OK, the Hawaii thread reminded me of a show about a bunch of people in Michigan looking for Confederate gold taken from Jeff Davis in Georgia and..... well, different stories, but pointing to Michigan. In one episode they dig down to a steam locomotive from a logging line buried on the lake shore, but don't go further than feeling it down in the mud. Just wondering if this is a fantasy or if it really exists there - living people spoke of playing on it when children, and it is located in plain view next to a beach club in use since before the burial, so somebody should know.

CPR 964 was found by divers in Lake Superior, but it's not a logging engine and it's 235 feet deep, so I don't think it's the one you mention.

http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/201 ... perio.html

Wrong lake -- this one was supposedly "left" on the shore of Lake Michigan... the big question is whether any of the episodes went through peer review and as a result there may be much in them that is not technically correct.

Bob H

THEY DID'NT GO ANY FURTHER THAN FEELING IT IN THE MUD! EVERYBODY KNOWS THE GOLD IS HIDDEN IN THE SMOKEBOX!

Where do they come up with this stuff? Must be bad acid or something.

OK, so now that several people with no knowledge of the situation have chimed in, is there anybody from up there who does know something? TJG? Thanks for the link, Wes.

Howdy - One summer in the late 1970’s, while inspecting a couple of locomotives, in a heavily infested with vampire mosquito rail yard in Michigan, for a proposed short line (never got off the ground), I heard a story from an old Grand Trunk & Western brakeman about a dumped steam locomotive. Sometime before WW2 an old worn out locomotive up in the copper range area of the upper peninsula of Michigan was used as part of a fill of a washout after a major storm. He said it was cheaper to dump her to use as fill, than to scrap her. She was an old 4-4-0 from the Civil War era that ended her days working a mine railroad. Not sure if it’s still there. Is it possible this is the locomotive you are looking for?

David Notarius - Wimblington UK (ex New Hope PA)

I've seen at least a half dozen of these "lost train load of Nazi/Russian/Confederate gold" mockumentaries crop up in the last few years.

I never understand how you can come up with these nonsense legends and never cover the simple fact that if somebody put the gold there you better dang well believe they came back for it a long time ago.

I don't care you hid the train "for the cause" once somebody figured that -insert war here- was over and done with they're not just gonna leave it laying there.

David - probably not, seems like a different part of the state but I could be wrong. Based on the recollections of people interviewed, it was abandoned and gradually sunk in a changing shoreline. The logging track was also clearly visible in photos from the 1960s, which era many of us on this list can remember, a least parts of it depending on what you were doing in the 1960s.

Park - the gold was never said to be on the train. The train was peripheral to the gold story. Please view the footage before making assumptions. I don't care about the gold, but like legends about lost locomotives that are just backed enough to be possibly true.... but in the context of mockumentaries, always questionable. Seeking answers here or facts, if you don't have any why bother posting?

As someone who spent 95% of my life within 10 miles of the shoreline in question I will give my 2 pennies worth.

The lake Michigan shorline can be a mysterious area. Over the years the water level rises and falls 6 feet or so. The sand shifts (and talks to you while you walk on it) and as it does conceals and reveals anything that can settle along the shore. It would not surprise me one bit if a locomotive was burried where it might have been exposed 30, 40, 50 + years ago. I had not heard of the railroad on the beach discussed until this show aired, but that would also not surprise me. 8 miles south, on the beach, was the south terminus for the Lake Line interurban (GR,GH&M). Tracks laid in the sand that had to be cleared every year from 1890 something to 1928.

Anything is possible.

Also I will add that when you dig down in the west Michigan sand near the shore and get below the level of the lake, the ground quite literally liquifies and it is almost impossible to dig any further without the sand flowing in. They would have to drive a sea wall perimeter around the area to be excavated in order to actually dig it up. DEQ would never go for it.

The area that the locomotive is supposedly burried was up until recently out of reach to most. Even now there is private property on both sides and you would have to walk a few miles north from the state park, or a mile south from Mona Lake channel. The Eagles campground just happens to be right there but not open to the public, per se.

A boat ride is in order.

This sounds plausible (ok maybe not the gold part), locomotives and cars have ended up being buried in remote locations numerous times over the years.

The CP engine in Lake Superior has already been mentioned, and closer to my area there are multiple engines that never made it out of the Fraser Canyon (both steam and diesel), with the most recent ones being buried in 1997. The Engineer and Conductor were both killed in the wreck:

http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-repor ... 7v0063.asp

According to the CNRHA website the locomotives were SD75I 5658 and GP40-2LW 9446.

K88 in New Zealand, built by the Rogers Locomotive Works of New Jersey, was dumped, buried as part of an embankment, recovered and made to steam again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZR_K_class_(1877)#Withdrawal_and_disposal

Bit of thread drift, but K92 was another one that was recovered and I saw it undergoing restoration inside the goods shed (freight house) at Gore on the South Island back in April 2000.

At that time, it was planned for it to go to a recreated railway station complex at Croydon, a project being driven by the owner of the adjacent Croydon Aircraft Company that restores vintage aircraft, but I can't find any details of that being brought to fruition.
It appeared on the publicity poster for one of their recent events, however, and appeared to be running on temporary laid track.

Here is another buried loco:

https://www.metrojacksonville.com/artic ... town-tower