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…