“Boys, we’ve got it,” is the simple call that goes out to the crew seeking a train that has been sitting a thousand feet down at the bottom of a lake since 1947. As they hoot and holler over finally tracking down “The 3512,” the underwater camera dramatically pans across the numbers on the locomotive’s coal tender. Up front was a massive snow plow, behind it was several cars worth of lumber. While the wood is long gone, the train is remarkably intact for having slid off a train barge over 70 years ago.
This machine needed to cross over Slocan Lake in British Colombia during its journey, and while it was almost directly in the middle of the lake the barge it was on tilted and it fell all the way down. Nobody knew quite where it ended up, and it was quite difficult to track down, but decades later the technology has finally caught up to the desire.
The plan, now that the train has been located, is to float the damn thing back to the surface, drag it out, restore it, and get it running again. That seems like a massive undertaking, but I applaud them for the effort. Could you imagine restoring anything that has been underwater for seven decades?
This documentary centers around the last remaining crewman of that train still alive, and 99-year-old Bill Chapman certainly adds a lot to the emotionality of the presentation.
If you’ve got an hour and a half to sit and watch this video, I highly putting it on the TV for movie night tonight. The spirit and determination to do something damn near impossible is exactly what makes me love the Human Race. The best adventures are the hardest ones, and we’re all idiots for having attempted any of them.
