Lost Southern railway locomotive in river

Started by nickco201, March 14, 2011, 12:26:32 AM

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nickco201

  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.

r0bert

#1
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
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.

Woody Elmore

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.

richg

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

richg


GRZ

  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

Guilford Guy

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.
Alex


richg

Put links to articles. Helps sometimes when trying to research rumors.

Rich

NWsteam

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

Doneldon

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

GRZ

  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

Joe Satnik

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 
If your loco is too heavy to lift, you'd better be able to ride in, on or behind it.

Woody Elmore

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.

GRZ

  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

terry2foot

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.