Jim,
You wouldn't want to build a new boiler, ask some of the people here....
You would ruin a valuable historic object by actually changing it.
Now it doean't matter that it was routine for the SP to do EXACTLY the same thing... No it's just that you nor Anyone else can do it as it would somehow cheapen the historic value to future generations (as if they care).
I was roundly chastized for recommending restoration of some of the C&TS locomotives on the basis of what I stated above. Some people think that a mummified and cocooned locomotive is more important than letting one live and do what it was designed to do.
So let's pull our heads out of our collective butts and see that a Loco on display, rusting away to its elemental chemicals is profoundly more important than one restored and maintained and operated.
With tongue firmly in cheek,
Rick Steele