I know this is crazy but I have heard several strong rumors about a Southern railway locomotive overturned many years ago and is in the river along the NS mainline a little west of Asheville. It is most likely burried in the mud, but I was wondering if anyone could elaborate on this
Also I've heard several people talk about a hudson or possibly a pacific in the woods or possibly a barn in Ohio. Anyone heard this ?
I don't want to open a rumor mill thing here, but would be interested if anyone had heard about any of these. I know that they are both probably not true, and am not trying to say they are, but I am just curious about them, or any other similar types of " lost " engines.
I don't know about that one, but I do know there is one from 1855, in the Gasconade river, at Gasconade, Missouri, about ten miles from my house.
story here
http://cprr.org/Museum/Gasconade_Disaster.html (http://cprr.org/Museum/Gasconade_Disaster.html)
The corps of engineers dragged the wreckage out of the channel along the east bank, left it there, and there it remains.
You can still see it when the river is really low, but if you didn't know it was a locomotive, you would never be able to guess what it was from whats still there.
The Great Smokey Mountain RR (a tourist operation) runs in Western North Carolina on former SRy track. They don't operate in the Asheville area but I bet that someone there could help you with the engine in the river rumor.
All I could find of engines in NC is one buried under a road and is not a Southern loco.
119 0-4-4T 4'-8½" NYE(WACC) under intersection of US301 & 186, Garysburg, NC buried Rhode Island Locomotive Co., 1879, CN 750 burried in 1933
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/lists/USA.shtml
Rich
Interesting on what you can find in some searches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Hill_Tunnel
Rich
there is a boston&maine 2-6-0- in the river in HANOVER N.H.found while looking for a drowned DARTMOUTH studant, in the late 70s grz
Most of those stories are rumors. I'm extremely skeptical as to another surviving B&M 2-6-0 in a river because Harry Frye, a big B&M historian has discounted these stories. There is a B&M 4-6-2 in the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth, that plunged off the open drawbridge in the 1930s. The locomotive number is 3666.
Put links to articles. Helps sometimes when trying to research rumors.
Rich
I'm from Ohio and have never heard of the pacific in a barn. But this is cool and will be the next great attraction for steam fans in Ohio...
http://www.ageofsteamroundhouse.com/index.html (http://www.ageofsteamroundhouse.com/index.html)
NWSteam-
You are so right. The web site alone is worth the cost of admission. I'm trying hard to justify a trip to Ohio to see it. That's not so easy when I'm retired and can't pretend I'm going to do training (no pun intended) or something. Maybe I'll tack it on a trip to see my family in southern Michigan.
For those who haven't done so, go to the Age os Steam web site ageofsteamroundhouse.com and sign up for their regular photo updates. I guarantee that you'll be impressed.
-- D
This is not a rumor, I was at the time on the fire dept in LEBANON N.H. andI stood on this locomotive, its 16 feet down on its right side.. If my frend ED MEAD were still with us he would back this up I know its there and why its there I guess thats all that matters grz
Dear GRZ,
Interesting. I started looking at on-line maps.
Hanover, NH is on the east bank of the Connecticut River, which is the border between VT and NH.
The railroad tracks on the map are on the VT, or west side of the river.
Can you look at a map and pin-point where the loco would be?
What about fire department records/reports of your search?
Sounds like a job for one of those underwater fishing cameras..
I suppose the river would be a little high and turbulent in the spring.
If the loco's builder's plate could be read, you would change recorded history.
Sincerely,
Joe Satnik
My brother works in the South Carolina Savannah River Plant - this nuclear facility was started in the late forties and encompassed parts of two counties. A whole town, ellenton, SC, was picked up and moved to another site - New Ellenton, SC. There is an abandoned logging railroad on the property near the Savannah River and my brother keeps promising to send pictures. Apparently they just parked everything and walked away.
I am sure that there might me a small logging locomotive in a river somewhere in the south.
I would think that any engine in the water for decades would be mostly rust.
