lost train legend

mberkle

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Have you all every heard of an old train from the 1800's/early 1900's that was buried in a canyon due to an earthquake? From what I heard the canyon was very steep and the entrance to the train tunnel got buried. Due to the time period, the rescue efforts were not possible for the passengers.
 

Tpmetal

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Sounds interesting
 

galenrog

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There are dozens of such stories. All that I have heard of are just that. Stories. Do you have enough verifiable details to consider the story plausible?

Time for more coffee.
 

Peyton Manning

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shouldn't be hard to find, they leave tracks
 

Tom_in_CA

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There are dozens of such stories. All that I have heard of are just that. Stories. Do you have enough verifiable details to consider the story plausible?

Time for more coffee.

Where is Tom_in _CA for his input?


haha. I've been out ghost-towning the past few days. Will have some seated coins, etc... to show & tell on the kinzli forum this week, as soon as I get un-packed and caught up.

I agree with galenrog: Just stories. Like notice in each of chiltepin's links: That EVEN THERE they are "just legend".

There's a similar legend in my area: A narrow gauge train engine was said to have fall off the tracks, on the bridge over the Salinas river, and sunk into the Salinas river quicksand. And blah blah , no one could ever retrieve it, despite attempts to probe for it with rods, blah blah.

Seems like just camp-fire stories gone awry .
 

Chiltepin

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TOM in CA

I was in a shoe store and saw a huge mounted 14lb trout caught in Northern Arizona.
I asked is that real, turns out it was a state record recorded trout.

Sometimes Legends are true . :laughing7:

RAINBOW TROUT


World Record: 42 lbs. 2 oz.

Arizona Record: 21 lbs. 5 oz.
 

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Tom_in_CA

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TOM in CA

I was in a shoe store and saw a huge mounted 14lb trout caught in Northern Arizona.
I asked is that real, turns out it was a state record recorded trout.

Sometimes Legends are true . :laughing7:

RAINBOW TROUT


World Record: 42 lbs. 2 oz.

Arizona Record: 21 lbs. 5 oz.

Chiltepin , a few thoughts on this:

1) when it comes to treasure legends, and a skeptic (like myself) casts doubts, a common response line will be to point out an oddity-come true . Eg.: a solved treasure legend that turned out to be true, or some sort of nearly unbelievable feat accomplished or found or caught. But notice that .... logically .... this only proves that some flukes came true. It does not logically follow , from that, that "therefore the current thing I'm saying is (or has a high likelihood ) of being true". In other words: To point to one spectacular feat, or found treasure, does not therefore make all others "true" or "likely". Yes, granted, strange things have happened.

2) But notice that in your two links that nowhere is it proven. And one of them, humorously, even tries to distance itself from expected critique (to pre-empt a doubter) by pointing out that "not all things make the newspaper" . So as to explain why no written documents or news sources recorded it .

It's the same sort of logic for Oak Island: When a skeptic points out the insane efforts it would have taken with primitive tools to have pulled off such a stunt, the faithful will grasp for straws . And point to the pyramids as proof that such monumental tasks *could* be possible. Or point to Cornish miners who did/have indeed historically dug insanely deep pits, blah blah blah. As if all such things prove anything ? As if the burden of proof lies on the skeptic to prove it DIDN'T happen ? Seems to me the burden of proof is the other way around :)

This is all just small talk, and I mean no disrespect. I will be the first to agree that I'm skeptical of treasure legends .
 

boogeyman

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Closest thing I know is a rail car off the end of the Newport Pier. There was a legend attached. The legend was it was supposed to be a (pick one) Japanese or German sub. Yes, they ran rail cars on the pier. They harvested lumber up around San Berdoo & Riverside and loaded it on ships from the pier. Before Sheldon er ah Tom gets all fired up. I actually put hands on it in the early 60s. By the late 80s very little left. Weirdest thing it was so covered with fishing tackle in poor visibility it looked like it was covered in jelly.
Whoops almost forgot! Talked to a buddy and he thinks it's gone now.

Anyone old enough to remember when the pier was all wood? Remember faint marks from the rails & they used tin can lids to patch the knot holes? Anyone remember being a youngster marveling at how the hack they got a train out there?
 

