Tweetsie Railroad is very much alive and seems to be doing very well (there's always lots of people there when I visit and the place is well kept, no signs of a lack of money but what do I know?).

as to this - " The reality is that the "nostalgia" market disappeared about two generations ago, and ain't coming back." - I highly disagree with this statement. Whenever I visit Greenfield Village (at least once a year) I see lots of visitors excited to see the period outfits, historic building, ride the model T's etc. And when I attend there Old Car Festival and Ragtime Festival, not only is the place packed, but I'd say 50-60% of the guests come out dressed in somewhat historic "Ragtime" era attire.

I knew that the nostalgia market was gone when a grandmother told me that she had never ridden a train.

By "nostalgic" I mean "wistfully nostalgic for something they experienced."

When I was growing up. antique car shows were all about Model T's, Model A's, Locomobiles, Stanley Steamers, Cords, and Packards. Now they're filled with Plymouth GTOs, Corvettes Stingrays, VW Rabbits, and Chevettes. A couple years ago someone showed up at a an AACA rally at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum with a 1983 Ford Escort station wagon to bookend his ancestors' other Fords.

Civil War re-enactors--actually, I would say ANY war re-enactors--are about showcasing history, but NOT out of "nostalgia."

The youngest people who have any realistic capability of remembering steam on U.S. rails in revenue mainline service are, at the very minimum, collecting Social Security; it's possible that, in about ten or so years' time we'll lose the last people who actually worked with steam on a regular, pre-dieselization basis. (You have another ten to fifteen years to go in Britain, East Germany, etc.)

I've never taken a voyage on a sailing ship, yet they remain way more popular than trains ever hoped to be. Take a walk through the gift shop at Mystic Seaport and include a visit to it's art gallery, then compare it to the best steam railroad gift shop you have ever visited to see what I mean.

Somehow, we are missing the boat (get it? yuk-yuk).

Younger boomers missed mainline steam but saw steam in many of the Westerns shown on television back in the 1960s. I think that might have been the last culturally popular mass exposure. Since we have had Thomas for very young children, which they outgrow until they have children of their own, Back to the Future which doesn't really do much for preserved steam, and Hogwarts / North Pole expresses in film. It's certainly not as commonly presented as it was. Diesel electrics - no disrespect intended - are nowhere as visually and audibly interesting as steam.

I think history is still of interest to more people than nostalgia about things that don't get much exposure any longer. If we do a better job of storytelling and demonstrate its relevance to the modern world, there's a meaningful place for us.

Websters definition of nostalgic ": someone who longs for a past time or condition : a person given to nostalgia" - those people certainly do still exist. (I'm one of them!).

There are also people who are nostalgic for personal reasons because of family, when I volunteer at my local museum I regularly meet people of all ages who had relatives who worked for the railroad. One of the guests I recently interacted with wanted to specifically ride behind a Baldwin Steam Locomotive because her grandfather worked for Baldwin. These are the connections that many in the rail preservation field seem to forget when they say "who cares which engine is pulling the train, people don't know or care." This guest specifically called and asked when the Baldwin Steam Locomotive was running.

As to your quote about the antique cars... that's what the Henry Ford Antique Car Show still is... not sure what car shows you usually attend but you'll only see cars up until the 1930's if you go the Henry Ford Old Car Festival.. you'll also see 2 steam locomotives operating (usually both of them 4-4-0's to boot!) and hear some of the best ragtime music!

Embark on "mass production steam" and get ready to comply with contemporary safety, boiler control, and emissions regulations. Manual valves, hot cabs, smoke stacks, exposed running gear that spews oil - you can forget all that.

A nice steam locomotive simulation program will fit any virtual reality tourist railroad needs of the future, and the customer can actually run it and even pull back on the throttle and fly it away when they are bored in 30 seconds.

Are you suggesting Kloke didn't have to comply with modern safety practices when he built a locomotive to be used on a daily basis by a tourist railroad?

I used the word "contemporary" specifically to denote that a mass production new steam locomotive would likely become subject to some if not more of the rules of its contemporaries, in this case Part 229 locomotives (also see Section M of the AAR Manual of Standards) as well as perhaps other rules of the ASME boiler code outside Part PL. Expect labor representatives to look closely at the working conditions - no A/C, no toilet, lack of handrails, lack of collision protection, lack of guards on rotating and reciprocating equipment. If you bring back steam locomotives in anything but a historic context, get ready to be held to contemporary requirements for new locomotives, not just current "modern" rules set in place for historic equipment. In the automotive world, they are only able to build new "Shelby Cobras" which skirt new car emission and crash test requirements by having 1965 registered chassis numbers and even then they are only sold as "roller kits." I would think a cut-off date that aligned with the EPA's would be a reasonable choice:

Title 40: Protection of Environment
PART 1033—CONTROL OF EMISSIONS FROM LOCOMOTIVES

(1) Historic locomotives powered by steam engines. For a locomotive that was originally manufactured after January 1, 1973 to be excluded under this paragraph (b)(1), it may not use any internal combustion engines and must be used only for historical purposes such as at a museum or similar public attraction.

And how would that not apply to historic railroads and museums? I don't think anyone has suggested mass producing steam locomotives for commuter rail!