First of all, it's too late in the game at this point, except for maybe some regional stuff with AFT 250.

Union Pacific is doing their own thing, and it's well underway. Maybe some others will do something as well. But a nation wide tour simply isn't going to happen.

Even if you could magically convince all the railroads to cooperate tomorrow, getting things lined up would be pretty much impossible. The same thing goes for the exhibits. Museums aren't going to let you take their prized displays for a year and haul them all over the country on a train.

Let's face it, it will never happen again in the manner that it did in 1976. Ross gave it a good try, and 3 or 4 years ago is when it needed to be put in place and that didn't happen.

We'll see some wonderful things it would appear, we've already seen 2101 restored at the B&O museum. But it's not realistic to expect something like the 1976 version again.

I am surprised this has not been brought up before, but it seems there is a competing concept that is significantly further in the planning stage https://freedomplane.org/.

Roger

Despite the claim of being inspired by the Freedom Train, this is fundamentally different.
It is only visiting eight cities. There are going to be seven documents on display.

I don't really understand why they even need a dedicated plane for this, as they say the documents will be on display in various museum. That makes sense, climate controlled conditions, high security (Suggest they skip the Louvre) and good public access.

But where's the plane come in? Couldn't you just handcuff one of those metal secret agent briefcases to some guys wrist? Ok, fine, they'll be encased in some fancy container, probably bullet proof glass, etc etc. So you have seven big heavy duty crates. Still seems like a small private jet would suffice. I guess maybe priceless artifacts should fly first class on a full size commercial jet. But what will they do with the plane when it's not travelling, which will be most of the time?

In my opinion, it's not the same as the Freedom Train where we showed up in cities and towns all across the country, and had hundreds of artifacts.

"On April 15, the American Freedom Train Foundation 250 announced it was suspending its effort to operate a steam-powered exhibit train across the country in 2026 after it couldn’t secure operating agreements with railroads or corporate sponsors." https://railfan.com/plans-for-new-ameri ... n-shelved/

Repaint it as Reading 2100.

This job could be done by an electric school bus.

PC