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Tom_in_CA

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..... Anyone remember being a youngster marveling at how the hack they got a train out there?

I think the freemasons had something to do with it. Durned those moose and elks lodge guys anyhow, eh ?
 

Chiltepin

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Tom in CA

My point was where ever you go
their is always a story about a big
If not bigger fish.

The only legendary train story I
Would consider plausible would
be the "German Gold / Treasure Train".

The story of the missing "Amber Room"
would have needed a train car.
 

jeff of pa

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I'm familiar with one in Germany. I think 19th Century.

Other then that Just lost in snow, which means they turned up later.

correction 20th century
The San Francisco call and post. (San Francisco, Calif.), 15 Dec. 1913.
000111.jpg
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/l...ext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1
 

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Mackaydon

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In post #11 above, boogeyman wrote of a train going off the end of a pier and other similarities to a story I pursued over 40 years ago. More recently (about 7 years ago), another treasure hunter retold this same story which captivated me so (becuase of the mention of gold coins) that I drove 450 miles to the site to see if I could make verification. The story is obviously lenghty, though I hope you find it interesting.

"Itwas a cold winter morning in March 1891 when Zeb Walter, the WellsFargo messenger at Glenbrook Nevada locked up the Glenbrook stationand headed off for Carson City to pick up the monthly payroll for themen working at the four Glenbrook lumber mills. The town of Glenbrookwas founded as a mill town and became the first permanent settlementon <Lake Tahoe in 1861, after Pray’s Mill was first establishedhere.

Duringthose early years teamsters would haul timber to Glenbrook by oxdriven wagons where it was milled into lumber in order to fill thedemand from the rapidly growing Comstock mines, camps and towns. Themilled lumber would then be transported in the same manner fromGlenbrook over Spooner Summit and on to the Comstock. During peakproduction around 300,000 board feet of milled lumber passed overSpooner Summit daily. In it’s heyday the Comstock consumed about 80million board feet of lumber and 2 million cords of firewoodannually.

In1873 lumbering in the region was consolidated with the formation ofthe Carson & Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company. To improveefficiency and increase production the company constructed a V-Flumeat Spooner Summit, which moved the lumber 11 miles downhill from thesummit to Clear Creek where it was gathered and transported to theComstock mines and towns by the Virginia & Truckee Railroad.

Twoyears later the ox driven wagons continued to deliver timber toGlenbrook, but in 1875 the Carson & Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Co.,completed it’s 8.75 mile narrow gauge railroad and founded the LakeTahoe Railway & Transportation Co. The new L.T. Ry. & T. Co.replaced the ox driven carts and now hauled the milled lumber fromGlenbrook to Spooner Summit. Although short, the line was difficultas it included a 487-foot tunnel just west of the summit and twoswitchbacks.

Itwas this very train, the L.T. Ry. & T. Co., #1 otherwise known as“The Glenbrook” that provided the transportation early thatmorning on the first leg of Zeb Walter’s journey to Carson City.Arriving at Spooner Station he connected with a stagecoach that tookhim on to his destination. At this time Glenbrook was now home tofour lumber mills and Walters secured a strongbox containing 500double eagles and 200 eagles, the monthly payroll of all fourmills.

Thatafternoon as Walter’s was preparing for his return trip toGlenbrook he could see that a menacing looking storm had formed overthe eastern summit, which was cause for some concern should the roadto Spooner Station become impassable due to snow. Hastily he loadedthe strongbox containing $12,000 in gold coin on to the stage andrequested the driver to proceed quickly.

Whenthe stage arrived at the summit Walter disembarked with the strongboxand found himself in blizzard conditions, noting deep snow wasalready piling up against the Flume House. He consider the option towait out the blizzard at the Flume House, but being such a shortdistance from home, and considering the storm would reduce the riskof a robbery, and the fact that the final leg of his journey could besafely accomplished by train, Walter’s opted to continue.

