Insurance is Commission's Responsibility

As usual there is confusion over responsibilities among the three entities involved in the C&TS. For the record, the agreement between the Commission and CTSMC specifically states that the Commission shall obtain and maintain personal liability insurance and fire and property damage insurance, and shall include the CTSMC as a "name insured" under the policies.

According to the agreement the liability coverage is required to be $10,000,000, which protects the CTSMC from the major risks of personal injury it faces in operating a tourist railroad.

As for fire and property insurance, that provision of the agreement has had far less importance for CTSMC because it owns very little property. However, the agreement does state unequivocally that the Commission agrees to keep $10,000,000 of coverage for fire and property damage to the railroad. Obviously, that did not happen, and the rest is history. Meanwhile funds have been found, for which much thanks are due to all involved.

As a historical note, this clause was also a part of the agreement that the old commission had with RGRPC. When that commission failed to obtain a policy that included RGRPC as a "name insured" the RGRPC board wisely decided to not operate the railroad any longer and vacated the premises because of the unacceptable risk.

Technically the old commission was in breech of the agreement, but, despite being fed up with such shenanigans by the old commission, RGRPC decided that enough was enough. Some months later the governors of the two states replaced the commissioners and CTSMC was formed.