There is a whole string of C&S narrow gauge gondolas buried as part of an embankment nr Cheyenne on the BN. We have a grab iron from one of them. I learnt today of a buried Heavyweight Pullman car in Cheyenne too, but i wont be digging for it. Surface rescues are easier to deal with and pretty prolific round here.

Mike Pannell
Cheyenne

Reminds me of the "locomotive" out in the woods in Uxbridge. I did manage to get out and look, and what do you know, it's an old 1930s oil trailer. My cousin wasn't sure what it was, but I did learn it was near the old Southern New England roadbed. While it was generally intact, even having the valves to release the oil from the tank and some of the hoses still in place, the whole thing was riddled like swiss cheese with bullet holes. While my tangent really doesn't say much, it goes to show that you can never be sure what is really in the middle of nowhere. If the things in the Allegheny River really are H6bs consolidations, and you can get the money raised, dredge them out! Cold fresh water isn't like salt water, so desalination won't be needed. One could always make an exhibit with the remains, even if they aren't H6bs', to show the diffent uses for retired or worn-out railroad equipment. There were some White Pass and Yukon steamers used as rip-rap up in Alaska, and there should be others still in the rip-rap capacity. I know a 4-6-0 was recovered years ago (WP&Y #23?), so such a recovery effort should be possible, but cost effectiveness would have to be determined.
Now, as the mythbusters would do, time to hunker in the bunker!
Dylan Lambert

The quickest and easy way to determine where and how big a lump of ferrous metal you have below the surface is with a magnetometer. You can rent them or hire companies that can do a scan of the area. However locating and may be getting a few pictures would be as far as I think most would want to pursue this. The amount of money spent extracting these hulks, if they exist, would far exceed complete restoration of a needy locomotive that is already with us.

You can see the remnants of several Milwaukee Gondolas along the Mt Rainier Scenic's line if you know where to look.

We even stopped and let the MILW historical society folks take a look at them and try to find car numbers during one of their visits. I don't know if they found anything interesting or not.

The cars were used for the same purpose, erosion control.

If these locomotives were submerged, but not burried, and if the water were clear enough to see anything, underwater photographs would probably be feasible and produce very interesteding results. However, I suspect there is a high probability that the locomotives are partially or completely buried. Furthermore, rivers often have poor water visibility and also pose significant diving hazards.

Fundamentally, recovery of locomotives from lakes or rivers is costly. But if these locomotives are part of a flood control infrastructure, recovery would require repair and restoration of that infrastructure. That would drive the cost of recovery through the stratosphere. Just the cost of the red tape would probably be insurmountable.

It may have changed by now, but when I was a kid the term "Clear as Mud" pretty much described the river.

The engines were, by all accounts I heard, buried in the bank. Basically it was roll the engine in to provide a sort of wall, then cover it in rock.

The river isn't very deep, so diving would be easy enough. As a kid, it was never much of a challenge to swim down to the bottom. I'm guessing it was 20 to 30 feet deep, and of course shallower on the edges. Speaking of the bottom, when you got down there, and tried to grab a handful of dirt or rock to prove it, all you ended up with was a hand full of mud and muck. So anything on the bottom is most likely buried in that ooze.

As for a "flood control infrastructure", that's a very grandiose term for what's there. We're talking a river bank, nothing more.

Here's another view of the location:
http://binged.it/y3FaW8

[quote="daylight4449"]Reminds me of the "locomotive" out in the woods in Uxbridge. I did manage to get out and look, and what do you know, it's an old 1930s oil trailer. My cousin wasn't sure what it was, but I did learn it was near the old Southern New England roadbed. While it was generally intact, even having the valves to release the oil from the tank and some of the hoses still in place, the whole thing was riddled like swiss cheese with bullet holes. While my tangent really doesn't say much, it goes to show that you can never be sure what is really in the middle of nowhere. If the things in the Allegheny River really are H6bs consolidations, and you can get the money raised, dredge them out! Cold fresh water isn't like salt water, so desalination won't be needed. One could always make an exhibit with the remains, even if they aren't H6bs', to show the diffent uses for retired or worn-out railroad equipment. There were some White Pass and Yukon steamers used as rip-rap up in Alaska, and there should be others still in the rip-rap capacity. I know a 4-6-0 was recovered years ago (WP&Y #23?), so such a recovery effort should be possible, but cost effectiveness would have to be determined.
Now, as the mythbusters would do, time to hunker in the bunker!
Dylan Lambert[/quote]

And I was hoping for a lost I-5! darn...

I don't know what the big deal is... it's right there:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25967611@N04/6877563465/in/photostream#/photos/25967611@N04/6877563465/in/photostream/lightbox/

Almost looks like he knows something we don't!
Good one.

When it comes to looking for engines in a river, I think the one that has never been found out of the three than went into the Kaw River would be very interesting. Getting it out might be out of reach, but just finding it would be intriguing. It should not be that hard to find with a magnetometer.

If the Kaw River Mike is encased in mud, it would probably be in great condition and a dog to wrench free. There was a drought a few years back and pieces of the others were exposed. Plan for it now, and wait for nature to lend a hand!

Yes, as I understand, two of the engines have been revealed by low water more than once. Some scrapping was done on one of them. But one has never been seen, and its exact location is unknown. This would be an exciting challenge for a magnetometer search. I suspect the missing locomotive is very close to the other two.

A locomotive in a river that I would most like to see would be that Rock Island 4-4-0 near (as I recall) Dover, OK. That is a relatively modern 4-4-0 probably in its original, unmodified configuration.

Any recovery of locomotives from lakes or rivers would require the construction of a coffer dam, pumping it out, and precision excavation to liberate the locomotive from the bottom.

Goin' out on a limb here, but call the guys in Germany that got the Russian T-34 tank out of a lake and running in a few day's time! The thing still had rounds with it to. Here's a link with information:
http://www.rense.com/general75/germ2.htm
*edit
Here is another site that has further information:
http://www.diving.ee/articles/art035.html

There is a major difference here... The T-34 tank was driven into a lake that was essentially a submerged peat bog. Some pretty amazing things have been found in peat bogs, due to the preservative properties of peat.

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22104

The decay that causes the formation of peat essentially scavenges all the free oxygen from the surroundings, which will stop both decay and corrosion.

Dumping a locomotive into a flowing river puts it in a vastly different environment. The flowing water continually brings freshly oxygenated water into contact with the metal, at least until the engine is finally silted over, if that ever fully happens. Having loads of rocks dumped over it doesn't help, either.

The White Pass & Yukon was known to have dumped six or seven locos into the Skagway river for erosion control in 1949. Thirty nine years later two of the locos were salvaged. I've seen both, but can only find a photo of 60 on the web:

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/ten-whee ... derick.jpg

Keep in mind that this engine was only submerged for half as long as the PRR engines reputed to be in the Allegheny River. Also note the extensive damage cause by rolling the engine into the river. I wouldn't expect the PRR locos to look any better.