It seems that a private for profit railroad in Japan has found enough value in operating steam excursions to add a third locomotive to it's fleet. I think it is a 4-6-4 that will join a 4-6-2 and 2-8-2.

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/200 ... 3000c.html

Nice find, Tom. I believe 300 million yen = around 3 million dollars today...seems very realistic.

Stephen

The Japanese have much more interesting rail fans than the US and it is much more main stream. In fact there many videos that parodied the opening of many tv shows using trains, here are some examples on the left is the original opening to a game called Nursery Rhyme and to the right is a parody of the opening using trains http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0-QgcbQaUI oh and there is more where that came from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TqG0VXZcf0&NR=1 this shure beats a slide show presented by some 80 year old guy rambling in and showing photos of when he followed the 4449 when it was hauling the freedom train. Heck you all wonder why hardly any younger folks are joining while in Japan they have this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmHte2u ... re=related maybe we should learning something from the Japanese.