Would a railroad crane ever be seen

in a manifest freight train on a mainline in the American west?

No .. self respecting Bucyrus railroad crane would ever dare to be seen on a manifest freight train on a mainline ... especially in the American west

As they are very heavy specialized equipment, and are not for high speed movement, they would be towed to a repair shop or roundhouse, and sit there on a stub track, awaiting a wreck, and then only used on a short wreck train powered by a single locomotive, used for a daily chore, rarely on a MOW train that has overnight bunk cars. Most cranes have unpowered wheelsets

I got that idea from a Tyco train TV commercial in the 1970's. A crane was in the consist with a bunch of freight cars with a consolidation steam engine pulling it. This was then the Chattanooga Choo Choo HO set. Could it be that the railroad is just transporting a new crane from the crane factory on the mainline? It is a RR vehicle after-all and wouldn't it just make since to couple it to a train to ship it to its future home yard especially if the crane factory is 2,000 miles away? Cranes are slow-moving by themselves after all. I always think of RR cranes as used in track construction and maintenance: train wrecks never come to mind whenever I see one on the tracks rolling along.

I just want to be sure I don't have a crane in a mainline freight in my Trainz game if it would look stupid. I will reserve that for my special work train in my yard with a GP9, a diner car (the crew cook car), a Pullman 10-6 sleeper for the crew since they are unionized (there is no bunk car content), the crane itself, a work gondola and a caboose for the foreman's quarters.

A new crane could be shipped in a freight train but it could also be a special train, up to the railroad, new locomotives are shipped the same way, unpowered.