Ever since I was a kid I loved trains. When I found out that there was an old trainline that passed through my neighborhood in the 1920s I wanted to find out more. I live in Antioch IL. There was a small ice house spur that got ice from the lakes around me. Ive always heard that there is a train in Rock Lake wi after the ice got too thin. Does anyone have any information to back this up? or more info about the ice spurs? Anything is greatly appreciated!!
I can’t answer your question Ringo58, but I can say…
[#welcome] aboard!
Howdy neighbor.
I never heard of that.
In my town in northern Michigan (long before I was born) horses sleds pulled the ice off the lake to the ice house, and the ice sat there until it was shipped out by rail thru the summer. I find it hard to believe that steam engines ventured out on to ice in Illinois.
Winters have been relatively mild for the past half century - going back a century and more they were much more severe than we have experienced.
Lots of legends of that type around. Some even are true, but mostly there were reports or local news items at the time in that case.
Yes, Steam Locos were used on frozen lakes and rivers, but not the size of a mainline standard gauge engine… no Yellowstones, or Big Boys.
Small, narrow gauge 0-4-0’s on short sections of track with the ties laid directly on the ice. Some small steam locos could be moved around by a couple of men if it derailed, so it would not be THAT heavy.
And note this lake is in Wisconsin (though only about 35 miles from the border with Illinois), But not southern Illinois where a frozen lake might be questionable for physical support.
I usually consider that most legends have at least a smattering of truth about them, albeit somewhat embellished in the telling.
If you are really interested in this legend, the key is to research the historical record. If this legend is known by a number of people, start out by asking them for any details they have heard. See if you can find any consisitency in the details. Most of all, try to establish the date or timeframe of the loss and the precice location. With those details, you can check historical newspapers and other records.
It often said that these types of lost train accounts are all tall tales made up in bars. I doubt that. It is most likely that they are essentially true, but the details got garbled in bars. The argument against the legends is that no railroad company would leave a valuable locomotive buried or submerged in water. But of course, they would leave it if the cost of recovery exceeded the value of the locomotive-- and that is often the case, not only with locomotives, but will other heavy equipment such as bulldozers.
If you can find strong circumstantial evidence for a lost locomotive, you can search directly at the site. If it is in a lake, you can perform a magetometer search while working on the surface when it is frozen.
It is important to realize that what you are looking for is an historical artifact as a physical piece of lost history, and not a free locomotive that you can restore to operation. The latter tends to be a railfan perception of the objective
[quote user=“Euclid”]
Ive heard that the ice companys went bankrupt and left the tracks and locomotives on the ice to let them sink. Ive seen old topographic maps of the lines that used to be there and they go to the right area. The lake is a very small lake and only about 20ft deep in the middle. The story has been told by multiple people and they all seem the go the same. Ive even heard of people taking pictures of it in the late 80s but Ive never seen them for myself
Ringo58
Ever since I was a kid I loved trains. When I found out that there was an old trainline that passed through my neighborhood in the 1920s I wanted to find out more. I live in Antioch IL. There was a small ice house spur that got ice from the lakes around me. Ive always heard that there is a train in Rock Lake wi after the ice got too thin. Does anyone have any information to back this up? or more info about the ice spurs? Anything is greatly appreciated!!
If you are really interested in this legend, the key is to research the historical record. If this legend is known by a number of people, start out by asking them for any details they have heard. See if you can find any consisitency in the details. Most of all, try to establish the date or timeframe of the loss and the precice location. With those details, you can check historical newspapers and other records.
It often said that these types of lost train accounts are all tall tales made up in bars. I doubt that. It is most likely that they are essentially true, but the details got garbled in bars. The argument against the legends is that no railroad company would leave a valuable locomotive buried or submerged in water.&
[quote user=“Euclid”]
Ive heard that the ice companys went bankrupt and left the tracks and locomotives on the ice to let them sink. Ive seen old topographic maps of the lines that used to be there and they go to the right area. The lake is a very small lake and only about 20ft deep in the middle. The story has been told by multiple people and they all seem the go the same. Ive even heard of people taking pictures of it in the late 80s but Ive never seen them for myself
Ringo58
Ever since I was a kid I loved trains. When I found out that there was an old trainline that passed through my neighborhood in the 1920s I wanted to find out more. I live in Antioch IL. There was a small ice house spur that got ice from the lakes around me. Ive always heard that there is a train in Rock Lake wi after the ice got too thin. Does anyone have any information to back this up? or more info about the ice spurs? Anything is greatly appreciated!!
