> Based on your theory if everyone
> boycotted(or was priced out of the market)
> the insurance wouldn't the Insurance Company
> have nobody to sell to!!???

Thats not exactly what I'm driving at-But could be the end result. Lets say you want to insure a 10 story office building in any big city. There's lots of similar risks for the insurance company-so they know what they are signing up for and there's (even with one company) enough premium dollars to cover the loss.

With steam excursions there's so many variables, not the least of which is how do we know if the crew is really good? We look for trips over different areas and there's another variable. But the more trips that are run, the more the company can not only see how the "industry" does, but how a specific operator does. Lets trips means less reliable expectations and a catch 22 No insurance no experience, no experience no insurance. When you buy insurance for your 2000 Chevy with PS/PB antitheft, the company has a fair idea what the losses are going to be like becausethere's lots of cars on the road. They don't have to do much thinking about rates. Less trips, less operators means more guessing, more time and at some point-they may decide the market is too small to justify the effort.

>
> Health insurance is another crime, and we
> middle of the road customers are footing the
> bill for ourselves, the guys who sue the
> medical profession, the people who have no
> insurance, and the mis-managed medical folks
> who overprice cause they know we have
> insurance, so they do it!

I'll send you a few thoughts on this off-line.

There is no justification of some of these
> rate increases within the insurance
> industry. It is becoming an epidemic.

The justification is the loss experience. Every time you see some jury award millions because some idiot burns their crotch with hot coffee, understand WE pay that in the end. (NO PUN INTENDED) I think that I just read something that some guru like Warren Buffett said something about out of control liability casting a pall over our economic future.

> What ever happened to the piggyback deal
> with Amtrak insurance? Isn't that what 3751
> is using for the trip to Arizona?

That I can't answer, but I would assume that the insurance company might stop a lot of steamers from running because they aren't F-40s or genesis engines and therefore present a different marginal risk. Don't forget, Amtrak is going to be careful that nothing happens on their property because the last thing they want now is increased rates. There's going to be millions paid no doubt because of that accident outside DC and it appears that the cause was the WEATHER!!!!



superheater@beer.com

> First time I heard that. What happened?

Two tresspassing teenagers got an ATV ( I BELIEVE home modified in a way that propably contributed to it being stuck)stuck in the guage and were killed.



superheater@beer.com

The insurance for the Southern California Chapter, R&LHS displaay at Pomona, CA was cancelled three weeks before renewal was due. We found another company to insure us at more than double last year's cost. We DO NOT have any equipment that is operable or has been steamed up in more than 35 years. It's something that affects use all. We were told that a boiler explosion last year in the east was the reason for the cancellation from a company that had insured us for many years.



Southern California Chapter, R&LHS
lstone45@aol.com

The main problem is that our elected criminals (excuse me legislators)and judges are mostly all attorneys. They are just going to perpetiate the whole situation for their own gain. It seems that only voice that can be heard, is one that can contribute a couple million in campaign funds. This puts most volunteer groupes (museums etc.) out of the running for making any changes in our leagl system

At least one small air museum in northern California has now shutdown citing rates at the airport they were located at. Now looking for a new home in a smaller and less busy airport that will hopefully have lower rates.

Talked to a friend who stages railroad special events since he retired. His personal liability policy went from from $350.00 per year to over $500.00. Not much pennywise, but look at the percentage raise.

Supposedly the underwriter UP has been using for their trips is raising the rates in August by 50 percent over what they were earlier this year. And the monies paid for the trips in June were over double those of last year!

jimhollis@ev1.net

Is there a report or article online somewhere with more details? Were they hit by one of the steam engines?

> Two tresspassing teenagers got an ATV ( I
> BELIEVE home modified in a way that propably
> contributed to it being stuck)stuck in the
> guage and were killed.

If I recall this correctly, there was a fence erected protecting the right-of-way, and it was breached, probably by these clowns, and a steam train was headed downhill, tender first, while these two were trying to get their "toy" over the tracks, which got stuck in the process. I don't think that the train was going very fast, but it was relatively quiet. I guess the fault was that the fence breach wasn't fixed. Of course, Steamtown was assumed to have plenty of money.


schwartzsj@juno.com

> Based on your theory if everyone
> boycotted(or was priced out of the market)
> the insurance wouldn't the Insurance Company
> have nobody to sell to!!???

> I get what you are saying about having more
> inspectors if there are less people to
> inspect, but at some point there are NO
> CUSTOMERS, if they price themselves out of
> the market...Then what.

> Health insurance is another crime, and we
> middle of the road customers are footing the
> bill for ourselves, the guys who sue the
> medical profession, the people who have no
> insurance, and the mis-managed medical folks
> who overprice cause they know we have
> insurance, so they do it!

> There is no justification of some of these
> rate increases within the insurance
> industry. It is becoming an epidimic.

> What ever happened to the piggyback deal
> with Amtrak insurance? Isn't that what 3751
> is using for the trip to Arizona?

