Passenger train liability

Railroads which had a lot of cash were self-insured.  That would be roads like Great Northern, Santa Fe, and Union Pacific.  Southern Pacific and most Eastern roads were not self-insured, at least not in the postwar era.

Others -- most, actually -- bought catastrophic casualty insurance that kicked in if there was a bad wreck that exceeded a specified dollar amount of injury or death claims, or excessive property damage.

The average passenger claim would not have needed insurance.

Today, all railroads carry catastrophic casualty insurance, and pay the day-to-day claims themselves.  

What about tourist railroads, do most buy an annual policy? Why is the risk greater when running excursions on a class 1 vs. a class II, III or tourist line? Most class I's including Amtrak since March 2018 no longer allow excursions. NS is no longer hosting them like 611. CSX doesn't seem to be interested even with 614 returning. The class I's only care about maximizing profits for shareholders and cutting costs. They now don't seem to have time to play choo choo with museums and steam locomotive owners with all the freight they have to move daily. I'm guessing when NS allowed steam excursions several years ago they paid for the liability insurance. And Amtrak banning excursions in March 2018 made it impossible for big steam locomotives to go anywhere, like the ones in Portland, Oregon which are essentially trapped there and don't even run on the short line there anymore. Smaller steam locomotives are used on holiday trains, etc. The Milw 261 has to run on class II railroads not on BNSF because of the Amtrak ban. NKP 765 has other railroads to run on and NS still escorts it every year. 611 had Strasburg and the Buckingham Branch but now it's operational future is uncertain, last year it didn't leave the VMT or operate in any way so now it is a static display again.