@joanna The best answer is to visit this website. http://www.steamrail.com.au/
I love old machinery, especially steam stuff. There are at least three volunteer groups in or around this city dedicated to maintaining & rebuilding old trains, etc.
There are narrow gauge railways and broad gauge ones, all operating on former government-run lines that have been closed due to alleged inefficiency.
One of those two locos seen on the Snow Train was last used as little as 15 years ago by a company that was contracted to supply passenger services to a big regional city in the west of the state. They leased two of those locos & re-converted them to run on oil (in the 1950s they were original converted for that fuel). They were able to maintain the same schedule as the diesel service they had replaced.
Declining patronage closed the line again & SteamRail reclaimed their lococs & reconfigured them once again for coal.