RailRoadFan.com

Since moving to this area, I have heard stories of locomotives in some of the Michigan lakes. They are supposed to be from the logging days. Does anyone know where this can be verified.

I just put one of those side-scan sonars in my boat & think it would be fun to try to locace one of them.

Thanks

Frank F

I don't know about the Lakes; but if you get a canoe (or Kayak) and meander arround under the AA bridge at Argo Dam on the Huron River you can find an old box car (so I'm told, all I've seen is the wheel) Don't need anything fancy either.

peter

I think there is some truth to that, there is even a few "Ghost Trains" up in the UP that have been heard by folks, one of which I believe the locomotive sunk in some bog. Lake Skegemog has a bunch of old stumps in it from an old logging railroad trestle that I was told the train fell off of and sunk to the bottom many years ago. This would be a fun one to do some research on, Ill see what I can dig up, if nothing more than hear say.. it makes for one of those good campfire stories.

Don't know about the lakes, but I've been told by a few people that the one pond in Howell has a steam locomotive at the bottom of it.

Oh, and welcome to the forum Frank

Ghost Train's. THAT IS COOL MAN! We should do a RailRoadFan.Com investigation like TAPS.

It would be neet to dive on an old steamer at the bottom of a lake.

There is a gravel pit just south of Tecumseh that is said to have a steamer at the bottom of it. The pit is one that was dug by Ford to make the overpass at Delta for the DT&I and NYC.

Supposedly there is a NYC engine in Lake Baw Beese east of Hillsdale....

And an old AA locomotive in a bog around Hamburg, MI

Do these count? They're not floating by any means.

Sounds like what i hear around here. There's an engine in lake X & also one in lake y. How can I verify any of the stories?????

I heard from a now retired CSX clerk that once a boxcar full of spark plugs rolled out of Benton Harbor Yard and went off the edge of the approach bridge (swing bridge was open) into the St. Joseph River probably 25-30 yrs ago and is still there. There are de-rails on each side of the bridge now to prevent this.

Been told by my wife's grandfather that there's a boxcar or two in Half Moon Lake, (between Bailey and Casnovia and just south of M-37 bridge) on the Marquette. Back in the day.....there used to be a spur they'd build onto the lake in the winter and the boxcars would be loaded with cut ice from the lake (before refridgerated cars). Apparently, 1 or 2 of these cars ran off the track and into the lake bottom. That's a story that's pretty firm for the past 25 years that I've been around the area. Heard the lake is pretty deep as is spring fed, so not sure how far down they would be.

C&O

I don't know exactly how sunken they were, but the D&M dumped a dozen or so cars down an embankment on the Huron Sub. into a marsh. The embankment was high enough that they didn't bother pulling them out. However, this was in the 1940s and the cars were wooden, so I doubt anything exists today.

Frank F wrote:Since moving to this area, I have heard stories of locomotives in some of the Michigan lakes. They are supposed to be from the logging days. Does anyone know where this can be verified.

I just put one of those side-scan sonars in my boat & think it would be fun to try to locace one of them.

Thanks

Frank F

Great Lakes & Seaway Shipping
http://www.boatnerd.com/pictures/histor ... efault.htm

Pere Marquette Streamers
http://www.carferries.com/pmcarferries/

More books; The Great Lakes Car Ferries
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Lakes-Car-F ... oks&sr=8-2

During the construction of the Livingston Channel in the Detroit River. They made coffer dams to contain the area so they could pump out the water. They had to blast alot of limestone to get the river deep enough. With tons and tons of stone to move they built a small railroad to move all of the blasted material. When they were ready to flood the channel, the railroad was left in place. I read this in a book about Detroit.

Frank F wrote:Sounds like what i hear around here. There's an engine in lake X & also one in lake y. How can I verify any of the stories?????

Grab your diving gear and take a swim

Infact there are a few trains in lakes. In Bear Lake by Lewiston Mi there is an engine that went through in the logging days. In Johannesburg lake there is a engine that was purposly ran into the lake and also in east twin lake there is an engine and a few cars at the bottom that went through the ice.

I was told by my dad and one of his older friends that Ann Arbor lost a couple of box cars into betsie bay of the RR ferry docks on the Elberta side many years ago. And couple years ago i saw on the fish locator while salmon fishing what looked to me like a box car laying on its side about 30-40 off the end of the dock. Would be pretty cool diving down there!

I recall reading something a while back, where a GTW steam locomotive had sunken in St. Clare River up in Port Huron.

I recall ( back in the 70s ) that during one winter a railcar barge got away from it's slip before the CP could finish loading the boxcars, sending some of them into the Detroit river. The boxcars were loaded with product from the Hiraim Walker plant in Windsor. The news paper called the worlds biggest hi-ball. Cheers!