After riding and photographing this operation for 3 days, and chatting with the crews, I couldn't help but come away from this place with a renewed optimism for the future of heritage steam in this country. In all of the years that I've been interested in steam engines, never did I believe that anyone would find the resources to scratch-build a brand new steam engine....much less build one that replicates the machines that literally took this country from the stone age into the industrial age. The folks in New Freedom have a unique opportunity before them to rekindle the public's interest in the machines of old and perhaps get them to appreciate the fact that without these machines, the world we know today would be a very different place.