Restoring historic artifacts following the National Park Service Standards of Restoration requires skilled staff and volunteers, time, and funding. In life, museum volunteer Jared Alery could give his skills and time to the Museum.
Jared, the son of David and Lisa Alery, was born and raised in Stevens Point, WI. He attended Pacelli Catholic Schools from K—12. Upon graduation, he focused his passion at WyoTech in Laramie, WY, and earned his Associate’s Degree in Advanced Diesel and Business Management.
After graduating at the top of his class with the highest honors and perfect attendance, he moved to Issaquah, WA, and began his career with NC Machinery. He started as a diesel technician in the rental equipment arena but quickly outgrew that role and transitioned to heavy equipment. His ultimate goal was to dive into the Marine Division, which he achieved and excelled at these past five years. The Marine Division took him on adventures worldwide to Tahiti, Hawaii, Alaska, and Gulf Shores. Work included the Department of Defense, the Navy and Army, tug boat operators, and many private vessels. He was an expert in his field and highly respected and regarded amongst his co-workers and clientele.
Throughout his life, Jared was an avid adventurer and go-getter. He achieved the highest award in Boy Scouts of America, the Eagle Scout, with Troop 298. Anything with wheels, a dirt bike, motorcycle, ATV, Jeep, or diesel engine, was his calling. After a long day riding around in the sand dunes of Eastern WA with friends, he could enjoy a campfire with a cold New Glarus Spotted Cow and a bag of WI cheese curds.
He was also passionate about railways and volunteered at the Northwest Railway Museum, helping restore its historic artifacts. Railways changed everything: settlement patterns, how people eat, the physical landscape and environment, how goods moved, and how economies functioned, among many other aspects of life. This influence began with steam-powered locomotives but grew exponentially with the arrival of diesel-electric engines, which operated much more efficiently. Passionate about railways and locomotives, Jared innately understood this importance of early diesel-electric locomotives and the importance of sharing their role in our history.
Jared Thomas Fredrick Alery unexpectedly died in August 2023 at just 29. Being a passionate, successful CAT Marine Diesel Technician, Jared loved working with diesel equipment. When Jared passed away, his family felt that the best way to honor his memory and allow his legacy to carry on was to establish the Jared TF Alery Vocations Trust. With this trust, they support programs that share Jared’s vision. Like Jared, they know restoration work takes skill, time, and funding. Now that Jared could not provide his skills and time with his passing, they felt they could carry on his legacy by supporting the funding component of the museum’s restoration work in his memory. In September 2024, the Jared TF Alery Vocations Trust donated over $30,774.99 in Jared’s memory to help bring back Northern Pacific Locomotive 125 to operating conditions so that future visitors can experience the excitement of seeing and riding on this piece of history that changed the railway industry in the region from steam power to diesel-electric, forever changing the world of trains.
The Northwest Railway Museum recently began restoring Northern Pacific Locomotive 125, the oldest existing Northern Pacific diesel-electric locomotive in Washington State. Historically, this locomotive was just the second diesel-electric locomotive on the Northern Pacific Railway and was first operated in Seattle, switching the docks along the waterfront, where it served as locomotive 125.
In 1949, the NP sold the locomotive to the Walla Walla Valley Railway, where it was renumbered 770. It replaced an electric locomotive just as that interurban line shut down its electric overhead. It spent several periods in the late 1950s building trains at King Street Station when it was leased back to the Northern Pacific and subleased to King Street Station. By 1971, the locomotive was sold to leasing company Relco and, by the early 1980s, was assigned to Continental Grain in Longview. The Port of Longview later purchased the locomotive. In the early 2000s, the Port of Longview retired their locomotive 770, an Alco model HH660 built in February 1940. The Northwest Railway Museum purchased the locomotive from the port and stored it at their facilities until 2021, when it was moved to Snoqualmie. In 2023, the Museum began work on restoring this unique artifact.
The Jared TF Alery Vocations Trust has also set up an endowment scholarship for WyoTech students at LoveTrades Foundation so that future students can join the trades just as Jared did. Jared had a generous heart and compassion, willing to help anyone anytime. The Alery family is honored to bring those beautiful traits of Jared’s to fruition through these grants. They want to encourage young people passionate about diesel to pursue their dreams. These opportunities challenge future generations of diesel technicians to be as big-hearted, focused, and successful as Jared.
The Northwest Railway Museum is pleased to support the Alery family in continuing Jared’s Legacy through this restoration project so that future generations can see and experience the excitement of a working railway while preserving essential stories and artifacts from our past. The Northwest Railway Museum is also pleased that the family has created the trades scholarship so that there will be other young people with a skill set to help carry on important restoration work.
