Divers find lost locomotive in lake after 106 years

Sam Hewitt

–

28th September 2016

A LOCOMOTIVE that sank into Canada’s Lake Superior 106 years ago has been rediscovered.

On June 10, 1910, Canadian Pacific Railway D10 4-6-0 No. 694, then just four years old, struck a rockslide, derailing the engine, tender, and two carriages, sending the train sliding down a 65ft embankment into Lake Superior, 45 miles east of Schreiber in Ontario.

A sister to the sunken locomotive, 1913-built Canadian Pacific Class D10h 4-6-0 No. 1098 pictured at Steamtown, in Bellows Falls, Vermont, in 1970. A total of 74 D10hs were built or rebuilt from earlier D10 classes between 1912-13 and withdrawn by 1966. HUGH LLEWELLYN/CREATIVE COMMONS

Driver Frank Wheatley, fireman E Clark and brakeman J McMillan all died. McMillan jumped from the train in a vain bid to escape but his body was later found beside the tracks. The fireman’s body was never recovered.

Article continues below…
Advert

Enjoy more Heritage Railway reading in the four-weekly magazine.
Click here to subscribe & save.

The 38-year-old driver Wheatley was buried in Thunder Bay beneath an elaborate gravestone carrying the logo of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and the story of the disaster passed into local legend.

Read more in Issue 220 of Heritage Railway

Advert