page_title: Union Pacific Railroad
section_title: San Antonio area
hierarchical_section_title: Union Pacific Railroad / Notable accidents / 21st century / San Antonio area
caption_attribution_description: English: Ariel Image of Union Pacific train derailment in Macdona, Texas, a rural community near San Antonio.
context_page_description: The Union Pacific Railroad, legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over 32,200 miles routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. The Union Pacific Railroad system is the second largest in the United States after BNSF and is one of the world's largest transportation companies. The Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of the Union Pacific Corporation, both headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. The president of Union Pacific since 2015 is Lance Fritz.
  Founded in 1862, the original Union Pacific Rail Road was part of the First Transcontinental Railroad project, later known as the Overland Route. The railroad was absorbed by the Union Pacific Railway in 1880, which was absorbed by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1897. Over the next century, UP absorbed the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company, the Western Pacific Railroad, the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.
context_section_description: On June 28, 2004, a UP train collided with an idle BNSF train in a San Antonio suburb. In the course of the derailment, a 90-ton tank car carrying liquified chlorine was punctured. As the chlorine vaporized, a toxic "yellow cloud" formed, killing three and causing 43 hospitalizations. The costs of cleanup and property damaged during the incident exceeded $7 million. 
  Investigations of the Macdona incident revealed several serious safety lapses on the part of the Union Pacific and its employees, including employees not following the company's own safety rules. While the immediate cause of the derailment was the UP crew's "fatigue," chlorine tank cars had been improperly placed near the front of the train, a danger in the case of derailment.
  The Macdona incident was not the first derailment in the San Antonio area. Between May and November 1994, Union Pacific trains derailed five times, killing at least 4 people. Between June 2004 and March 2005, 10 trains derailed, killing as many people.
  In the aftermath of Macdona, the Federal Railroad Administration signed a compliance agreement with the railroad in which the railroad promised to rectify the "notable deficiencies" that regulators found. But the relative impunity UP seemed to exhibit regarding the derailment led to suggestions that the FRA was far "too cozy...to the railroads." In March 2005, Texas Governor Rick Perry supported a plan to reroute trains around large urban population centers in Texas, including San Antonio, but such a plan was purely voluntary and had no timetable associated.
  Trains have continued to derail in the area including an incident in June 2009 where tank cars containing chlorine and petroleum naptha xylene derailed, but did not spill.
caption: Deadly derailment in Macdona, Texas, on June 28, 2004.
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