Is adding a steampunk spin on a 5e campaign pushing it , or is having steam powered trains and airships totally fine...

Not off the top of my head other than Eberron but it shouldn't be hard to come up with something.
I've just always found it a cringy fanbase and I see nothing particularly appealing about it. There are other ways to do historical fantasy.

It's been about 100 years since the shattering of the main continent and the bleeding in of the feywild, is that enough time ?

>There are other ways to do historical fantasy.
Your post made the impression that it's only the steam factor you dislike, as magic powered machines with the "steampunk" aesthetic would be better. To be fair I never noticed a steampunk fanbase more than general fantasy fanbase which can be pretty cringy

Maybe... But that seems like you'd be reaching the basic levels of magic tech, like there has been maybe 3 generations of people who've lived in an age of magic.

I think most people hate steampunk because it's theme isn't the depressed stage that cyberpunk or wasteland is. The punk is, in many of the people who hate steampunk eye's, supposed to be a struggle for something, such as cyberpunk struggle against totalitarian rule, be it governments or corporations using technology to take freedoms from people, or struggling to remain human in a world that is pushing for something not human, such as in dieselpunk or transhumanism. Steampunk, however, rarely explores such themes, adopting a concept of "This modern cool thing, built years before using some kind of power source" and the world is brighter, one of hope more than one of despair. Sometimes you see punk in steampunk, if it explores the effects of technology growing rapidly and how it affects Society but that's rarely seen.

>I think most people hate steampunk because it's theme isn't the depressed stage that cyberpunk or wasteland is
Nailed it.

>oh my god look at those idiots laughing and having fun wearing silly costumes
>don't they know those gears don't do anything
>why are they still having fun

There isn't anything wrong or unfun about a depressing setting. Fallout is a fun setting and it's a depressing world to live it.

The steam age was more of one of "look what we can do!" hope.

Proper steampunk should be more "what have we done?" with the horrors of the industrial age and such, which arguably it could share with cyberpunk as the industrial revolution is the birth of megacorps and arguably pervasive financial corruption of governments and such.

>There isn't anything wrong or unfun about a depressing setting
Nobody said that

Steampunk draws opinions since it implies a lot of things about theme. Some love it, some hate it.

But if you just want trains and airships, you can add steam technology to your game without any problems. Magic is optional. I run a campaign with that sort of thing (plus guns, newspapers, several other things) and it's no problem at all, since it doesn't really interfere with adventuring. It lets the party move between major urban centers quickly, but doesn't preclude stomping out into the wilderness on foot. It justifies a rapid transfer of news and mail. It permits clever architecture and other doodads like watches or lighters that players enjoy toying with.

True. Child Labor, poor working conditions, smog, and more should be part of the themes of steampunk. The world should feel like it's got one foot in the Great Depression and one foot in a Victoriana Rolling 20s.

Alright, let me pitch my setting.
A rocky slate desert world inhabited by humans and elves, the majority of the planet is wasteland and an-cap chaos. A once lush alien world, it's surface was obliterated in a massive war that ended in the near-total destruction of both forces. On either pole of the planet are massive, ringed super-cities with a strict caste society. The humans are not allowed inside the cities except to trade/work at the sub-ground levels as laborers. Elves run the city and are largely entertained by massive gladiator fights between roided up superhumans. In the wastelands, raiders and treasure-hunters scour the expanse for ancient artifacts from a time before the great war which destroyed the planets surface, and unlucky travelers who cross their paths. The humans in the more inhabited areas and the rare half-elf(sterile) engage in constant, brutal, endless conflict with each other, over things as simple as food or over massive estates and fortifications. The elven royal forces do sometimes enter the wasteland to eliminate particularly powerful groups, or replace laborers. The level of technology ranges from traditional fantasy to something like FFVII, depending on the era. The cities are made of ascending rings, metallic in construction, and are powered by massive alchemical reactors. The higher your caste, the higher your ring. The supreme emperor lives at the peak of the north city, and his eldest male son governs the south.
Any class goes as long as it works with your alignment, any tool, weapon, magical item, etc can exist or be made.
Elves must be lawful, humans must be chaotic, regardless of era.

The late 1800s and early 1900s have great examples of this stuff in America, with the Pinkerton's busting strikes and steel mills and all kinds of nasty business.

The show on Netflix, Ripper Street set in London 1890ish is a great feel of how ugly the world should be for steampunk.

And if you can find it, Copper from BBC. Damn shame that it got cancelled.

Ah, one more thing. A super storm of hundred of miles deep clouds and lightning cover the planets surface and make the sky unobservable. No less than 90% of the planets surface is covered by this storm at any one time. Mutated beasts do exist in the wastelands and are the primary source of food for humans.