NOW2: Cole Van Gerpen, who grew up in the Snoqualmie Valley, was a Northwest Railway Museum volunteer from age 8 to 15, then became a ticket agent and administrative assistant before joining the board as a trust. Locomotive #1246 represents, for him, “very much an industry and a history behind American culture — and the culture of the world as a whole — that’s very human-driven more so than I think any other industrial or mechanical thing that we have.” (Clay Eals)