Re: ROW Reconstruction

Bill, Doug, Grant, et al:
Maybe I'm missing something, and perhaps I'm raining on the parade, but I've read all of your posts and Bill's website and there is one question that keeps popping up in my mind that hasn't been adequately addressed.
Why?
Why would anyone want to spend 150 to 200 million dollars to reconstruct a rail line between two competing tourist railroads, one of which is prosperous and one of which is not, through rolling sage brush desert with little to recommend its scenery, with absolutely no potential profit to ever be gained? There is no potential for any freight traffic - there's nothing to haul. The casinos already have roads to them. So the only commodity to be hauled there would be tourists. Let's talk about that.
Those of us who have been around the C&TS knows that the length of the ride there is and always has been a detriment. It's just too long for a single day outing. You are proposing a 107 mile line? The San Juan covered the territory in 4 hours 50 minutes, one way. A round trip would take over 10 hours. One way by bus would cut the trip to about 6-7 hours. And this with no outstanding scenic merit on the trip?
Had the Rio Grande kept the line intact and passed it on to the D&S or the C&TS I would be ready to fight to keep it, as I did in the late '70s. Getting the C&TS was a major victory but the shortsightedness of not getting the rest of the line was a grievous loss.
I wish it were still there, but it doesn't make sense to put it back.