Thread 2055911

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 there

Bonus 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?

>>2055911 (OP)
tourist 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 ease
its just a matter of finding the right people to maintain them with enough dedication, because most-all the efforts are volunteer run

>>2056083

To be fair, FRA and state emissions regulations can make building new locomotives a nightmare

YWNBASL

>>2055911 (OP)
Good 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.

>>2057055
They 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.

>>2057055
The do Thomas mock ups on both steam and diesel around these parts but mostly steam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IncByFavkzA