Need a Junker 4-4-0

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Master of Big Sky Blue

Make sure you get to cut the ribbon. How about it Jeff, Up for a Trip to Wyoming?

I don't travel well. Send me the ribbon and I'll cut it.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

It's been seven years and I haven't seen any progress photos on this.

[hon30critter]

I know this is an old thread but the recent posts about sunken engines bring up an interesting topic, i.e. lost engines.

We have a local legend of a lost train.

I live close to Tottenham, Ontario where the South Simcoe Railway runs 4-4-0 #136 that is, if memory serves correctly, 135 years old and has been operating for all of its life, save for downtime to do boiler rebuilds etc. It was used in the Pierre Burton TV series called "The National Dream: Building the Impossible Railway" and it travelled the whole distance from Tottenham to British Columbia under its own power to film the series. That was in 1974.

http://southsimcoerailway.ca/  

Here is a link to the TV series. It was very well done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Dream_%28TV_miniseries%29

Unfortuneatly the SSR website seems to be a little outdated in some places, and lacks a lot of information about steamer #136.

Anyhow, I digress. Sorry.

When you take the train from Tottenham to Beeton the conductor tells a story about a steam engine that disappeared in the fog one day while running on the same track. Supposedly it fell into a creek and sank without a trace. They have a lot of fun with the story. At one point the conductor tells the passengers that the whistle of the lost train can still be heard, at which point the engineer toots a few times. The creek is barely big enough to sink a wheelbarrow let alone a steam engine and train. Its all malarky of course but it adds a lot of fun to the excursion.

I saw another wrecked steam engine in Cuba a few years ago, except instead of being sunk in a marsh this one was on prominant display outside our resort. The resort had a railroad theme - rather tacky I might add. At first glance all you saw was an old steamer, but once you studied it a bit you realized that the frame was twisted rather badly and some of the major components were no longer connected as they should have been. I guess that was an example of how to make use of a wreck. Put it on a pedestal and build a huge resort around it! Please remember - no politics!

Dave

EDIT:

I started another thread on the topic of lost engines - both real and imaginary:

http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/232451.aspx

 

[Kyle]

At the bottom of Kerr lake in North Carolina, the is a steam locomotive.  Before there was a lake, a bridge went across a river.  The bridge was damaged in a forest fire, so the two brothers who operated the locomotive came up with an idea.  They would stop before the bridge and one would walk to the other side, then the other would open the throttle and jump off.  When the locomotive got to the other side, the first one would jump on and stop the train, and wait for the second one to walk across.  They did this for awhile with out incedent.  Finally the bridge was repaired so they decided to go across in the locomotive.  Sadly, the bridge failed sending the brothers and the locomotive to a watery grave.  The locomotive was never recovered because it went deep into the mud.  Locals use to swim down and ring the bell, but then the dam was built, and it is now under sixty feet of water.

[Robteed]

I have a locomotive buried out back almost in my back yard. My grandmother used to tell me of a locomotive that fell off the tracks and sank into the marsh. The ground was so soft it sank away and could not be recovered. Its called Chandlers marsh in East Lansin Michigan. There is a bunch of student housing built up in the area which is called "The Landings". There is a huge field here which up until recently was a sod farm and is now a corn field. I spent some time researching it and if I'm right the date was 1869. My grandmother said that townsfolk laughed at the idea of running the tracks through the Marsh and after the derailment the railroad moved the tracks further north to what is now the corner of Chandler Rd and State Rd.

[Guilford Guy]

Good grief, thats going to be one deep lake!!!!!

A little story, theres a steam engine in the Wabash river below the old NYC bridge in Terre Haute, IN. which they dump over the side during the hundred year flood back in the 20's or 30's, to keep the bridge from washing out. The story goes they were going to get it out when the river went down but couldn't, to full of mud, so they left it. When the river gets real low you can still see it from the bridge, with permision of course. So it doesn't have to be deep water, just not wourth the effort to do it.

Oh, it save the bridge and it's still used today by CSX

According to steamlocomotives.com http://www.steamlocomotive.com/lists/IN.shtml there are 3 steamers down there.

[SteamFreak]

No loco buried off a bridge in this one, but there's a local "Legend" about a Rio Grande L-131 2-8-8-2 caught and buried in the collapse of the original Tennessee Pass tunnel in Colorado just after the opening of the alternate new tunnel during WWII.  Now, THAT would be a loco to dig out, don't you think?

Tom

I've got my shovel ready!

So what do you think Tom, are you prepared to donate some brass to this sinking project? It would turn such a nice shade of green. 

 

[Master of Big Sky Blue]

Sure you don't want a Spectrum 2-10-2 or a 4-8-2

 

I have a Spectrum 4-8-2 (Light) and it runs pretty sweet so its nota candidate for sinking

James

[Guilford Guy]

Sure you don't want a Spectrum 2-10-2 or a 4-8-2

[Master of Big Sky Blue]

My name immortalized in epoxy resin? Thank you, I feel greatly honored. I expect to see some great pics.

Make sure you get to cut the ribbon.

