Texas leads the nation in the number of train collisions involving vehicles and people -- many of them occurring in South Texas.

But there are vigorous efforts by Union Pacific Railroad and San Antonio Police to warn drivers and pedestrians about the dangers.

In 2010 there were more than 2,000 collisions involving trains in the U.S. -- 211 in Texas alone.

To cut down on such crashes, Union Pacific stages events called UP Cares, where they work with police to issue citations to drivers violating the law regarding railroad tracks.

The hope is that those citations will help spread the word about what to drivers should do when coming to a railroad crossing.

In one such event recently, the railroad met with police at Time Warner Cable Park to watch crossings along Wetmore Road.

The train ran back and forth from Broadway to Thousand Oaks Drive to Stahl Road with a traffic sergeant in the cab watching as officers on motorcycles and in cars stood by waiting to ticket violators.

Officers did not just look for cars running around the crossing arms.

It is also illegal for drivers to stop on the  tracks and to go past the flashing red lights.

"Yeah, three,” said San Antonio police Sgt. Mike Brown, of the department's Traffic Divisio,n as he peered through binoculars at drivers crossing the train tracks ahead. “There's three violations right there."

And there was no shortage of drivers tempting fate, including cars and trailers parked on the tracks.

Police and the railroad want to spread the message to obey the rules at railroad crossings.

"We have tragedies that occur every year," Brown said. "Last year I believe we had about 12 vehicle strikes and about 8 to 10 pedestrian strikes with trains"

Raquel Espinoza is with Union Pacific Railroad and said San Antonio has its share of accidents.

"Your life is not worth risking just to save a couple of minutes," Espinoza said.

She cautions drivers to remember that tons and tons of steel traveling 50 mph can cause a lot of damage.

During this UP Cares operation, 74 citations were handed out for railroad crossing violations in just a couple of hours.