My WAG is that nearly all insurance carriers are going to say that they will NOT cover any lawsuits brought by individuals who sue saying they became infected at your facility regardless of how faithfully you have or have not followed guidelines.

Therefore it seems to me that until we all get vaccinated ( mid 2021 best case??) there's no point in opening. Use the next year to do all those projects you've been meaning to get to forever.

Just my 2 cents worth. Ross Rowland

Even with contact tracing its going to be very difficult to prove that a person contracted the virus at the tourist railroad vs. some some other place. There are going to be risks on everyone's part. If a railroad/museum has the cash to shut down indefinitely, that's fine but if every business has that attitude then it's only a matter of time before none of us have homes to shelter in place in anymore.

I'm part of the high risk group and I look forward to getting out and visiting some tourist railroads this year while taking precautions. I don't believe in hiding from the enemy without a game plan. There has never been a vaccine for any other coronavirus so I'm not going to assume this one is any different. For those that disagree then you have the right to stay home.

Dolce et decorum est pro museum morti.

With apologies to Wilfred Owen.

At the very least HRA has tried to help guide its members through a thought process during this difficult time. This is no different than what the American Alliance of Museums has also done. They are trying to apply, while pointing back toward the local, NIH, and CDC guidelines, what they see as information to assist in member organizations' desire to re-open as best as possible. There seems to be a real appetite out there for getting back to a more normal existence. In Atlanta, on Saturday, Zoo Atlanta re-opens with many of the recommendations that are following the spirit of the HRA and AAM guidelines. So is this perfect and what will shield any organization from nuisance legal actions for a certain percentage of society? NO. Then again those risks are always present. Just crank your car and drive away from home.... Most rail museums and tourist railroads will no doubt resume operations way before some of the gloom and doom set that post on social media and blogs agree with. These operations will have to do that to survive.

I look forward to visiting some of these operations this summer and will take the personal responsibility to provide what I deem is necessary to protect myself but I'm not going to stay home and worry. A life of fear is no life at all.

Indeed. Infection from exposure during a health emergency could fall under force major. That said, I’m not certain that there will be any economic benefit to opening, given the most recent economic reports. With the virus still running rampant in many places, over thirty million now unemployed and sales across the board having taken serious hits, I just don’t see this season being profitable. The stock market is probably headed for a downturn in the near future. A lot of people are pulling their money out of the market now. Food banks are reporting massive increases in demand for services.

Each organization must consider their local circumstances when considering when to reopen. Just because Seashore is reopening doesn’t mean that other organizations should open-their circumstances are not the same as yours. Unfortunately, we do not fully understand this Coronavirus and it will be around for some time. Any vaccine is at least a year away AT BEST. We certainly won’t have one before the coming school year. Those operations that do open might not have to worry about overcrowding as I fear that many people in our target demographic simply won’t have money to spare.

I can tell you right now that I do not plan on taking part in any activities for any group I belong to that try and do anything even somewhat "normal" for the rest of the year. I'm thinking that it might be possible to have a "picnic" of a kind if everyone brings their own food, lawn chair, mask, etc., and sits far enough apart outdoors with a breeze of some kind blowing for a few hours. I don't see any large group events happening where people are going to have to work close together to say, move picnic tables, or machinery of any kind, even live steam-size equipment. I'm doing this mostly for my 90+y/o parents and their fellow retirement village residents, not mostly for myself. There's a line from a war movie that might apply to what we are experiencing, from the 1949 movie Twelve O'Clock High, where Gregory Peck's Brig. Gen. Frank Savage tells his B-17 crews, "Think of yourselves as already dead. It will make doing the job easier. If you get home, fine, if not fine". The attrition rate for those crews approached 35% averaged out for the entire European campaign, and the odds of getting back from any given mission were a little over 25%. We're not quite that bad off, but if large numbers of the populace give up trying to prevent the spread we could get close to that.

Note that the Atlanta Zoo is only opening outdoor exhibits. Its buildings and rides will be closed, which means no riding the zoo train. Here's a May 14, 2020 article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Zoo Atlanta to reopen Saturday with coronavirus safeguards

Personally, I'm watching Disney and the other big theme park operators since (1) I presume they know much more about public health and risk assessment than I do and (2) they are not running in an election. None of the big Orlando parks have asked to open yet.

Here's a May 15, 20202 article in The Orlando Sentinel: Disney, Universal and SeaWorld need Mayor Jerry Demings’ approval to reopen. They haven’t asked yet.

I am very skeptical about any attempt to reinstate train rides at this point. It may well be that NONE of the parks reopen until the fall (if even then). For the park operators, there’s no point in going through the time consuming and expensive process of reopening if a majority of your target audience doesn’t have the money to spend on travel, much less on park fees and sundries.

