After more than a hundred years, a derailed train that plunged into Lake Superior has been found
The train didn’t stand a chance. Its track clung to a steep, winding hillside 20 metres above the northern edge of Lake Superior. When the Canadian Pacific Railway 694 made its July 10, 1910 run, there was no warning that a landslide had strewn boulders across the rails. It was too late to stop.
The train’s brakeman, J. McMillan, jumped off in a desperate attempt to save himself. Frank Wheatley, the train’s engineer, and fireman E. Clark stayed put. When the 694 collided with the debris, it took the two with it as it derailed and plummeted into Lake Superior. It came to rest 60 metres below the surface. All three men, who had left Schreiber, Ont., the day before, died. Clark’s body was never recovered.
The shattered 694 has rested where it fell ever since, its exact location long lost. It would’ve been quite the ride. For years, Schreiber native and former CPR engineer Dough Stefurak had heard stories about the crash.
But it was only three years ago that he suggested to Paul Turpin, who organizes shipwreck dives, that they try to find it. In the summer of 2014, Stefurak, Turpin and a team of divers made for Marathon, Ont., on the shore of Lake Superior about 300 km east of Thunder Bay. They knew the 694 had derailed nearby; they just needed to find where it had ended up.
That expedition was only half successful, though. They found the 694’s smaller, front wheels on a rock shelf about 10 metres below the surface, but little else.
“The locomotive must’ve hit the rock shelf,” Stefurak said, “and that must’ve literally ripped the undercarriage off the engine. The rest just went straight down.”
“It would’ve been quite the ride.”
The locomotive itself wouldn’t be found until earlier this year. Tom Crossmon, a retired rescue worker and Minnesota-based shipwreck explorer, heard about the dive for the 694 and decided to follow up on Turpin and Stefurak’s efforts. Crossmon took his boat, sonar and ROV — a remotely operated underwater vehicle — to the GPS coordinates one of the divers provided him. He didn’t strike gold, but he did find the twisted engine of the 694.
“I think all of us on the boat were pretty blown away,” Crossmon told the CBC. “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.”
“We weren’t able to be successful with sonar, but we used the ROV and were able to find it using the video.”
With the train located, more dives have been organized to further explore the wreck. Stefurak says there’s no doubt it’s the 694, but still wants a picture of the builder’s plate, which bears the manufacturer and model number.
Nothing has been salvaged, and even that builder’s plate might remain under water. According to Stefurak, it might be welded on and tough to move.
He does hope, though, that finding it might generate some excitement for the replica of the 694 that Schreiber wants to build in his hometown.