Russ,
In reference to your second link, where you said you could "almost touch the side rods."
On a charter a number of years ago, organized by a well known video producer who shall not be named, we all piled into the track supervisor's pickup truck and he drove us up the service road, along side the steam loco, which shall also not be named, and we could actually touch the cylinders as we drove along side!
When we got out at the end, with ear to ear grins, one of the riders, himself a railroad executive said, "That was great, but you would never do that on my railroad!"
Michael