> Oh well, I guess I should let this go, as I
> am sure the big mainline steam operators
> have checked into every possible source, or
> they would be running more! Hope the winds
> of change occur before the fires are too
> cold!
> Greg

Greg, Having been a licensed Insurance Broker and
an Insurance Agency owner, I couldn't agree with
you more. I don't believe the average citizen realizes how much of our freedom we are losing in
these liability suits.
In our area we have a politician running for office on a platform that includes trade restrictions on other countries who sell steel and other products here. He cites Granite City Steel as a victim of trade laws. Granite City
Steel and some 60 others succumed to Asbestos suits, not foreign competition. Are we going to get any relief? I sincerely doubt it. Most of our
law makers are lawyers and I doubt that they will
make laws that limit their own actions.
To give you an idea of the problem, in Illinois South of Carbondale a woman in Labor had to go to
Evansville, IN or Cape Girardeau, MO to have her baby because all the Il. Doctors had quit due to liability suits. That situation may still exist, I'll ask my Dr. friend next time I see him.

I think Bin Laden is nuts getting himself in trouble trying to destroy us. All he has to do is set back and wait. We are destroying ourselve

Jim

rrfanjim@mvn.net

> First time I heard that. What happened? I'm
> guessing someone did something dumb and took
> it to court. We need liability laws like in
> Germany, you do something dumb and get hurt
> or killed its your own fault. No
> multimillion dollar payouts for spilling hot
> coffee on yourself.

I can't help but comment on some of the liability posts. Maybe you folks can help me understand what I am missing. Particularly in regard to passengers, railroads have always have had to meet a higher standard of care than ordinary people. When ordinary people drive cars or do other things in their lives, they have to exercise reasonable care. Railroads have always had to do much more. A few minutes of searching online found the railroad's higher duty of care expressed this way, "This high standard is frequently expressed as the requirement that the railroad exercise the highest degree of care, diligence, and vigilance in the carriage of passengers to their destinations." In fact, when I first read through this thread, I thought that the law imposed strict liability, and that a railroad would be liable regardless of fault. In any case, I can easily see how the burden of meeting this higher standard of care leads to greatly increased liability exposure. What I do not understand is that since this higher standard of care has always been the law, what makes that burden harder to meet today then it has been for say the last century of railroad operations?

On a related vein, and just as an aside, I saw a description of the “Steamtown Incident” in this thread which said it involved trespassers on the railroad’s right of way. Being a collection of historically minded folks, you may be interested to know that what may be one of the most important cases on civil procedure decided by the United States Supreme Court involved a similar situation, a trespasser on a right of way in Pennsylvania. The case, Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, involved the question of whether the federal trial court should use New York or Pennsylvania law, the question being important because one state imposed a higher standard of care on the railroad. Of course, that the opinion came out in 1938 goes to show that railroads have been sued for years.

Switching tracks again, I canÂ’t help but wonder about the posts complaining about how the evil lawyers control the government and make sure that hard-working train museums and others will keep paying huge liability awards because they just wont pass the right laws. If lawyer-controlled legislatures are so bad, why do they pass laws giving tourist and museum trains special liability protection? Here in Kentucky, one of our statutes (KRS 277.315) caps the total payout on any tourist or museum train payout. I understand we took the idea from Tennessee. Surely these and other statutes exist in some other states as wellÂ…


gratehusband@aol.com

We are destroying ourselves

" I have seen the enemy, and he is us!"

Pogo



oldtimetrains@rrmail.com

> Volunteer Immunity statutes have been as you stated, enacted by certain states. Problem is the sharks at local ambulance chasers asked for 40 million in Federal Court, where for some reason, federal judges can arbitrarily vacate the jury verdict (which this "judge" did).

There was a great book out there a few years ago by a former federal judge by the name of Burton-something who detailed all sorts of tyranny and lunacy by the court. Robert Bork details the arrogation of power by judiciaries as an international phenomenon in a new book.

Unfortunately,change right now is unlikely as the Senate is in the hands of a really obnoxious little twit from one of the least populous states.



superheater@beer.com

> Unfortunately,change right now is unlikely
> as the Senate is in the hands of a really
> obnoxious little twit from one of the least
> populous states.

Please reserve the larger political commentary--left or right; libertatian, liberal or conservative, Democratic, Republican, Green or Other--for other forums. This forum deals strictly with railroad preservation and railroad heritage, broadly defined. Direct political commentary is not in our ambit.


eledbetter@rypn.org

> What I mean by that is, couldn't the trip be
> hauled by a diesel pulling the passengers,
> and the steam train operate behind it with a
> freight train for example, so that folks
> could still see it operate. Say you dropped
> folks off 2-4 places en route to the
> destination then had 2719 operate runbys for
> all to see, then at the destination have it
> on display before making the return trip.
> In this scenario nobody is riding behind the
> steam train, yet folks get to enjoy it, and
> support it, and still get their ride. The
> downside is the cost of the diesel, and
> getting another crew!
>

My Gawd, talk about tying a railroad completly up in knots! Two trains, each moving back and forth in various locations. In CTC or ABS or Track warrant territory, it would have the dispatcher tearing his hair out and unable to move anything else.

Although we do operate trains, we saw a very substantial increase in our rates with the new company we had to go with due to St. Paul getting out of the RR museum / excursion insurance business. Only 2 companies left in the game at this point. Wasn't this one of the reasons TRAIN was formed?

David Farlow
Whitewater Valley RR

hudson.industries@worldnet.att.net