Ah, Grasshopper,
How little it takes to satisfy you!
Wonderful vintage Colorado diesels likely running as the initial regular motive power on a railroad portraying the turn of the century. It is what it is - a bad joke, but then there is the non-Colorado native, under-powered, "cute as a button" little #12 which will make a heroic effort and work herself to death trying to make revenue for this line - another bad joke.
But then again, revenue is not important for this is not a business! This is government competing with and eliminating business (ask the nice merchants of Georgetown about how they are getting undermined by the Visitor Center) - the revenue is only important to the little town governments that surround the Loop as they patiently wait for their handouts from CHS -another bad joke - and CHS need not worry in any case - they are not running a business - virtually all their money all comes from gambling (the State Historic Fund), so they can spend millions on this and never look back or have to look their banker in the eye.
Grasshopper, options available to government feeding from a bottomless trough are so different from options available to a company that must make money in order to pay its bills and meet its payroll - We are really talking "apples and oranges" here - a philosophical difference in the world order that is so vast as to be debated in the halls of great institutions - ah, but I digress....
In any case, CHS folks will have to look someone in the eye some day - and it will not be pretty.
As the old zen master would say, "It is what it is. Question it not." OR "If you must destroy to create - create something magnificent"
SOMEHOW, CHS's initial efforts on the Loop all fall far short of MAGNIFICENT! - unless one believes it could be a magnificent bad joke.