The last steam locomotive to pull trains on the Alaska Railroad is getting new life.
Engine 557 ran on coal when it first came to Alaska in 1944. It was later converted to run on oil and retired in the '50s, then sold in the '60s to a scrap dealer and museum owner in Washington state, where it sat for decades.
Engine 557 returned to Alaska in 2012, to be rebuilt, with the expectation that it will someday once again chug along the rails in Southcentral Alaska.
In November, the nonprofit 557 Restoration Company fired up the old train engine outside its home shop in Wasilla. And of course they just had to blow its steam whistle.
557 Restoration Company President Patrick Durand says it was the culmination of 13 years of work and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Patrick Durand: That was a phenomenal day. We had a checklist of everything necessary to fire the boiler, and then what ifs, if this happens, this happens, just a punch list. We rolled it out about noon. It was like 20 degrees, crystal clear sky, sun. We hooked up the air, which we use to start the burner, and the fire just gets so hot, and it just kept going. And, my goodness, we're sitting here with steam.
So, well, let's try the whistle.
Casey Grove: Of course! You've got to, right?
PD: So we have to play with the whistle and turn the steam on, and pretty soon it's sitting there going, "ka-thump. Ka-thump. Ka-thump ka-thump." That's the heartbeat of any steam locomotive. And, I don't know, you might hear it in my voice, but all of those things were inspiring for the crew, let's say. You never saw so many smiles among the crew. I think there were 13 people in the crew that day. The whole experience was a matter of our patting ourselves on the back for 13 years of effort, well invested.
CG: Where did Engine 557 come from? Like, what kind of engine is it? And then how did it end up in Alaska?
PD: Engine 557 is one of the locomotives in the S 160 class, it was called, by Baldwin Locomotive Works. And Baldwin, Lima (Locomotive Works) and Alco (American Locomotive Company), the three big manufacturers in 1940, early 1940s, were all building the same locomotive to a military contract, 2,120 identical locomotives over a 28-month period. Hard to imagine, and they were all being built to go to war.
Of the 18 that stayed here, 12 of them came to Alaska. The last three, including 557, were in the last shipment, and they never saw service in Europe. They were reserved new as new construction for the Alaska Railroad. And they needed these here because they realized that the railroad was the key infrastructure that they were going to use to get things to the Interior of Alaska.
CG: So this is going to sound like a dumb question, but I don't think that it can be understated how different it was to propel a train then than it is now. I mean, most people, almost everybody alive right now, has been driving a gas-powered car. There are electric cars that are becoming more prevalent. But can you describe for me — and this is why I say it's a dumb question — but can you describe for me how a steam engine works, just for people that don't think about that?
PD: That's one of the reasons why we're doing this project for the Alaska Railroad. We want to be able to present that technology and fill that void of information.
A steam locomotive is not powered by an internal-combustion engine. Now there is some internal combustion taking place, but it's in a firebox where you burn. Initially, they burned wood, coal, and almost everybody is now settling on oil. In our case, it will be used oil. So we have oil in the tender behind the locomotive. We have a water cistern, is the proper term for it, around the oil bunker, and you fill the boiler about a third to a halfway full of water on the sight gauge, so you can see water in the boiler. And you open the oil valve and open the atomizer, which sprays that oil into the fire box, put an oil-wet rag in there, lit, and the fire goes, "Woof."
And then, by controlling the draft through the smokestack, you can eject steam through the blower pipe and induce draft. So the engineer reaches up and grabs a handle and opens the throttle, the steam goes out what's called the dry pipe down to the engine up front, and the valve shuttles back and forth, admitting steam to one side of the piston or the other. The pistons then are connected to the main rods, which are on crank pins on the main drivers. You open the throttle, the steam cylinder will fill with steam, and something's got to give. And hopefully it's the motion on the crank pin that sets you down the track.
CG: Things used to be so different. I mean, you could run this on coal originally and get around and move stuff around, right? I mean, you said that part of the reason that this project is happening is to try to explain that to people now in the 2020s or, you know, beyond. But, for you, what about steam engines do you find so interesting?
PD: Well, until you actually sit in the cab of a steam locomotive and go 50 miles, and you watch everything that's going on, you don't really appreciate all of the mechanical systems that have to shake hands to make this thing go down the track. And I guess it's just a fascination with things mechanical that I've always had, and this afflicts quite a few people.
Fortunately, that's where our volunteers come from, and I can't say enough about their involvement, but they're there for the same reason I am. We want to see it in steam. We have an expression for that affliction. It really is an affliction, and it's called "Ferri Equinosis." Iron Horse Disease.
