Robert K posted:Is the reason freight railroads don't want to directly handle public excursion trains is because of the liability and insurance issues?
No. It is federal law, which was part of the original charter of Amtrak. Class 1 railroads are NOT allowed to sell tickets to the riding public, as ONLY Amtrak is allowed to do that, by law!
Let another group or Amtrak handle it? Did UP ever operate their own excursions in the past? But doesn't UP still need to be involved with excursions like this, have qualified engineers in the cab, etc.? It is after all their train and their railroad. Who pays the insurance? The recent NS excursions were a similar thing, even the old ones years ago, a museum or chapter would sell tickets, and staff the train, but NS would supply pilot engineers and other crew, and provide track to run on and time slots for the excursions to run without interfering with their freight schedules.
