Now that's interesting news. Maybe that's a rail restoration project that I could actually work on! :)

As a professional gEEk, I have dealt with similar issues when I was a Controls Engineer at an industrial company. I have experience of running Win98 applications (and older and newer versions) in emulation on Linux using newer hardware, and also running Win98 on newer hardware. I'd be willing to bet that the old applications could somehow be successfully migrated. Of course, I wouldn't know until I was able to take a look at the hardware and software setup, but I think there could be a way to make it work.

If the government is throwing money at Amtrak, maybe I should setup shop and save the Acela.... :)

I'm missing something. What is stopping continued use of W98 in that context?

No, it would be difficult to use in an everyday situation because the children who code Facebook always have the latest toys themselves which means their coding invokes things not found on older browsers and you can't run a sufficiently modern browser on W98 (that I am aware of) but in a captive situation frozen in time? And I'm sure replacement motherboards capable of running W98 may still be found. I have an old desktop at my office I picked up off CL for a couple dollars on which I installed XP. It does what I need it to do -- which is to occasionally run a few equipment control programs, a VNC viewer and an FTP. Its downfall will be if and when the outside access I use to connect from home or my phone will no longer support it.

Edit to add. I forgot to mention I keep ATCS Monitor running on it. In the field, I access the work machine from my phone to check ATCS.

Well, that was dumb. It's like the "Home of the Future" designed with built-in Mid-Century Modern appliances and features like a home intercom system that is now totally obsolete. I hope the design team for the Acela replacement equipment corrected that problem with the new equipment. I still have hopes for saving at least one near-complete (one of each car and two power cars) Acela set for display somewhere.

Windows 98? You mean something I can easily create a virtual machine for in a Raspberry Pi? sudo apt-get problem_solved

At the risk of being howled down, I think the Smithsonian would make an ideal repository for a "bare bones" Acela set, 4 cars as mentioned in a previous post. As with their aircraft collection and many of their other collections, they don't display everything they save.
But it's saved and will be an important exhibit as time goes by.

Wes

Win98 is not at all a hindrance. It’s DOS. And as someone else said, it’s very easy to run a VM of 98 on any modern machine. I’m sure you could even replace some of the hardware with more modern components, and then install a 98 VM on it and it’d work fine.

The company I work for uses Win98 for our Databases. I routinely log into them remotely on a daily basis from my Windows 10 computer with no issues. My computer creates on it's own a virtual 98 desktop that I use.

Getting something to work and getting something to work in a mission critical safety focused way (that insurers will support) is another.

"Hacking" an Acela to reset the equivalent of the "check engine light" might be ok for a demonstration, but as an SOP for a passenger hauling mainline operation? It'll be in the opening arguments at ANY trial for anything that goes wrong on, near, or downwind of the train.

Are you familiar with how a virtual machine works? This isn't some hacker's dream, you know. These programs are used frequently in the real world, from cloning desktops to allowing backwards compatibility to everything in between.

I am quite familiar with how a VM works.

My point is that when you start using anything that original manufacturer specifies then you're shifting potential liability from them to you. And in our world, liability rules over all.

The Acela will not be running it will be getting pulled by a diesel providing head end Power. I doubt you will need tilting and other higher end functions on your 25mph train ride. Or just having the AC on while people walk through it standing on desplay.

But does an Acela at 25mph do ANY better job of educating the public on what the Acela was and what it did than one properly displayed in a museum?

I'd argue no.

But applying hacks to it to allow someone to pull it around with an SW8 will alter its historic fabric and decrease its value as a historic artifact.

If it should be preserved, it should be preserved.

If that time ever comes and the preserved HHP-8 needs a bell I have 4 of them. Doubt it'll ever happen but just throwing it out there.

If one were to be saved ot most likely would only be brought out for special occasions. How many railroad museums operate stripped-down EMUs like MP54s as vintage coaches towed behind an Alco switcher? How maney put RV generators in the coatches battery boxes instead of running a generator off the axel? How maney railroad museumes have a residential propane heater mounted inside the car instead of steam heat from the locomotive? Most railroad museumes make things work best they can.

But that doesn't make them good stewards of the artifacts. And those cars that they're modifying like that, I hope, aren't part of their collections.

If all someone wants is a convenient set of cars to use for excursion service (to get people in the door) there are far easier ways to do that than trying to modify an Acela set.