YMMV. My museum is monitoring the local health department's reports and the Criteria for Phased Resumption of Business that the Pima County, Arizona government has established. Based upon the current information, our management has determined that we cannot safely reopen to the public at this time. We have determined that our insurance does not cover contagious diseases and that given the current health data regarding COVID-19 here, reopening would create an unacceptable level of risk.

That said, our management will continue to monitor developments and reconsider whether to reopen to the public every couple of weeks. We are planning to reopen our restoration shop to volunteers and staff probably the first week in June, as they will be fully informed of the situation and given the option to resume working or not. We will be requiring volunteers and staff to sign in and out, certify that they are fit to work and observe any rules management may put in place to control risks related to COVID-19 to the best of our ability.

Legal advice concerning liability waivers should always be obtained from your organization's own attorney specializing in such matters, and not from sources like RyPN.

However, for starters, in general and for purposes of discussion only and not to be construed as legal advice, in the overwhelming majority of jurisdictions a liability waiver executed by a person under 18 will be unenforceable, as minors lack legal capacity to enter into contracts and parents cannot do so on their children's behalf. So for this reason, you could try limiting your organization's marketing and public offerings to strictly "adults only" events, forget about family-oriented Christmas trains this year (unless conditions including national and state public health guidelines are different then), and turn away any and all families with children who show up casually at your door. None of these are necessarily very good marketing strategies for traditionally family-oriented attractions....

As for those adults, and again in general and not to be relied upon as legal advice, a liability waiver might be enforceable if, among other things, it's prominent and conspicuous (i.e., not hidden in fine print) and written in a manner that clearly explains to a person of reasonable intelligence the potential harm that he or she is knowingly waiving their (or their estate's) rights to recover for (hypothetically, and again not to be construed as legal advice, "I acknowledge that I might suffer horribly and/or die a from Covid-19 infection caught while riding on your train" and then specifying inclusively all of the possible rights and potential legal claims being waived). So in conjunction with such a waiver, your marketing slogan here could be "Ride the Death Train." Perhaps it would work well for adults-only Hallowe'en events ...

Thank you for your comments. They are both thought provoking and entertaining to a degree. The grim reaper could be the conductor and and don’t forget your pennies to pay the boatman or in this case, the engineer. I still believe the notion of a waiver is still worth investigating. Thanks again.

You need this crossing signal, lit up in red neon, though:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1675680

Here’s a link to a YouTube clip someone made of the Billups signal. Reportedly, the IC intended to install several of them at other dangerous crossings but WWII intervened.

https://youtu.be/QGhFHKtDhns

Looks like Royal Gorge Scenic is now running.

Here's their plan:
https://royalgorgeroute.com/classes-of-service/corona/

Looks a wee bit short on detail.

Interesting article in the May 20, 2020 Denver Post:
Some Colorado businesses that want to reopen face big hurdle: Lack of coronavirus liability insurance - Royal Gorge Route Railroad owner among those worried about lack of coverage

Opening without insurance is about the worst business move they could possibly make.

This is going to be a huge deal. Without liability insurance no sane operator will reopen and its hard to imagine an insurance underwriter being willing to take on the Corona 19 risk.

IMHO unless there's a federal blanket exemption granted to ALL businesses shielding them from Corona 19 lawsuits this could be a real show stopper.

Ross Rowland

I checked back in on the Ohio SB308 now that the proposed amendment in progress has been published. The good news is that it protects healthcare workers following guidelines from COVID lawsuits. The bad news is that it does not apply to anyone else.

Looks like Great Smoky and TVRM are about to reopen.

https://www.gsmr.com/sites/default/file ... 020%20.pdf

https://www.tvrail.com/COVID-19.html

It will be interesting to see if TVRM actually opens... Chattanooga's cases are on the rise and I would highly expect things to get MORE restrictive and not less.

Now GSMR on the other hand... I may have to take a trip down there and see #1702 in action. If I want to be totally socially distant could always rent the caboose behind the locomotive!

As a bit of feedback, today I received an email from Strasburg Railroad titled "Your Input on Day Out With Thomas is Needed"

Inside was this:


I think that they are doing a wise thing to ask previous customers what their comfort level is in attending events, as who better to know than the customers themselves.

And yes, I took the survey.

The huge unknown in all of these attempts to plan forward is how is the public going to act?? If the majority of the at risk portion ( seniors, those with diabetes, hyper tension, copd, heart conditions etc.) of the population choose to stay out of the public domain until there is a widely available vaccine ( early 2021 best case ?) then the restart will be very slow and the economy in general will stay way into recession territory.

If on the other hand most folks are willing to take the risk of being in the public arena then perhaps the economy will sustain a substantial bounce back???

Be careful not to put too much emphasis on the performance of the stock indexes. The federal gov't is printing TRILLIONS of new dollars in its efforts to avoid a great depression and there's VERY few places many of those dollars can go and stocks are the leading choice. Point being that the stock market might be making new highs while main street is in the throes of a terrible recession.

I've suggested to those outfits that I'm involved with to plan on re-opening in may 2021 with an estimated 40% ( of 2019 revenues) patronage base for that year and then a 70% base for calendar year 2022. IMHO 2020 is toast.

Ross Rowland

I circulated a survey at the theatre in Delaware where I am executive director. About 1/2 of the respondents said they will return as soon as we open our within a month. The remainder chose one year or "until there is a vaccine."

Following social distance guidelines we can seat less than half of our capacity after phase two. This makes the year a loss leader at best and requires a heavy infusion of contributed income and grants. The upside to opening is we can get our theatre program running and serve what I perceive is a much needed service of entertainment and distraction.

Applying this to National Capital Trolley Museum where I volunteer, we are looking at a soft opening on Saturday only (vs Sat-Sun as usual) with time ticket entry for rides and tours.

The trick in reopening will be to follow suggested guidelines for social distancing and sanitizing in order to provide the visitor with a sense of safety. Lol - the distance and sanitizing guidelines for churches in Maryland are such that reopening the building at our small congregation would require each of the parishioners in limited phase I attendance to have an assigned safe distance/sanitary duty.

Otherwise I agree with Ross that the economy will be slow to revive and impact our attendance at the theatre and trolley museum through 2022. Not to make light of Covid, but I think our industry challenge is to un-flatten what I will call the "revival curve." Sigh.

Wesley