I get a lot of laughs when people pontificate on how important and significant these "artifacts" are and how the world will end if one is worn out or damaged or repaired or restored or operated or changed or improved, and what a huge loss it will be to serious scholars and historians and the great unwashed public at large.
Phooey. There are hundreds of steam engines out there. Some running, some not, some may someday, most won't. Those hard-core types who get their panties in a knot whenever someone dares to get up steam and operate a locomotive are usually conspicuous by their silence when other, unwanted locomotives turn into eyesores and then get scrapped.
Most of these things are really not very significant. Yes, they are old, they mean a lot to a lot of people emotionally, but when there are hundreds of them around, the possible "loss" of one or two is insignificant.
Unless it blew up or was buried in slide it wouldn't be "lost", anyway. It would simply go back on display, for all to enjoy, as have a LOT of engines. Just a very short list would include 2839, 2716, 2124, 759, 4070, 611, 1218, AFT1, etc. There are plenty of others.
Finance a new-build by each railfan giving a buck? Sure, assuming there are 500,000 or a million railfans. There probably are not more than 200,000 at most; more likely a lot less. Just add up the total circulation of all the rail hobby mags and newsletters, then throw in the total membership of NRHS, R&LHS, the company-specific historical and technical societies, museums, etc. All of them together won't add up to much over 250,000, if that much, and when you account for the overlaps (the people who belong to more than one organization and subscribe to more than one rag), the number will come way down.
This hobby ain't nearly as large or important or as powerful as some of us think (hope) it is.