My personal opinion is that many folks do not (or refuse to) recognize that for many Americans, travel or spending money on anything other than necessities is going to be an unaffordable luxury for some time to come. The Great Depression didn’t hit its peak unemployment rate of 24.9% until 1933-four years after the stock market crashed. We’ve on a course to exceed that and it’s only been four or five months. All of the key economic indicators are very, very bad. A lot of business failures are yet to come and a lot of businesses aren’t going to reopen either. We’re definitely in a recession now and it’s likely to get much, much worse for a large percentage of our fellow Americans. The essential spending the federal and state governments are doing now can only last so long and it will ultimately have to be paid back, with interest. Look for a long period of financial austerity in government budgets to follow.

A first approximation of how many passengers a passenger car can carry while practicing "social distancing" can be made by seeing how many passengers a bus of equivalent length can carry. Admittedly, the seating arrangements of railroad cars may differ from those of a bus, but this might be a good start for planning.

AC Transit (the local transit provider based in Oakland, CA) uses the attached table of number of passengers for buses of various lengths.

So we’re looking at about fifteen passengers for many coaches, given that most seating layouts have anywhere from ten to twenty feet of space that is unusable for seating. The length that counts is the length of the passenger seating compartment, not the overall length of the car.

Both Amtrak and NJ Transit are limiting rail to 50% of capacity.

SEPTA has the following limits:

To ensure there is sufficient space for customers to exercise social distancing, the maximum number of riders per vehicle is limited as follows:
Bus: 40 ft. maximum 20 customers
Articulated maximum 30 customers
Routes 204, 310, 311, LUCY Gold/LUCY Green maximum 10 customers [these are 30 ft. buses-pm]
Trolley: maximum 25 customers
Norristown High Speed Line: maximum 30 customers

On rail, seats will be marked off to help demonstrate the distance that customers should keep from each other.

Service returns on all Bus*, Trolley, Market Frankford, Broad Street and Norristown High Speed Line Routes following the timetables in effect before the COVID-19 crisis began.

Service on most Regional Rail lines will remain suspended.

Phil Mulligan

Of course there are variables. For example an interurban combine with a baggage compartment would have to have its "effective length" reduced by the length of the compartment, toilet compartments similarly would reduce capacity, etc.. And maybe members of a family group could cluster together and raise capacity.

AC Transit doesn't use the total length of the bus for seating, they block off a significant distance behind the driver. Passengers board through the back door of the bus and don't even pay fare since they can't get to the farebox which is near the driver.

We all wish to see the day when we can run trains. But the fact we are missing is how many of our volunteers are gonna wanna actually come back. Trust me I miss being on the train as much as the next guy. The CVSR has lost a few volunteers to age an most of our trainmen or conductors are up there in age. I want to say I’m the youngest trainman at 23. An I have no interest in signing up on september 30th if we are just gonna relive the dying days of passenger service with 30 ppl on a 12 car train. But we have to see the organizations survive this. As most of the people who ride are trains are either retired an miss the days of a bygone era or are bringing there children to ride the train.

The recommended practices are just that, recommended. There’s no guarantee, and it’s on a case by case basis.

I know of an operation that is getting ready to reopen soon, authorities permitting. Meanwhile many others have said “see you in the fall, or Christmas or next year!”

Some states are re-opening. Meanwhile, the entire city of Gallup, NM was placed under lockdown, with the national guard enforcing it and limiting it to residents only. I’m reading conflicting reports on whether that’s been lifted.

Also, time for a cold hard reality check. How long has your area been in lockdown. How long have people been unemployed? Yes, start planning now, as you have a long road ahead. But in many cases you’ll likely be planning for Christmas trains or how to get donations so you can get to next year. Right now? Many are on very tight budgets and fun isn’t top priority.

I’m in Seattle and every event I can think of is canceled. The State Fair is in September, it’s already canceled. No sports, nothing.

Speaking of sports, they may be a good thing to observe. When sports events re-open, see what they do and how attendance is. When people are comfortable with going to the ball game again, then it’s time to consider re-opening your museum. Let the millionaires go first and show how it’s done.

But, as I said, it’s very regional. Seattle is locked down tight. We can’t even get haircuts or eat in a restaurant. (Take our only) Other places are far less restrictive.

I'm inclined to agree. There is an article in the Washington Post by (conservative) writer Max Boot today who said that if FDR and the others leading our WWII effort had the same attitude as today, complaining that rationing and curfews are unpopular, declaring victory and quitting early etc., "this article would be written in German."

Better six feet apart than six feet under.