Historic accuracy *PIC*

Yeah, you can charter a 4-8-4 and run 50 mph but it is not a historically accurate loco running through a historically authentic environment....I'm a nit picker. Now you might be able to do it with a 2-8-2 at a slower speed on the EBT.
But seriously, at this point the TUT kind of charter is the only thing that is going to work for the C&TS. As long as the C&TS has too few locos to run as many tourist trains as the market has shown it can support, they need to charge an arm and a leg for this sort of thing. That's exactly what Earl did back in the good ole days....we got our trains cheap only because we ran "off peak" when there was excess capacity. Had we wanted to run trains during fall color, like Chris does, we'd have paid an arm and a leg....maybe more than $10K...Earl made it clear he didn't want us around during the stock rush. If I remember correctly, TUT's fall color thing got started when Black Bart was encouraging any business he could get any time at whatever price he could get....run the railroad into the ground if necessary. RGRPC continued the bad habit because Chris had become too good a customer to turn away.
You're right, we are lucky we did what we did when we did it. I hope the C&TS starts attaching some value to historically accurate freight charters again, but that remains to be seen, and is relevent only after they rebuild the capacity to do so.