Having worked those excursions I can attest to Mikes comments. They always ran full and were very popular with the public although the slow speed and time to Willits made for a long day for some.
Not without occasional problems for sure, A/C, toilets, broken coupler once at the bottom of Ridge, but in spite of this it could have gone on. Hopefully this would not happen with modern equipment!

Also the shorter excursions to Healdburg from Santa Rosa were well attended as was the Art Train visiting Healdburg.

From the publics point of view, its probably a good idea to run such an inaugural train.