Bob Davis wrote:
Back in the 1980's, I visited a Civil War re-enactment near Sacramento CA. I went to the site because there was a steam locomotive running, but it was (as I recall) an 0-6-0 saddletanker from the 1920's. I spotted another visitor with a VHS camcorder, and was tempted to say, "Sir, those are not allowed. Only wet-plate view cameras are permitted here." I resisted the temptation.
I grew up as a Civil War re-enactor (my Dad has a cannon from the era) and ran into a couple of cases when we were going to do events with clearly way later steam engines at events. My Dad also knew how stupid that was (it’d be like a WW2 event with an Acela train) and we backed out each time.
A few years ago, I did a “train robbery” western-themed event at a tourist RR. The RR folks were great, but some of the other people I did the event with were downright scary with their safety, and I decided never to do an event there again. Felt kind of foolish acting like it was the 1880s when the engine was built 40 years after that (pulling a heavyweight car and 1970s hacks) but at least it was better than doing it with a diesel:
These days I do a lot of WW2-era living history and a few tourist operations run events with WW2 battles. I feel equally uneasy about something like that because you’re usually operating with postwar equipment and American stuff as well. To me, that would mean you’re recreating a battle on American soil that never (thankfully) occurred. Here’s such an event at IRM: http://www.anzioexpress.org/