AtSpooner Summit Walter’s loaded the strongbox on to the caboose andsignaled the conductor to proceed. Walter’s claimed when the trainreached one of the two switchbacks where it had to come to a completestop, he moved the strongbox into the tender, directly behind theengine for security reasons as it would be a closer walk for him whendeparting the train to reach the station. The trip continued withoutincident and the L.T. Ry. & T. Co., #1 pulled into the GlenbrookStation as expected, but then something went horribly wrong.

Asthe train approached the dock Walter’s realized it wasn’tslowing, he has no time to react as seconds later the engine jumpedthe tracks, plunging it and the tender into the icy depths of thelake… taking the engineer and one frightful Wells Fargo agent withit. The fate of the engineer is unknown, however Walters did survive.The engine went straight to the bottom while the tender becameseparated and got hung up on an underwater ledge close to thesurface.

Assoon as possible with the arrival of summer the company made everyeffort to recover the strongbox from the tender. Divers descended tothe ledge and discovered the tender had somehow become dislodged andhad sank to a depth of 90 feet. Diving technology of the periodprevented any further efforts at recovery. Over the years otherrecovery efforts have occurred, none however have proved successful.It remains Lake Tahoe's only known sunken treasure.


Source:https://metaldetectingforum.com/showthread.php?t=20150
I first readabout it from this source: Penfield,Thomas, AGuide To Treasure In Nevada, TrueTreasure Publications, Inc., 1974, p.12 – 13
Don.......
 

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Tom_in_CA

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re.: the newspaper clippings of trains that got avalanched on (or fell off bridges, etc....). As you see, in each of those cases, it was a) documented in a news source, b) the people (dead or alive) extricated, c) the train (or at least valuables) excavated back out.

Hence all such stories are actually going to spell the opposite of the OP. Because it started off as "lost" and "never recovered" and "treasure", etc.... The clippings are exactly the opposite of the OP's musings.
 

jeff of pa

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re.: the newspaper clippings of trains that got avalanched on (or fell off bridges, etc....). As you see, in each of those cases, it was a) documented in a news source, b) the people (dead or alive) extricated, c) the train (or at least valuables) excavated back out.

Hence all such stories are actually going to spell the opposite of the OP. Because it started off as "lost" and "never recovered" and "treasure", etc.... The clippings are exactly the opposite of the OP's musings.

Yea I can't say 100% for sure it would be in one of The Papers I have access to.
But I would think the odds are good there would be Mentioned Somewhere if it happened .
but I haven't found it.

a Few years ago an Engine was found in N.E. PA while they were removing a Culm Bank. not from a wreck, just abandoned and forgotten.
There is no reason to believe all Accidental Wrecks were recovered depending on circumstances
 

galenrog

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One of the main problems with the lost train stories is the vagueness. Nearly every story lacks detail that can be independently verified. Most of the remaining stories have conflicting information, raising red flags once again. Bottom line: If research can not confirm enough details to make the story plausible, then it is just a story to be filed away until more details come to light.

Way past time for more coffee.
 

boogeyman

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Yea I can't say 100% for sure it would be in one of The Papers I have access to.
But I would think the odds are good there would be Mentioned Somewhere if it happened .
but I haven't found it.

a Few years ago an Engine was found in N.E. PA while they were removing a Culm Bank. not from a wreck, just abandoned and forgotten.
There is no reason to believe all Accidental Wrecks were recovered depending on circumstances
True! To add to that, I had heard stories from my grandfather of UPRR bringing out the wreck train with a dozer and burying cars right beside the tracks that they considered un-salvageable. In later years got to go up towards Utah to a derailment and saw this first hand. Right now I know where they buried eleven box cars out in Calif. We were searching & happened to spot some dark colored mounds. It was coffee beans!!!! We dug down & hit the tops of the box cars. The pack rats were slowly but surely emptying the cars. All I could picture was a bunch of pack rats all wired out of their minds going 110 mph across the desert!

So, there's probably a ton of stuff out there to be found. Only question is if the shipper & RR said to heck with it & wrote it off would it be worth the effort monetarily. Then if it was far enough off the right of way so you wouldn't be illegally salvaging.

Anyone wanna buy some well aged coffee beans?:tongue3::tongue3: I'll give you a map. :laughing7::laughing7:
 

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