Hot Water, the Tornado is a 4-6-2 has less tractive effort that the Hudson and the T-1. The K-4 has more tractive effort than the Hudson, and they are trying to restore that. Strasburg has a number of locomotives too that are probably in between the numbers of all these locomotives mentioned.
I think overall there will always be a draw for steam locomotives however practical or impractical people may believe them to be. It is I would say the romance of a forgotten era that is what draws people to them, much like people to modeling whatever era they choose to.
As far as the Hudson group, I do not know the fate of the group. It is mentioned over on this post from a few years back, but the website is frozen I guess because someone did not pay the bill.
