>>1080813>it's quite intriguing that Eastern Germany continued until 1988.it actually isn't. It's pretty typical for the eastern bloc that technical innovations weren't introduced as quickly, at least not in the large scale. Since it wasn't a consumer economy but a planned economy, things were made to last. It made perfect sense to keep steam trains running if you had the know-how, the coal and the manpower, while lacking production capacity for newer-type diesel locomotives and difficulty getting oil. I hear steam trains are still in use in china for similar reasons.
East german trams for example were of a simple but sturdy design. To this day the streetcar in Woltersdorf uses tram cars from the 1950's in a not-quite-heritage operation: it runs regularily and connects the village with the train station, so it still serves a useful purpose. For special event they get the actual heritage trams out which are from 1911, the year it was opened.