Sadly that won't matter much to his legacy. At least outside of places like K8P. Gotri and the like are no doubt inclined take a clear eyed approach. Not the longbeards though.
Too bad for those Longbeards -- were
they the ones part of the expedition that rescued Vlag, or that (presumably) scouted and reached Karag Dum?
I'd said it before when this topic came up, but, the 'success needs no etc etc, failure etc etc' thing really depends on what the success and failure is. If the expedition
succeeds, then anybody criticizing the expedition and its machines would have to be careful of that -- because it
wasn't a failure. They also have to be careful because their grumbling might piss off the people of the expedition who might have strong feelings about Gotrek's death and the
accident out of nowhere that befell the Urmskaladrak, and the people of the expedition are the heroes of the hour.
Perhaps they can thread the needle of "If we'd done it
our way, there wouldn't have been
any losses at all!" In fact, that's probably what they'll try to do.
But then, if they were so convinced it was possible... then why were none of them on the expedition?
I think Gotrek's legacy will depend on how the rest of the expedition goes, and how the rest of the steam-wagons fare. And also depend on how the Longbeards will feel about the expedition.
Who knows. Maybe they'll try to take a reconciliatory approach, in fact.
Maybe they'll talk up how good an engineer Gotrek was, and his connection to Zhufbar, and how of
course it was important that Zhufbar contributed to the expedition and helped it succeed! Shame about what happened, but disaster can strike anywhere and anywhen.
In other words, maybe they'll try to paper over the rift between Gotrek and his Clan in Zhufbar. Massage history a bit. Soften the details a bit. Like the way some Dwarfs sometimes consider history. (Not all Dwarfs do this of course. But some do.)
Or maybe they'll be convinced that the multi-wheel steam-wagon idea is a good one... the problem was in going too big with it. Or maybe the problem was in having a Dragon perched on it. Maybe that was the problem, ba humbug, it's always the Elgi at fault, etc etc.
It's too mixed and difficult to tell what track they will take, basically, yet. It depends on the rest of the expedition and how the rest of the steam-wagons do, I think. It depends on whether they'd rather shittalk Gotrek, or praise Gotrek. Whether they'd rather blame the ambitious size of the Urmskaladrak, or the land-carrier-of-a-dragon aspect of it, or what.