What are you /n/iggas' thoughts on fake steam locomotives (i.e. diesels or cab control units rebuilt to passably resemble steam locomotives)? Decent way to honor/raise awareness of the history of steam when building/restoring an actual steam locomotive is impractical or a retarded tourist gimmick?Examples:>Day Out With Thomas replica engines (pic related)>Calico & Odessa Railroad>CP (OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO) Huntington clones that Chance Rides mass produces for basically every second-rate amusement park out thereBonus question: Would these ever be remotely feasible for mainline use. Say I wanted to resurrect the 20th Century Limited as a luxury train for rich LARPers and managed to convert/custom build a bunch of streamlined rolling stock but didn't want to spend 30+ years and billions of dollars rebuilding an actual NYC Hudson to pull it. Would rebuilding a diesel to resemble a Hudson be feasible or would there be no hope of it passing an FRA inspection?
>>2055911tourist gimmick look at how many preservation and heritage railways the UK has, you can easily keep, maintain and even build new steam locos with relative easeits just a matter of finding the right people to maintain them with enough dedication, because most-all the efforts are volunteer run
>>2056083To be fair, FRA and state emissions regulations can make building new locomotives a nightmare
YWNBASL
>>2055911Good enough for Thomas the Tank Engine kid stuff.Sure it'd be nice to have an actual tank engine as Thomas but the upkeep on that would be crazy.
>>2057055They gave a Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal 0-6-0T a Thomas makeover and trailer it around to run at various tourist lines but I’m ok with that as there’s several other BEDT survivors.
