Local Legend: Train in the Wabash?

[Anonymous]

It would not surprise me if one or more locomotives from these two different wrecks are still in the river.  Apparently both wrecks precipitated locomotives into the river, so the only question is whether they fully recovered them or not.  Railroad companies were always motivated to recover expensive equipment such as locomotives.  And they had a substantial ability to perform such recovery, but sometimes the value of the locomotive was not worth the cost of its recovery. 

Today, there are lost locomotives that have, in many cases, degenerated over time from the certainty of common knowledge to the vagueness of legend.  No doubt, some of them have gone on to become lost history.  However, some remain fully documented.  To a railroad historian, it is enchanting to contemplate a locomotive from over a century ago suddenly snatched from its everyday service and trapped like a fly in amber.

I would tend to put a lot of credence in the reports of people having seen part of one or more locomotives in the river during low water.  If so, it means that the Wabash RR was unable to recover the locomotive(s) by any means that would have been worthwhile.  That suggests insurmountable problems such as the size of the river flow, including its depth and current.  Water turbidity may have posed a problem as well.  The final complication to recovery may have been a soft silt bottom that partially or even wholly swallowed the locomotive.  That complication alone could have rendered the task of recovery to be practically impossible.

While I find this story to be very interesting, the news coverage in the links is frustrating in its inability to explain anything clearly.  What did the side scan radar show?  What the big magnet find?  How do they know that the big magnet found anything?  What was it that caused one diver to say he found it?     

[inch53]

The TV station in Terre Haute Ind, did a 3 part story, to see if they could find any of the 3 Big 4 engines were in the Wabash under the bridge as the story goes

http://www.wthitv.com/dpp/news/local/local-legend-train-in-the-wabash

http://www.wthitv.com/dpp/news/local/local-legend-the-search-for-the-train

http://www.wthitv.com/dpp/news/local/local-legend-train-will-remain-a-legend-for-now

I grew up hearing stories from family over there about seeing them for years.