If you are really interested in this legend, the key is to research the historical record. If this legend is known by a number of people, start out by asking them for any details they have heard. See if you can find any consisitency in the details. Most of all, try to establish the date or timeframe of the loss and the precice location. With those details, you can check historical newspapers and other records.
It often said that these types of lost train accounts are all tall tales made up in bars. I doubt that. It is most likely that they are essentially true, but the details got garbled in bars. The argument against the legends is that no railroad company would leave a valuable locomotive buried or submerged in water.&
You know, those little 0-4-0’s do have a habit of turning up where least expected.
Several years ago one was found in the woods in Sussex County NJ by a woman who worked in a real estate office. She was looking out the window of the office during the winter when the leaves were down, the ground foliage was dormant, and the daylight was just right, and, “What’s that out in the trees that looks like a little steam engine?”
Bingo! It was a little 24" gauge 0-4-0 tank engine that once was used by a local commercial peat moss farm that decades ago had no further use for it.
The last I heard there was a cosmetic restoration done on it and it’s on display at the Sussex train station museum.
The other thing to bear in mind is that, while we often interpret “train” as a locomotive, the story could be based on some sort of freight car ending up in the lake. If it was already old at the time, and deep enough not to be a navigation hazard, there may not have been any incentive to recover it, except possibly the trucks.
There are several cars on the bottom of Adirondack lakes, having been carried on barges that capsized.
And, I forget exactly where, there are some railcars in the northern part of the Delaware River from a derailment in the 1920’s. I believe they’re ex-Lackawanna, the railroad didn’t think it was worth the effort to recover them and just left them there. It’s a popular dive site when river conditions are favorable.
Around 1920’s the great flood in Mt Holly NC the P&N rr left hoppers full of rock on the bridge in hope the thing did not fall it did and they are still their low water you can make them out.
There’s a rapid in the Lehigh River Gorge known as the “Boxcar Rapid”. See the description under “Three Quarter Mile Long” (also the last line of “White Falls”) about 1/3 of the way down the page at
https://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/River/detail/id/3137
All the metal referenced in those descriptions came from someplace. I believe several cars went into the river, but not all the pieces were fished out. That derailment had a photo in Trains at the time - early or mid-1960’s as I recall.
Also I believe I saw an archbar truck on the western bank of the Lehigh many miles further down - unrelated to that wreck - near the Treichlers Dam, but that’s another story.
- PDN.
Back to the topic at hand: If it’s a small lake - with a limited amount of ice - I question why a locomotive would have been used instead of horse-drawn sleds which were the generally accepted method back then. The value of the ice would not seem to justify the costs of the locomotive and track, and laying and removing the track each year. Plus, what would the loco during the off-season? If nothing else then there’s 8 or 9 months of depreciation with no income.
Even - especially - if the ice company went bankrupt, the locomotive would have had value, as likely would the rails. If not sold for further use, then as scrap for sure. The locomotive would have been easy to move on its own wheels, so not a lot of cost to dispose of it. Letting it deliberately sink would be like letting money sink. Instead, I could believe that it sank accidentally through a soft spot in the ice. Still happens today to snowmobiles crossing a frozen(?) lake or pickup trucks going out to an ice fishing shed, etc. Don’t know how the “ice road truckers” know when it’s safe to start and end their season, though.
- PDN.
Sounds like the making for a series on the Discovery Channel
I’ve done a bit of informal studying of the ice industry here in the US, my interest was sparked by the fact my grandfather had an ice business before affordable refrigerators made the ice business obsolete. A pretty interesting study by the way.
I’ve never read anything that said small locomotives were used for ice block removal from the lakes, anywhere. This doesn’t mean it never happened, but personally I doubt it.
For those interested here’s a fun website concerning the ice business.
I found a couple of short turn of the 20th Century Edison films showing ice harvesting, first cutting and canaling on a lake, then removing the ice to inclined railway cars for loading on barges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Guqht4wtUX8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQImPkUKJZo
And a short film on the ice industry from St. Clair County MI.