It's apples and oranges (The CRRM vs. the loop)
The CRRM is non-profit and the train is run by volunteers (except for the master mechanic, I think he is the only paid shop member - I might be wrong.) They were not running the train for the public. And when the train is run for the public, the price to get in the museum is the same as any other day (rides are free.) Visitors are more likely to be more leanient toward the train rides because the train is not regularly run or do the visitors pay to ride. That excludes Thomas of course... This was not Thomas. Although I bet some hard core train fans wouldn't mind sheeing him boucing along across the dirt.
Where the 346 came off the rails is not the same place she had derailed before. When she had derailed in the late 1980s, it was from running off the end of the stub switch from the trailing side. I will not point fingers because many mistakes were made that day and in the days before that added to all of this. In short, there were at least 3 different things that could have happened to prevent that derailment.
This time she was heading into the switch and came off. I would venture a guess the pony truck came off somewhere before the switch and was riding the top of the rail for a while. She might not have liked the 3-rail switch or maybe something was stuck in the crossing. Could it be the 3-rail switch was lined wrong and the 346 split the switch and the pony truck lifted up but the drivers remained on the rails for a while? Who knows? More than likely it was mechanical in nature since it was her first run after a complete rebuild and they needed to get under her and adjust more weight off the drivers onto the pony truck through the equalization.
Were they going too fast? Perhaps. But it looks like they had a good train behind her and it probably just shoved her off the switch into the dirt. Probably wouldn't matter so much how fast she was going. But luckily only the locomotive herself went off the rails.
Maybe Keith would be so good to report here what they think happened so the speculation doesn't get blown out of proportion.
