While at the bar tonight I was speaking with a coworker who was telling me a story he heard from his grandfather. On route 9 in Berlin connecticut from the side of the road you can see poking up from a pond the top of an old steam shovel. https://www.google.com/maps/@41.638083, ... 312!8i6656 Apparently these were old clay pits. My coworker was telling me that at the bottom of them they had a whole narrow gauge railroad. On the other side of the road there are more of these pits. My coworker was saying that they had had a big strike at the mines back in the early 1940's or so and the striking workers had shut down all the steam pumps in one of the other pits that was used to pump out incoming spring water. With the adjacent pit flooded the steam shovel working late at night apparently went too far and broke the dam which unleashed a flood of water swamping the pit and locomotives that were working down in it.

I was wondering if anyone knows more of this story or can shed light to what is down there? Is there a whole narrow gauge railroad with locomotive surviving under there?

Apparently his grandfather knew the people who worked the pit quite well and that they lost the steam shovel and at least a small steam locomotive one night down there.

Interesting story! I'm not familiar with this location, but a quick Google search reveals that the presence of a sunken steam shovel or crane there is apparently well known and that the place is even called "Crane Pond". See for example http://wikimapia.org/9130463/Flooded-quarry and http://www.ctfishtalk.com/pond-off-rt-9-with-crane-in-it-t12462.html#.VYTNP6YflJk.

I know there were larger clay pits around North Haven and Wallingford, CT that had railroad operations (some narrow gauge, some standard gauge), so a railroad component at this clay pit in Berlin seems entirely possible. Whether there is still an engine down there, however, is a different matter.

-Philip Marshall

Philip,

I don't know if you see it in the Google street view photo but you can easily see the boom of what ever is down there poking up out of the water all season long. The thought of a preserved narrow gauge railroad with original steam locomotive that may be sitting just 20miles or so away from me (granted 30ft under water) is really quite interesting. Anyone out there on this board a scuba diver and interested in finding out what is down there? If so I would be more than happy to try to get permission to get into the water there. Heck I may even be able to brush off the old PADI certificate and tag along with someone if anyone out there is interested in possibly discovering if one of the world's last narrow gauge steam railroads actually exists. Furthermore according to this coworker since some of it was flooded during a strike on the other side there should be some interesting finds in general at the bottom of these lakes.

The Willow Springs Club in Millardsville, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania does have a steam shovel on 4 metal rollers, a narrow gauge railroad with switches, and a 3 lever manual switch tower at the bottom of its swimming pool. The shovel struck water about 1930. A ConRail caboose was deliberately added about 25 years ago.

I'd like to explore that Connecticut pit.

Well I wouldn't exactly call rusting at the bottom of a pond "preserved", but it's definitely intriguing, and probably easier to verify than some other stories of sunken locomotives out there. Some questions I would suggest looking into: What was the name of the company? What year exactly was the pit flooded? Would this incident have been reported in one of the local newspapers in New Britain or even Hartford? And if it was really as late as the 1940s, are you sure they were running steam?

Please let us know if you manage to secure the necessary permissions and equipment to take a look.

-Philip Marshall

Generational lore has never mentioned locomotives. However anything not easily drivable was left in the pit, the crane being the most noticeable. As I was told they hit a water main or aqueduct and it filled up over a couple days. The whole area is clay and there are several ponds that were pits. My current house can confirm the presence of clay and an extremely high water table. The NYNH H route from Berlin to Middletown bisected these quarries in the most un-sensible way as the crow flies.


As far as locomotives in ponds it was said that an entire train was in silver lake between Meriden and Berlin adjacent to the Springfield Line but this was disproved by divers some 10 or so years ago.

Hitting the library for newspaper stories would help, some topographical maps dated before the mishap and efter even possibly checking historic aerials.

I don't know if this will help or not, but G. F. Loughlin's 1905 monograph on "The Clays and Clay Industries of Connecticut" (Conn. Geological and Natural History Survey Bulletin No. 4) mentions the Berlin Brick Company, Towns Brothers, and Murray's, Donnelly's, and Merwyn's Brick Yards as firms operating clay pits in Berlin, CT.

Loughlin devotes several paragraphs to the use of railways or tramways in Connecticut clay pits, but says that most of these used horses or cable inclines rather than locomotives.

A quote from page 74: "The steam locomotive, like the steam shovel, is adapted for large plants where large quantities of clay are in constant demand and must be hauled over considerable distances, perhaps to several different parts of the plant. Only one plant in the state uses a steam locomotive." (Emphasis added.)

Remember, however, that this report is from 1905 rather than the 1940s, so it may not be relevant.

-Philip Marshall

Phillip,

I think I stumbled upon the same book and they even had a photo of the little 0-4-0 working in the plant in North Haven. My understanding was that those pits were more or less used to supply all the brick they used to build the old mill buildings with in CT. If my coworker's grandfather's recollection is correct that it was the early 1940's or so I would not be surprised if by the early 1940's they would have been using slightly out dated equipment. With a war looming, coming out of a depression and brick buildings being somewhat on the way out especially the old mill building style construction it would not surprise me to find out that a clay pit was using older somewhat out of date stuff.

