@bmoran4 there really are no other alternatives. I agree with Gibson Man about the Kickstarter / GoFundMe campaign (although a benefactor with connections like Neil Young would have a huge headstart on the learning curve.)
Some of us don't want "scale" trains, or just don't have the space for them. I've racked my brain for years, and there is currently no upgrade path to make beloved postwar steam locos run consistently at realistic speeds, nor even achieve a modest improvement in performance. So they end up piled on tables at meets like so much scrap zinc. An improved drivetrain might have been developed in the '90s. But then RailKing surfaced, and LionChief Plus a few years ago. Unfortunately, to my eye, many of these modern "toy trains" just aren't artfully rendered. Where Postwar steam can resemble the prototype compressed through a telephoto lens, some of the newer ones are more like an S-scale body slapped onto an O-gauge chassis.
If you squint hard, the LionChief Pacific resembles a 2055. Sad, but I'm not sure I'll see closer in my lifetime.