Dear JOE SATNIK.what year would your map be? because the reason the loco is where it is is because they were going to flood the area, the new hydro dam was ready to go on line the very morning of the derailment, I guess the ole girl was working to pull the iron,? I dont know this for shure but why would it be in there??any way my friend ED a avid r.r. man knew it was there,the story he told the 1400 engine was headed to scrap with the iron she was pulling when she got tired and laid down to rest.they had moved the track to the east up the hill to get out of the way of the river.I think this had to be around late 40s ??dont know..yes HANOVER N.H. fire dept would have the records of this, not shure how many guys left there would remember this tho..also rembering EDs story the loco was to far from the new iron to bother with and the rr left it there. also on the one in portsmouth she was moved a few years back, they draged her to the east 1\4 mi, the day this was going on I was on rt 95 headed to south portland me, for a load of gas.. I was on the bridge headed north and see all the boats ect down there, and being a truck driver I had to know what was going on. talked to someone on my CB radio thats how i know that one grz[they were muckin th river bottom] g
I got to know this area well from business trips. Here's what a former work colleague, who has more than a passing interest in industrial archeology and local history and still resident in the area has sent me today;-
This does sound vaguely familiar, but I can't cite a reference to confirm it. The tracks are certainly on the VT side and and close to the river. The area that's probably being described is at the west end of the Ledyard bridge that goes from Hanover to Norwich VT. I think drownings have been historically somewhat routine events there from Dartmouth students diving off the bridge.
Until the construction of I-91 there was a small village (Lewiston) just north of the bridge on the VT side and that's where the station was. The Interstate took everything that was left of the village in the mid 1960's.
Complicating things is the fact that the river is dammed below this at the the Wilder Dam in W.Lebanon/Wilder VT so the river in the Hanover/Norwich area is actually the pond behind the dam and considerably above its natural level. The current dam was built in 1952 and, I assume, raised the water level higher than the previous dam- which I think may have been a wing dam and didn't completely block the river. It seems likely that the locomotive would have gone into the river longer ago than 1952.
Woody-
You wrote, "I would think that any engine in the water for decades would be mostly rust."
Not necessarily. Think of all of the iron cannons from the 16th to 18th centuries they bring up from the ocean, or the packet boat which was buried in the Missouri River and its mud for over 100 years and which is now on display in Kansas City, MO, including glass jars of food whose steel lids are still sealed and whose contents are still edible. The boat also had the complete inventory for a hardware store which is displayed as if it were a functioning hardware store and most of the ferrous items look new, not just good. And this is not because anyone polished them up, either. Or the many tons of Civil War steel and iron which have been brought up from water and soil. Some of these things look almost like new even though they are 150 years old and weren't cared for at all. Often water preserves wood and steel quite well, especially if it's cold and not full of corrosive chemicals. There's not a lot of free oxygen in water, especially deep or quiescent water, so rust is pretty much stopped at the surface. Paradoxically, submerged ferrous metals degrade very rapidly once they are exposed to air which is why so many things have to be sealed or treated by electrolysis. (No, not the kind for facial hair.)
-- D
This is way off topic but one of the main sources of steel that has not been exposed to radiation comes from the scuttled WW1 German fleet. The German crews took them to Scapa Flow and opened the sea cocks. You need un-iradiated steel to make tools used to measure radiation.
I had forgotten about the differences between being in fresh water as opposed to sea water. I still think that most of the "engine in the water" stories are just fables.
It would be great if one were found!
Terry 2 foot.the person that gave you that information was 100% correct. the river back in the late 40s was lots smaller then,and the tracks were very close to it,when the mill was replced with a hydro& dam it made a large pond,I under stand the track was moved eastward to bypas the river.grz ps the little town of LEWISTON is no longer,I have a postmark from the p office there..g
Woody-
You are almost certainly correct that most of the steamer in the river stories are more fable than fact, just like the rare old Maseratti in the barn stories. However, they do turn out to true every once in a while.
-- D
Don't forget google Maps most places you can zoom in very close if you know a general area you can spot things at times.
NM
here we go again no I cannot back up my story! but likeI said I stood on this locomotive. and at the time I thought it had the shape of something like it then when I was telling ED,then he filled me in on what had happend at that time with the dam and hydro.as far as flying over and looking in the river and seeing anything no way!! that river is very dingy and murky..I boat that river a lot as I live not far from it and the wake my boat makes is coffee in color,and I never pass this area that I dont think of that poor kid and why I was there in the first place..if HARY FRYE the B&M historian like you said why did he miss this one??I would like to know that.plus the thing is 16 or 18 feet down.IM done with this!! I will listen to the news of it being found again however,that will be fun..
Hey GRZ, sure it wasn't a boiler from a steam boat?
NM
Griz,
I don't doubt that the loco is there. Can you to narrow down its location in the reservoir?
Play around with google maps, bing maps or another on-line map of your choice.
A fishing boat with a fish finder (sonar) could go along the 16 foot contour and find it. A underwater fishing camera (which normally have lights) could get images of it.
If there are fish in the reservoir there are probably fishermen with that equipment already floating. If they also had a GPS they could mark the spot when they found it...