I agree that some tourist railroads and museum operations alike fall very short in insuring their operations remain safe

I've seen some major shortfalls in training and proper oversight of train service volunteers in my experience with museum railroads. A few hours of classroom time and 25 students standing around watching somebody make joints and throw switches is not training, and anyone who thinks it is training shouldn't be allowed to work around operating rail equipment IMHO.

My opinion is that a cowl body locomotive is the worst type of locomotive for a Run a Locomotive program. The cab layout is not at all conducive to allow the supervising engineer to have complete control of the locomotive while the student is in the seat and the obvious lack of rear facing visibility with a reverse movement camera or not makes for a very unsafe practice.

Last but not least i want everyone to remember that accidents happen. Railroads go through these types of accidents all the time. However museum railroads will continue to have a seemingly higher than average accident rate per hour of operation due to the fact that in most cases the folks running the trains are not doing so on a regular basis and some will never become fully comfortable with their abilities. The only thing that will help this is better supervision to keep everyone's ego's in check and for each and every train service member to keep a heightened sense of alertness at all times and never let their guard down even the slightest.

Thats all folks