Chehalis-Centralia RR & Museum Obtains Stop-Gap Insurance

Chris Webster · **Joined:** Sat Aug 25, 2007 12:45 am **Posts:** 1087

An article dated Friday, April 15, 2022 3:52 pm posted on The Chronicle's website:

Quote:

The Chehalis-Centralia Railroad and Museum (CCRM) successfully obtained premises-liability insurance last Friday, April 8, allowing railroad workers to return to work at the site.

The move marks the first step in the organization opening back up for revenue-generating rail passenger service after it closed down all operations on March 6.

CCRM lost its liability insurance in totality in March after its insurance broker could not obtain a new policy.

To resume rail operations, CCRM must secure rail liability insurance. With all four major rail insurers on the market refusing to quote CCRM for coverage, the organization was faced with limited options.

A factor in the loss of liability insurance was CCRM’s loss runs, which amounted to $1.064 million over six years. Two crashes involving CCRM’s trains contributed to that amount. There is currently an active lawsuit against CCRM addressing one of the incidents.

With that said, CCRM never lost the property insurance on the facility itself to protect against damage to the property, though it had been without any form of liability insurance until April 8.

Link to full story: Museum Obtains Stop-Gap Liability Insurance Amid Ceased Passenger Operations

linkthebutler · **Joined:** Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:29 am **Posts:** 267

Good news for now. Hope they can figure out all remaining topics to get back to steam.

Sitenote about the newspaper article:
The last 20 years I was sure they own the #15 -> "Donated by the City of Chehalis"...
Now it looks like they only lease it from the city. Make the whole operation vulnerable to
any decision or changes within the citycouncil.

Anyone know about the ownership status of #25? With this engine I always hear the same
story "Donated by the City of Centralia"...?

Here is the 15 brand new as Puget Sound & Cascade 200.

p51 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 18, 2022 2:21 pm

They're doing the GCOR and engineer training this coming weekend, now that the 'trip and fall' insurance is taken care of.
Still no word on operating insurance, though. The board has a committee which has been tasked to look into whatever that'd take. I've been told that starting over from scratch is one of those options being looked into, but as this is a very small group handling that part and the membership doesn't get made aware of decisions like this until they've been made, I won't even venture a guess on that.
I personally don't expect to be running trains through the spring or summer unless some out-of-left-field thing comes along.

linkthebutler wrote:

Anyone know about the ownership status of #25? With this engine I always hear the same story "Donated by the City of Centralia"...?

As far as I understand it, the railroad owns the loco formerly sitting in Fort Borst Park.
Ironically, the contractor currently (slowly) working on #15 looked #25 over and found even though it'd been outside and not cared for in all those years, the running gear apparently is in much better shape than 15's currently is.
Like with all such cases, I've heard a lot of conflicting info. One thing I heard was the people running the Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound had offered the railroad a nice chunk of change to restore #25 and run trips out of there to the rest of the (former Milwaukee Road main) line through Chehalis. I have no idea of those details but the tourist railroad doesn't own the tracks beyond the I-5 bridge near their Chehalis depot there, so I doubt the offer could have worked regardless. But man, I sure would have loved to have seen two steam-powered trains on that line!

linkthebutler · **Joined:** Mon Jul 13, 2020 12:29 am **Posts:** 267

@p51

Thank you for the info.

If you right with #25 then I ask myself that question:
When I LEASE a not running Chevy #15 and OWN a not running Ford #25 and both need a
new transmission, I know where my money goes...but that just me.

Regarding Grand Mound...I think somebody with a very wild dream...
1.)
The former MILW line north of Chehalis is not longer operated by Tacoma Rail.
Now it is Rainier Rail (Washington Royal Line/Frontier Rail/Columbia Rail, very difficult
corporate structure).
2.)
The line crosses the Puget Sound & Pacific (Genesee and Wyoming) track north of Centralia.
3.)
The line would run through dense housing neighborhood inside Chehalis and Centralia.
People like that steam engine smoke...
4.)
The C-C RR did not have rolling stock to operate that 12+ miles.

p51 · **Posted:** Tue Apr 26, 2022 3:43 pm

As for the ownership of the former MILW main, Tacoma Rail still owned it at that time of the supposed Great Wolf Lodge offer. I heard this from someone from the Great Wolf, when he found out I was a volunteer there.
There's a pretty scathing news item about the operation in the newest Railfan. Though local author (and Chehalis operation member) Robert Scott has an article in the same issue, the news item came as much of a surprise to him as it did to the membership.
Someone quoted the Centralia newspaper and internal emails in that segment. I have no clue who that was.
There was a GCOR class this past weekend an I got my re-certification just in case we get the insurance figured out this year (as I would assume operations would start up right after reinstatement of the operating insurance).