Honestly all this feels like the railway’s Dieselization 100yrs ago. When the end of steam powered engines was drawing near, coal hauling railroads and Baldwin Locomotive in the U.S. tried all kinds of whacky and hilariously inefficient engine designs, just to keep the ol’ ways alive… none of these worked out - everyone who stuck to it lost hugely. Viz. …m.wikipedia.org/…/Chesapeake_and_Ohio_class_M-1