Perhaps with a name, maybe a news article is available though I don't know if the local papers are online from that area. A search of "flood + brick+ Berlin CT" wasn't too helpful. I did find one article talking about how Merwin brick was using steam locomotive, electrical and gas powered https://books.google.com/books?id=yIw_A ... ct&f=false, but still no smoking gun story.

With that being said if you or anyone else on this site is a diver and wants to go down there and help get to the "bottom" of this rumor, I would be more than happy to do more digging. I think the first place to start would be both the Berlin historical society and perhaps town hall's maps to see if we could figure out which company owned the pit. After that the other thing to do would be get permission to be on the property today.

I don't think many libraries are setup getting their old newspaper articles online, but they would more than likely have them on microfiche but it means a direct visit.
Surprisingly maps for sewage/fire safety (hydrant outlets) can have some detailed map data.
When I have some time I may poke on the online aerial views and topographical maps, but the local libraries could easily have those. (more the topographical maps). Every so often survey crews would wander out and go topographicing from various years and change/update the maps. This is why I think its a good check.

The Loughlin book doesn't include any pictures of the engine he mentions, but there is a 1910 photo of an 0-4-0 (Vulcan?) used by the Stiles Brick Co. in North Haven in John A. Pawloski's "Connecticut Mining" (part of the infamous Arcadia "Images of America" series). I think this could be the locomotive Loughlin was referring to in 1905.

The Pawloski book also has a picture of a little Plymouth diesel at the Donnelly brick yard in Berlin, supposedly taken in the 1930s.

-Philip Marshall

Slightly to the left of the target, and mentioned once before, but there is a confirmed discarded saddle tanker at the bottom of an abandoned quarry in Rockland, Maine, flooded, and now used (or once used) as a trash dump.

You're tiptoeing around a dangerous subject here and it could lead to the quarry expert weighing in.

The theory of a locomotive in that clay hole pond certainly seems feasible, but people do often garble the details in casual conversation. The presence of the shovel boom indicates a reason to leave iron there, and tracks, locomotives, and rolling stock would be as likely to be there as a steam shovel. It stands to reason that the visual presence of the boom keeps the collective memory focused on the shovel while other items may have been forgotten.

Oftentimes, these types of items can be buried in the bottom as well as submerged. In this case, the clay bottom is likely to be supporting whatever is there. So diving would be a great option. Divers are always looking for things to explore, so it is likely that some would be willing to take a look. If the water is say 30 feet or less in depth, that helps too. There are a few obstacles though.

One obstacle is water clarity. In a pond, the clarity will typically vary on a seasonal basis. It can be crystal clear in the winter under the ice, and on into the spring through May. But the algae during summer can render the visibility too pour to find anything. The larger problem may be in getting permission. Finding the owner, and getting an informal okay to dive would be a major accomplishment. If that can be done, the only challenge remaining would be to dive enough to look at the entire bottom while keeping track of the search. That would probably be more work that casual diving could offer. So beware of a confirmation that nothing exists.

Another dimension of search would be to use a magnetometer on the ice during winter. Just the trackwork would probably show a pattern. Locomotives would stand out clearly. This would not show any details of the objects, but it would show where they are in the pond.

Chaska, MN has a history of making “Chaska Brick.” There are at least five deep clay hole ponds in the town, and there were once several different brickyard sites consisting of kilns and related equipment. One of those clay holes has a “steam shovel” submerged in it today. Nothing is visible from the surface, but many in town recall it. It was left in the hole when the operation shut down, and the hole gradually filled with water. This was probably circa 1945-55. There is a photo showing it partially submerged. It appears to be a fairly large dragline. From the look of the photo, it may not be actually steam powered. Generically, the term “steam shovel” was applied to later internal combustion shovels. I was told by someone who had worked on it that it was on wooden rollers.

This complex did use a 2-foot-gage system of tracks with two 0-4-0T steam locomotives. I recall seeing parts of the scattered about in the scrap piles in the 1960-70 era. They also had two Plymouth gas-mechanical 4-wheel locomotives. The 2-foot-gage rolling stock consisted of many 4-wheel rack cars used for handling the bricks.

Prior to the two-foot-gage system, there was another system of a larger gage, perhaps 30” or 36”. I know little about it, as it was long out of operation by 1960. But there were a number of 4-wheel side dump cars remaining in the woods on the property with trees growing up through them. They were very old and of composite wood and iron construction. I assume they were used in transporting the clay. I do not know what they used for motive power with this original rail system.

If you go back in time to June 2011 there is a much better picture of the end of the crane coming out of the water.

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.638187,-72.753617,3a,75y,63.22h,86.74t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1soVO3W7ynpA3CeBIoODktKw!2e0!5s20110601T000000!7i13312!8i6656