Railroads name insurance, freight operations and safety as top barriers to adding passenger service

Railroad representatives told the panel that the chief obstacles to adding passenger service on freight lines are liability costs, operational impacts on freight, and safety at crossings. French highlighted insurance and indemnity as his first priority: "Number 1 is insurance and indemnification," he said, and described a Missouri derailment that produced injuries, fatalities and nearly four years of litigation.

He warned that without workable indemnity and insurance arrangements, heavy liability exposure could make passenger projects infeasible. "If every accident is a $100,000,000 thing, there's not enough insurance in the world to cover it," Elaine added when discussing the policy environment and the need to address liability at a federal or regulatory level.

Panelists also stressed that adding frequent passenger runs can compress freight schedules and create capacity conflicts (for example, 12 round trips equals 24 train movements per day), making careful pathing and operational modeling essential. Safety remedies such as sealed corridors or grade-elimination projects were recommended to reduce incidents that would otherwise undermine service reliability and public confidence.