Nickel Plate 765 Sept 12-13 Scranton-Binghamton canceled

I'm not sure whether this post should more appropriately be on the Pennsylvania Railfan forum - but the affected trip is partly in NY. Today I received the following email, and, as a ticketed dome car passenger, am extremely disappointed. It's hard to understand why this has happened when none of this was an issue for the NKP 765 Buffalo-Corning trips, which I greatly enjoyed!
David

August 26, 2015

With deep regret, the Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Chapter, NRHS is announcing the cancellation of the Lackawanna Cutoff Anniversary Special trains, scheduled for September 12 and 13, 2015. This nearly sold-out weekend of trains has been wildly supported by our customers, yet due to insurmountable insurance obstacles placed in front of us by Canadian Pacific Railway, the outgoing operator of the trackage to be operated over, we could not reach their requirements. The excursion committee exerted all efforts to rearrange insurance for the riders’ safety, yet could not come to agreeable terms with the railroad.

We would like to thank all of our partners, The Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society, Norfolk Southern, The Anthracite Railroads Historical Society, the Erie Lackawanna Dining Car Preservation Society, Steamtown National Historic Site, and the Nicholson Heritage Association. Without their participation and help in the planning of this endeavor these trips surely would not have been possible. Most of all we thank all of our supporters who were planning on riding the Lackawanna Cutoff Anniversary Special, those who have ridden with us on past excursions, and those who champion our mission of preserving the railroad heritage of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is for our ticket holders who chose to ride that we are most upset that we could not bring this project to fruition.

If you have purchased tickets, you will receive a refund for the face value amount of your tickets within 7-10 business days. If you have any concerns about the status of your refund, please contact our ticketing agent at [email protected].

This is certainly more than a setback for the Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Chapter, but we will move forward and hope to offer excursions in the future under more favorable circumstances.

Respectfully,

The L&WV Excursion Committee

Yes, sad news. I had tickets for this and was on the Corning run.

It wasn't an issue on the Corning run as it was NS it was running on. CP is the host road for this and as it says, they have insurance issues.

Charles

That's unfortunate........perhaps they can try it again next Summer when Norfolk Southern will own the line
and CP Rail will be out of the picture. Will keep fingers crossed.

Charlie

Hopefully but seen as it was tied to Tunkhannock's 100th, it may be a long shot.

The easy way to get rid of an excursion train - set the requirements so high that they can't be met. Then it's the excursion group's fault, rather than the railroad's.

CP President E. Hunter Harrison Strikes Again...

Railpace explains it's because the NS deal on the D&H was originally planned to go through in August. It would have been NS property by the trips and part of the 21st century steam program.

But then there's this very recent provocative CP Job Posting for Technician, Heritage Locomotive (42824):

https://career4.successfactors.com/care ... ZJkhYV4%3d

I have no idea why CP couldn't work with them given that a week later they won't even own the line anymore, but from what I hear they're being difficult all the way around on this changeover.

I wonder if any of this boils down to dollars, as in CP wanted a lot more money? Total speculation on my part.

WNEP TV posted a story about the cancellation (http://wnep.com/2015/08/27/train-rides- ... k-viaduct/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and included this statement from CP:

“Canadian Pacific is responsible to our shareholders and our customers, and so we must safeguard our operation. Our liability insurance ask is consistent with that of other railroads and reflects legal settlements from passenger train incidents in recent years. While we are willing to run these types of trips; we simply must safeguard our operation as we do this.”

From the same WNEP story cited above:

When Norfolk Southern realized they weren't going to own the track in time for the celebration, Barrett had to plead his case to the track's current owner, Canadian Pacific. The company agreed to the rides, but not before asking organizers to raise their insurance policy from about $50 million to an unattainable $100 million.

How can anybody blame CP? Considering there would be hundreds of passengers on board, any serious accident would more than likely generate many multi million dollar law suits.

I have looked at a good number of good videos of steam on the NS this year mostly with 611. Some of the chances that folks take around the tracks make me wonder how any railroad can tolerate this behavior along their property. Yes I know it is steam and they are railfans but railfans can get killed around steam as well as diesel and I saw right on the videos countless times that people were way too close to the track and did not get out of the way until the train was practically on top of them. I am pretty sure the decision makers on the CP are aware of this stuff as well and chose not to risk a big lawsuit when one of these jerks trips up, falls or for some other reason gets badly injured or killed. A lawsuit will sure follow such a happening. The costs to the railroad are not worth it, the CSX just says no to all steam while most of the others just raise the costs to a point where it will not hurt them in the pocketbook when something happens on one of these trips. I can't fault the CP either. Too often organizations release tickets and do a lot of promotion before they have gotten the necessary OK from everybody involved and this is the result.
Noel Weaver

Part of the problem here is unique in that the change over to NS was meant to have happened before the train was run, but Mr. Weaver has a great point about the idiocy we've seen surrounding this engine already this year. Think back to the dangerous driving mentioned in the thread about the Erie line trip from Buffalo to Corning, the children being allowed to play on the tracks, people taking selfies in front of the engine during the water stop etc.

CP hadn't signed up to have to deal with that mess. They just ended up with it because the changeover didn't happen on time. The fact that they are starting their own live steam work is irrelevant, that's something they'll have internal control over, this is not.