"Over the Memorial Day holiday I visited two different tourist railroads (names withheld) in which I witnessed some disturbing trends:

"Railroad #1 pulled out of their platform and across a signalled intersection. The signal (lights, bells, gates) did not activate until the first half of the train was already through the intersection; the train did not stop and flag the crossing for malfunctioning crossing protection.

"Railroad #2, while running the train in reverse, did not use any whistles for crossing protection. The caboose was equipped with a very small air whistle attached to the brake hose; it was barely audible (when it was used).

"Now, I don't intend to get anyone in trouble. But I also realize that tourist railroads are far and few between, and we all know how difficult it is to run a mainline excursion due to the outrageous insurance costs. It takes just one incident on a tourist railroad to wipe it out of business. Both of these railroads ran out-and-back, meaning half of the run was with a passenger carrying vehicle (usually a caboose) at the lead end of the train. At least one of the crossings involved was a heavy truck traffic route.

"In today's era of lawsuit happy people, why would a tourist railroad - ANY railroad - skimp on little details like this? If they're skimping on these little things, what else are they skimping on? Do I know the brakes are being tested regularly? Are the brake hoses even connected properly? Do all the lights work? Are the rails even good? As a rider I am a little concerned - I know the folks that run these operation's aren't exactly career railroaders running Dash 9s 40 hours a week, but railroad equipment does not discriminate and it doesn't care if it's a tourist railroad or BNSF. The risk of injury is real around any railroad. The last thing I'd want is to be sitting in that caboose with my son, and get smacked (or worse, we smack something) because of a signal malfunction.

"These are just recent examples, other examples are a lack of horn signals prior to train movement or prior to the train coming to a complete stop - the latter resulting in train volunteers allowing riders to disembark using a baggage car stairway, and two passengers nearly falling off the car when the train made a sudden movement."