Steve,
just to make it completely clear (since a few folks misunderstood), I'm not attacking you, or RailStar, or CHS, or anyone else, in any way, for any reason.
I don't have an opinion about cab roof colors, or spark arrestors.
Your statement caught my attention because it neatly encapsulates some of our ingrained thinking. Not what we as enthuasiasts, or we as operations folk, prefer ourselves - but what we assume our (current and potential) customers prefer, and value, and consider when making a purchasing decision.
Very often our assumptions are so deeply ingrained that we don't even perceive them as assumptions any more - they have become Truth, and we stop evaluating them. As times change, and our assumptions stay the same, it has an effect on us.
1) There's only one way to make money in the tourist railroad business.
2) "Authentic" and "entertaining" are mutually exclusive.
3) "Authentic" and "successful" are mutually exclusive.
4) Customers will only show up if you "dumb down" the experience (think red boilers, gunfights and train robberies).
Some of those "truths" show up in discussions here regularly. At some time in the past, each one of those statements may have been true. And yet the most successful tourist railroads today, and many other successful attractions, seem to break each of these "truths."
Would Grand Canyon sell more or fewer tickets without the gunfights and train robbery? Would Texas State sell more of fewer tickets if its locos were more accuratly painted? Some of us would argue "of course they'd sell less" as if it's Truth. Some of us would argue "of course they'd sell more" as if it's Truth.
My view is that those details probably don't have much effect on success either way. But how one sees oneself, and one's mission, and how one communicates that to one's potential customers, has a much larger effect, and ultimately determines one's fate.
JAC