I ran across a rail fan video store that has several videos on U. S. Steamboats. I imagine the VHS videos are in "NTSC" format instead of European "PAL" format, but thay do have several of them in DVD-R format.
http://www.rrhistorical.com/cgi/HerronRailVideo/video_store.cgi?ACTION=thispage&thispage=page27.html&ORDER_ID=164951106

http://www.rrhistorical.com/cgi/HerronRailVideo/video_store.cgi?ACTION=thispage&thispage=page26.html&ORDER_ID=203136503

If you have trouble with these links here is the main site
http://herronrail.com/

I've been spending the week updating my paddler videos to DVD because I gto a DVD recorder as an early B'day present!