(TAN): After months of waiting out the Covid-19 pandemic, the Napa Valley Wine Train had announced plans to restart its fine-dining rail journeys from Napa to St. Helena, with its cars at reduced capacity. But a surge in coronavirus cases has forced fresh restrictions in Napa County and most of California, leaving the Wine Train still seeking a way forward while waiting for vaccines to reach, reported Napa Valley Register.
“We’re all in limbo as California and Napa have gone to purple,” Wine Train partner Gregory Brun was quoted as saying by the media recently about the county’s demotion to California’s bottom tier of Covid-19 spared, which carries the strictest curbs on businesses and public gatherings — including renewed bans on indoor dining and wine tasting — on the state’s four-level scale.
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The Wine Train has been in hibernation since running its final pre-pandemic trips March 16. As a tourism business not classified as essential by the county or California, it was required to shut down after a sweeping stay-at-home order was passed March 19, and most of the rail company’s staff was furloughed.
Over the spring and summer and into the fall, evolving health guidance from the county and state slowly allowed restaurants, wineries and other businesses to welcome back visitors, though at lower capacity to maintain social distancing. Napa County was lifted to the state’s red tier and then, in October, the yellow level as infection rates flattened, allowing businesses to invite customers indoors first to 25% and then 50% of normal capacity.
However, Brun said the remaining rules still made it difficult for the Wine Train to turn a profit, particularly as early hopes of restarting service in the summer were delayed. A full train load includes more than 300 people under normal conditions, according to Brun.
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Before Napa County’s move to purple-tier restrictions, the Wine Train’s website outlined the safety measures it planned to put in place with the return of service — including at least 6 feet of spacing between passengers, hand sanitizer pumps, personal protective equipment and gloves for staff, and more frequent cleaning and sanitizing inside rail cars and the McKinstry Street depot in Napa.
“It breaks my heart to see good people and good businesses suffering what they’re suffering,” said Brun. However he feared that the worst is yet to come and next year is particularly going to be difficult for the valley.
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