Monte Holm's train heads home

MOSES LAKE - After a decades long visit to Moses Lake, a steam engine once owned by local legend Monte Holm headed back home.

Locomotive 557 moved slowly across West Broadway Avenue in early December, the start of a long journey ends in Anchorage, Alaska, where it will be restored.

The 160,000-pound engine made its way from private property in Moses Lake to Seattle for a six day barge trip north to Whittier, Alaska. There it was scheduled to be off-loaded to ride the rails 70 miles northwest to Anchorage.

The locomotive was built in 1944 and ended it's service in 1959 as Alaska's last operating steam engine. Like others of its ilk, the engine was destined for the scrap yard when Holm picked it up from an Everett steel dealer in the mid 1960s.

"There would be no homeward bound if he hadn't done that," said Steve Rimple, who joined other family members to watch what was his grandfather's engine roll away. "I know he's excited about this. If he were here today, he would be ecstatic about everything that's happening."

Rimple's 17-year-old son Jacob, whose middle name is Monrad after his great-grandfather, was able to take a short ride in the cab.

"It was really great," he said. "It's sad to see it go, but it's better it goes to Alaska to be restored and used than to rust out here."

Locomotive 557 was donated to the Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARC) by the Jansen family, which in 2008 bought the engine for a moderate sum, according to Vic Jansen, who was a close personal friend of Monte Holm for about 30 years.

The engine originally changed hands to facilitate its journey north, said Jansen, who is the director of Lynden Incorporated, a land, sea and air transport company, which for the past 12 years has moved as many as 50 rail cars every week to Alaska on 420-foot barges.

Locomotive 557 will be onboard the next delivery, and Jansen said he's proud to be a part of returning it to the place of its origin.

"If it was just going up there to sit as a static, I would just as soon see it stay where it is," he said. "The real story of this move is that it's going up there to be in operation again, to make people happy."

After it's in running order, Tim Sullivan, ARC's manager of external affairs, said there are several options for what will be done with the Locomotive 557, including pulling a few cars between Anchorage and Portage during the tourism season.

"We think it presents an opportunity for folks who are interested in stepping back in time," he said. "It's great to have it coming home. It's a real legacy to be enjoyed by all Alaskans."

As a way to honor Holm's legacy, a plaque will be affixed to the engine, a tribute to the man who saved it from the salvage heap.

"You can preserve history by letting something sit forever and ever, but there wouldn't have been a story unless that train was going to be restored," Rimple said. "The fact that the Alaska Railroad Company is willing to restore this and let it live again is truly amazing, it's the preservation of history. This right there is what (Monte Holm) would want."