CHEHALIS, Wash. — Documents detailing more than $1 million in losses over a 6-year period led to the inability of the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad & Museum’s inability to obtain liability insurance, the heritage railroad’s insurance broker explained earlier this week at an emergency meeting of the railroad’s board of directors.
The lack of insurance has forced the railroad to suspend operations and left its future in jeopardy.
The Centralia Chronicle reports the broker, Tripp Salisbury of Borden Perlman McRail, called the inability to obtain insurance “unprecedented” in his 40 years in the business. “I have never in my entire career had this happen, where we could not get … renewal coverage for a client.”
The current insurer refused to quote a renewal, and the three other companies that provide rail liability insurance followed suit, Salibury told the Monday meeting. He said that decision was based on the railroad’s “loss runs,” documents used in underwriting that detail losses. The organization’s loss run was $1.064 million over six years because of two crashes involving Chehalis Central trains. One was a fatal accident in July 2017 when a man failed to yield the right of way to a train; the other, in October 2019, involved a man who crashed into a train while it was making a reverse move. A lawsuit over the latter accident remains active.
The railroad suspended operations as of Saturday, when its prior operating insurance expired [see “Washington state heritage railroad suspends operations,” Trains News Wire, March 7, 2022]. Salisbury told Wednesday’s meeting that the first step in resuming operations will be obtaining premises liability, which would protect the organization’s property, including its former Milwaukee Road right-of-way, and all non-revenue rail operations.
But it could take six months or longer to get full liability insurance, and likely will require changes to the organization, such as more of a business structure, Salisbury said. Still, he said, he did not believe the insurance issue would be “a death blow” to the organization.
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