 

How about it Jeff, Up for a Trip to Wyoming?

James

[SteamFreak]

My name immortalized in epoxy resin? Thank you, I feel greatly honored. I expect to see some great pics.

Make sure you get to cut the ribbon.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Yeah the plan is to use one of many products avalable for modeling water to encase the locomotive in. (Since its going to be forever entumbed in epoxy/plastic/resin you know why I wanted a junk loco for this) I have also decided to include a couple divers diving on the engine maybe to evelauate the loco for possible retrieval. and since Jeff was so kind to donate the engine for this project I have decided to name the lake "Lake Wimberly"

My name immortalized in epoxy resin? Thank you, I feel greatly honored. I expect to see some great pics.

[Master of Big Sky Blue]

Cool idea. It will make an unusual point of interest on the layout, and it will be fun to see how many people spot it without being prompted. How deep is the resin going to be?

(I foresee some future archaeologist carefully chipping away at Lake Wimberly, trying to get at the perfectly preserved specimen trapped inside.)

I don't know how exactly deep its going to be. The plan is to cut out the ply wood table top, and drop it to the bottom of the 1X4 supports and then fill in the below surface contours add details sink loco and fill with water until loco is submerged. I will probably have the loco laying on its side so the water wont get too deep.

James

[SteamFreak]

I hope you're not planning to use real water (but that's another topic). Are you going to seal it in resin?

Yeah the plan is to use one of many products avalable for modeling water to encase the locomotive in. (Since its going to be forever entumbed in epoxy/plastic/resin you know why I wanted a junk loco for this) I have also decided to include a couple divers diving on the engine maybe to evelauate the loco for possible retrieval. and since Jeff was so kind to donate the engine for this project I have decided to name the lake "Lake Wimberly"

Cool idea. It will make an unusual point of interest on the layout, and it will be fun to see how many people spot it without being prompted. How deep is the resin going to be?

(I foresee some future archaeologist carefully chipping away at Lake Wimberly, trying to get at the perfectly preserved specimen trapped inside.)

[Master of Big Sky Blue]

I hope you're not planning to use real water (but that's another topic). Are you going to seal it in resin?

Yeah the plan is to use one of many products avalable for modeling water to encase the locomotive in. (Since its going to be forever entumbed in epoxy/plastic/resin you know why I wanted a junk loco for this) I have also decided to include a couple divers diving on the engine maybe to evelauate the loco for possible retrieval. and since Jeff was so kind to donate the engine for this project I have decided to name the lake "Lake Wimberly"

[galaxy]

Did you ever see that dive show on the History channel where they found two 2-2-2 steamers on the bottom of the Atlantic off the coast of NY? It was pretty cool. They were sitting up right on the bottom side by side. They figured they were about 120 years old.

 

Yep. I've seen them more than once. A ship sank that they aboard. They sit there pretty as you please, and in good shape too. At the time it sank, they really didn't have good technology that was capable of raising them (they are heavy). It was a large financial loss. ANd now later, it doesn't matter to most. Who knows, maybe the coast guard will say they need to stay put.

I wonder how many automobiles have fallen off and sunk?

[jeffrey-wimberly]

You'd think the railroad would have dug that one out, unless the boiler exploded, in which case it wouldn't be worth the scrap cost.

[twhite]

No loco buried off a bridge in this one, but there's a local "Legend" about a Rio Grande L-131 2-8-8-2 caught and buried in the collapse of the original Tennessee Pass tunnel in Colorado just after the opening of the alternate new tunnel during WWII.  Now, THAT would be a loco to dig out, don't you think?

Tom

[SteamFreak]

Hi Everyone,

Perhaps some one can help me out. On my new layout that I am planning 10" X 13'6" There is a spot where I am going to have a lake seen. In it I want to have a submerged locomotive that due to the dificulties involved in retrieval, and the cost of such retrieval decision was to just leave it be and let it deteriorate to the elements. However since this fate is hardly worthy of a perfectly good 4-4-0 I was wondering if anyone might have an old Bachmann or Tyco 4-4-0 Junker they might be able to donate to the cause.

James.

I hope you're not planning to use real water (but that's another topic). Are you going to seal it in resin?

[jeffrey-wimberly]

And that's why you beg for forgivness instead of asking for permission!

Tilden

Yeah, what can they say? Put it back?

[Tilden]

And that's why you beg for forgivness instead of asking for permission!

Tilden

[Anonymous]

Good grief, thats going to be one deep lake!!!!!

A little story, theres a steam engine in the Wabash river below the old NYC bridge in Terre Haute, IN. which they dump over the side during the hundred year flood back in the 20's or 30's, to keep the bridge from washing out. The story goes they were going to get it out when the river went down but couldn't, to full of mud, so they left it. When the river gets real low you can still see it from the bridge, with permision of course. So it doesn't have to be deep water, just not wourth the effort to do it.

Oh, it save the bridge and it's still used today by CSX

I have my own little locomotive-in-the-water windy to spin. I don't know for sure just where I read this but I believe that it came from the pages of Trains magazine.

