Olaf,
From everything that has been posted on this forum and from everything that we can find it would appear that there was a personal vendetta between local CHS officials and the GLR Inc. The way the negotiations were mishandled and the way the RFP was written leave us to conclude that the main purpose of this whole fiasco was to get rid of the GLR Inc. as the operator of the railroad.
Railstar may be (probably is) just another company that saw a 1st class operation and felt that this might be worth the effort even with the restrictions placed on them by the CHS. I wish them the best (they're going to need it!)
As to giving up, if anybody gave up anything it was the CHS giving up a 30 year partnership with a 1st class operation that had made the Georgetown Loop Railroad one of Colorado's premier attractions and not the other way around!