Divers Capture Footage of a Train That Disappeared 106 Years Ago at the Bottom of Lake Superior

History is not always lost, sometimes it lingers in the great depths of Earth. The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) Locomotive 694, which derailed from its tracks over a century ago, remains frozen in time, at the bottom of Lake Superior. The lake, marked as the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, is located near Schreiber, Ontario. Underwater recovery experts discovered the freight train resting on the lakebed and captured footage using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) shared on the YouTube channel of a wreck diver who was part of the search team, Terry Irvine (@terryirvine5427). 

In June 1910, the D10 steam locomotive derailed off the tracks between Coldwell and Marathon near the Mink Tunnel, never to be seen again, according to the video. It took over a hundred years for the train wreck to be spotted again, surrounded by boulders underwater. Tom Crossman, a Minnesota-based underwater recovery expert, led the diving team to the submerged train under 60 meters of water, in July 2016. “I think all of us on the boat were pretty blown away. To think that we were the first people in 106 years to see something that hasn't been seen. It's pretty impressive, that feeling,” the expert told CBC News. The seven-minute footage shared an early photo of CPR 694 before the tragic derailment that claimed the lives of three men. 

Only two of the bodies were recovered, the report stated. Stunning glimpses of the wreck showed the train parts covered in rust and dirt. Minutes into the video, some of the wheels of the train were identified in addition to the other parts scattered all around the site. A tragically beautiful moment. Crossman explained that the train got displaced after hitting a boulder on the track and initially plummeted 20 meters into Lake Superior before sinking another 60 meters. The ROV equipped with a video camera surveyed the waters to locate the wreckage. The discovery was finally made after previous unsuccessful attempts with SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging) technology, primarily used for distant object detection. 

Another man behind the discovery was Irvine, a diver from London, Ontario. He shared information about the accurate location, that is, the GPS coordinates, of the locomotive wreckage with Crossman and his team. The diver had initially located two of the train’s boxcars two years ago before the discovery was made official. However, the train cannot be lifted out of the water due to the delicate nature of the train wreck. With the government’s permission, the experts shall be able to recover some of the items like the locomotive’s whistle and bell, as insinuated by the museum in Schreiber. 

Trains were primarily steam-powered in the early 1900s before electric and diesel engines revolutionized the railway industry. In a brilliant account of the tragic night that befell the CPR 694, Irvine wrote about the “legend” of the freight train moments before it derailed from its tracks. He detailed how the front brakeman of the locomotive, Mr. McMillian, had figured out the train was heading towards destruction after he outlined a huge rock sitting amidst the tracks, that may have rolled down from the adjacent cliff. “Given the train's speed, McMillian realized that the train could not be stopped in time, panicked, and he jumped from the train,” the report by Global Underwater Explorers read. The jump was fatal as he hit the Precambrian bedrock, the first victim only moments before the devastating crash.