer.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, Virginia FELA Plaintiff’s Attorney

Injuries may have been avoided when the crew of a Norfolk Southern freight train hauling agricultural products intentionally derailed near Ridgeway, Virginia (VA), on the night of August 13, 2011. The engineer and other rail employees felt they had no choice but to jump the tracks when they spotted a large object that had been placed on the rails. Knowing a derailment might cause them injuries, they took that smaller risk over the greater danger from hitting the obstruction.

According to a report on the intentional derailing in the Martinsville Bulletin, the crew did well to keep most of the rail cars on the track when they steered the locomotive off its course. This prevented a spill and limited property damage. Most importantly, none of the crew members got killed. Railroads always claim that no injuries occurred before really knowing if or how badly their workers may be hurt.

If you suddenly got thrown around in a metal box connected to hundreds of tons of shifting weight, don’t you think you might be injured at least a little? But before you even got to go home, supervisors would circle and encourage you not to go to the doctor unless you were bleeding out of your eyes. A doctor or emergency room visit would create paperwork and threaten everyone’s no-injury bonuses, the higher-ups would argue.

Police determined that the object, which they did not identify, had been set on the tracks on purpose. By the Thursday following the accident, three boys between the ages of 12 and 14 had been arrested and charged with the class 6 felony of obstructing a railroad. Even though the children apparently did not want to injure or kill anyone, they could still face penalties of up 5 years in jail and fines of $2,500.

Those potential punishments may strike some as harsh, but if the boys did try to sabotage the NS train and its crew, what the youngsters did was no less than put the engineer’s, conductor’s and trackman’s lives at risk. Train derailments, whether intentional or accidental, often injure and kill people on the train and others living, working or just nearby when a train leaves its tracks.

As a Virginia personal injury attorney who has represented railroad employees injured on the job, I’m glad that no one died in the accident near Ridgeway, VA. I hope that anyone learning about the threat to life and limb created by the incident will refrain from doing anything similar in the future.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, Virginia Railroad Accident FELA Lawyer

Firm FELA lawyer Rick Shapiro was featured in the American Association of Justice’s Experts and Evidence publication. The American Association for Justice wrote an article about Ricks’ $8.6 million jury verdict in a railroad worker wrongful death suit. Rick battled CSX, the defendant railroad company, for more than four years and went through a two-week trial to finally get justice for his client. The recognition he received from AAJ is well-deserved.

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, VA FELA Lawyer

Fellow attorney Rick Shapiro recently published an article about mesothelioma cancer that may have been caused by asbestos exposure at the workplace. Rick explores the emotional trauma that can be inflicted on a family who has a family member that is stricken with mesothelioma after devoting his or her life to working on the railroad. To learn more, check out this informative article on asbestos-related mesothelioma cancer claims here.

By Randy Appleton, Railroad Injury/FELA Attorney

A local television report on a grade crossing crash between a Union Pacific freight train and a tractor-trailer hauling a flatbed in northeastern Arkansas focuses on how the truck driver escaped injury, only spilling his coffee. The video below also makes passing mention of several similar collisions between semis and trains at that particular track-highway intersection, which has no warning lights or gates.

For more information, go to KAIT-8

A newspaper account of the collision at the intersection of U.S. 49 and Greene County Road 805 just north of Paragould, AR, in The (Columbus, IN) Republic, however, tell the fuller story of an injury to the conductor aboard the UP train. The extent of the injuries suffered by the railroad employee are not known, but the accident illustrates many of the risks for injuries and death conductors, engineers and other crew members face as they take their trains through multiple poorly marked and largely uncontrolled grade crossings each day.

First, the truck driver drove his rig into the path of the oncoming train because he had no immediate warning of the impending danger. With no lights or gates in place, the driver could only have seen the approaching train if he had stopped and looked both ways down the track. While he may have done this — reports are unclear — the driver explained that the sun blinded him to the extent that he never saw the train. Trees and brush also obscure part of the rail right-of-way.

Second, once a car or truck is on the tracks, it is often far too late for conductors and engineers to stop and avoid a crash. The semi driver may not have seen the train, but it’s likely that the UP saw the truck. Even so, the crash was all but an inevitability once the truck driver made his vehicle a target.