It seems that somewhere around the turn of the twentieth century the CRI&P dumped an American Standard type steam locomotive off of the Cimarron River bridge in Central Oklahoma.  This particular locomotive had, as I remember the story, been manufactured in the early 1870s and the Rock Island did not deem it to be of enough value to warrant the salvage cost; the locomotive was, consequently, abandoned at location.  Eventually it became completely covered over with river sand and forgotten.

Sometime in the '70s or '80s, I guess, a reporter wrote a short article in an Oklahoma newspaper about this incident; the article revealed that this locomtive was still there somewhere on the downstream side of the bridge.  This revelation piqued the interest of a group of Rock Island railfans who immediately conjured up a scheme to get this century old American Standard out of the river and, hopefully, return it to (excursion) service.  They hired an outfit to sonar the site and the wreck was soon identified there in the riverbed; it had drifted a little way downstream but was, in essence, exactly where it had lay for seven decades.

Enter the Army Corps of Engineers at this point; they are the arbiter of navigable waterways which the Cimarron River is deemed to be at this location.  They promptly put the kibosh on this whole thing; the locomotive had been there in the riverbed for so long that it had, by their definition, become, part and parcel, a virtual part of the riverbed.  They denied their permission for the locomotive to be removed; to do so posed an imminent danger to the structural integrity of the bridge.

It is, I reckon, there to this day.  I do not pretend to understand the Army Corp of Engineer's reasoning in this matter; I have only related the story as I remember it!  

 

 

Downstream is probably more of a problem for a bridge that upstream at least from a Hydrologist point of view.

[loathar]

Some of the stuff the Army engineers do makes you shake your head. Look at New Orleans. If that loco's holding the bridge up, I don't think I'd want to cross it.

[R. T. POTEET]

Good grief, thats going to be one deep lake!!!!!

A little story, theres a steam engine in the Wabash river below the old NYC bridge in Terre Haute, IN. which they dump over the side during the hundred year flood back in the 20's or 30's, to keep the bridge from washing out. The story goes they were going to get it out when the river went down but couldn't, to full of mud, so they left it. When the river gets real low you can still see it from the bridge, with permision of course. So it doesn't have to be deep water, just not wourth the effort to do it.

Oh, it save the bridge and it's still used today by CSX

I have my own little locomotive-in-the-water windy to spin. I don't know for sure just where I read this but I believe that it came from the pages of Trains magazine.

It seems that somewhere around the turn of the twentieth century the CRI&P dumped an American Standard type steam locomotive off of the Cimarron River bridge in Central Oklahoma.  This particular locomotive had, as I remember the story, been manufactured in the early 1870s and the Rock Island did not deem it to be of enough value to warrant the salvage cost; the locomotive was, consequently, abandoned at location.  Eventually it became completely covered over with river sand and forgotten.

Sometime in the '70s or '80s, I guess, a reporter wrote a short article in an Oklahoma newspaper about this incident; the article revealed that this locomtive was still there somewhere on the downstream side of the bridge.  This revelation piqued the interest of a group of Rock Island railfans who immediately conjured up a scheme to get this century old American Standard out of the river and, hopefully, return it to (excursion) service.  They hired an outfit to sonar the site and the wreck was soon identified there in the riverbed; it had drifted a little way downstream but was, in essence, exactly where it had lay for seven decades.

Enter the Army Corps of Engineers at this point; they are the arbiter of navigable waterways which the Cimarron River is deemed to be at this location.  They promptly put the kibosh on this whole thing; the locomotive had been there in the riverbed for so long that it had, by their definition, become, part and parcel, a virtual part of the riverbed.  They denied their permission for the locomotive to be removed; to do so posed an imminent danger to the structural integrity of the bridge.

It is, I reckon, there to this day.  I do not pretend to understand the Army Corp of Engineer's reasoning in this matter; I have only related the story as I remember it!  

 

[loathar]

Hi Jeff, Got the 4-4-0 on Saturday.

 

Loathar. I will get the drive shaft and motor in the mail as soon as I can discet the loco.

 

You all have a nice day.

 

James

Cool! I really appreciate it.

Thanks James

[inch53]

Good grief, thats going to be one deep lake!!!!!

A little story, theres a steam engine in the Wabash river below the old NYC bridge in Terre Haute, IN. which they dump over the side during the hundred year flood back in the 20's or 30's, to keep the bridge from washing out. The story goes they were going to get it out when the river went down but couldn't, to full of mud, so they left it. When the river gets real low you can still see it from the bridge, with permision of course. So it doesn't have to be deep water, just not wourth the effort to do it.

Oh, it save the bridge and it's still used today by CSX

[perry1060]

Cool idea! I'd love to see the finished scene...

[Master of Big Sky Blue]

Hi Jeff, Got the 4-4-0 on Saturday.

 

Loathar. I will get the drive shaft and motor in the mail as soon as I can discet the loco.

 

You all have a nice day.

 

James

[Master of Big Sky Blue]

No but I read about them in Trains. Thats where I got the Idea for this scene.

 

James