Last, the tractor-trailer may have sustained the most damage from this crash, but impacts between big rigs and trains are felt quite strongly in locomotives. Any broken bones, head or neck injury, or brain trauma a person might sustain in a traffic accident can be sustained just as easily by a conductor, engineer or train crew member in an accident at a grade crossing.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, Virginia Railroad Worker Injury Attorney

CSX plans to invest $160 million to improve its ability to move freight from the Port of Virginia at Hampton Roads to the Midwest. These improvements a part of CSX’s $860 million National Gateway project, which was established to help create a more efficient freight transportation link between the mid-Atlantic ports and the Midwest, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

As part of the renovation project, CSX plans to eliminate two footbridges across its tracks in Richmond – the Blue Shingles Lane footbridge in North Richmond and the footbridge at Platinum Road in South Richmond. CSX will also build a rail support yard at Kilby in Suffolk, VA.

CSX is making this investment partly because the railroad company expects a sharp increase in seaborne cargo moving through Virginia as a result of the Panama Canal’s expansion in the next four years.

It is good to see CSX making improvements to the VA rail system, but it would be even better if CSX invested a similar amount of money to take care of their sick and seriously injured rail employees. Numerous CSX employees have contracted life-threatening diseases like mesothelioma after devoting most of their lives to CSX.

For example, firm attorney Rick Shapiro secured an $8.6 million jury verdict for a CSX rail worker who lost his life after contracting lung cancer. It took Rick four years to get a jury verdict in this case. And even then, CSX appealed the jury verdict in an effort to drag out the litigation process. That is why it is so important for injured rail workers to have quality legal representation that is willing to take their case all the way to trial to achieve justice.

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, Railroad Injury Attorney

Six years after a Norfolk Southern chemical tanker train car derailed and released a deadly cloud of chlorine gas in Graniteville, South Carolina (SC), the railroad has been ordered to reimburse its insurer for $58 million paid out to the survivors of the nine town residents who lost their lives and to the more than 250 rail employees and others injured by the spill. NS had fought against paying that bill because it claimed it had already incurred hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses for compensating victims of the toxic chemical accident.

This derailed Norfolk Southern train released chlorine gas that killed nine and injured more than 250 in Graniteville, South Carolina.

From a strictly business perspective, it makes sense that NS would not want to continue paying for its mistake, even though the rail operator has been consistently reporting strong to record quarterly profits over the past few years. I’ve written more than once about the railroad’s preference for profits over people’s safety.

What bears particular mention in regards to the South Carolina chemical spill is the risks rail workers and people living and working close to train tracks face from poisonous and harmful fumes. Some of this risk is inherent in transporting ingredients required for everything from fertilizing farm fields and treating drinking water to producing plastics and other consumer goods. Because of that, however, rail operators must take every precaution against accidentally spilling or releasing chemicals. The companies should be even more protective of their employees who often cannot avoid exposure to chemicals that can damage their lungs, eyes and skin.

Norfolk Southern continues to learn an expensive lesson in how failing to haul chemicals safely can impact the bottom line. Too many people in South Carolina learned the more important lesson about the human cost of chemical spills. In a better world, NS would convert its dollars into sense, willingly pay fair compensation to the families they harmed, and spend whatever time and money it needed to in order to prevent future tragedies.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm with a long history of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers hold licenses in VA, NC, SC, WV, KY and DC and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, including Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Furthermore, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.

By John Cooper, Railroad Injury Attorney

My colleague, Richard Shapiro, recently wrote about how Norfolk Southern (NS) public relations folks claim sincerity and concern when it comes to employee safety. That doesn’t seem to be the case, however.  Find out more about how molten sulfur being carried in a NS rail car in Roanoke, Virginia (VA), badly injured three workers.

Check out these other articles on FELA and railroad injury cases:

• FELA Statute of Limitations
• Impact of Safety Appliance Act Regulations on Railroad Worker Injury Cases

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm with a long history of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers hold licenses in VA, NC, SC, WV, KY and DC and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, including Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Furthermore, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.