The apparent discovery of a locomotive sunk 106 years ago off Lake Superior’s north shore is bringing a Schreiber legend back to the surface.
The Canadian Pacific Locomotive 694 is said to have encountered a rockslide as it neared a left turn headed east on June of 1910.
Its brakeman leapt from the cliff side ledge as the train derailed and tumbled 65 feet into the water below. His body was found among the rocks and his two crewmates drowned.
Steam engineers still told the tale of the 694 when Doug Stefurak was training to work on the rails in 1978.
“We went by there for years and years on the track and we talked about it, maybe someday it would be interesting to find it,” Stefurak said.
His interest in it over almost four decades has evolved to the point where he has an $800, custom-made, miniature brass replica of the locomotive resting on his filing cabinet.
“We’re retired now with a little bit of time on our hands,” he said.
A reference book published in 1985 proved the locomotive was never retired and in 2000, its story was featured in an Ottawa magazine.
Rail buffs met freshwater diving adventurers in 2014 when a team discovered pony wheels at the site, only 35 feet below Lake Superior’s surface. The locomotive, they suspected, had careened off of the lakebed shelf and fallen 235 feet to the bottom.
That hypothesis proved true on July 22, 2016. Although there’s no definitive proof the locomotive is the 694, there’s no record of any other train leaving the tracks at that location.
The D10 steam locomotive, CPR 694 met her tragic demise in June 1910. Over 100 years later, the unfortunate locomotive was located between Coldwell and Marat...
The next stage is bringing the legend back home and back to life.
“We’d like to replicate the 694 and have that as an attraction,” Stefurak said.
“You could take photographs with it. It gives you the opportunity to tell the story of the accident. That would be on a storyboard so I think there would be a lot of benefits, especially for Schreiber.”
Schreiber is undergoing revitalization planning, including developing its highway corridor independently from its downtown core. The city identifies so deeply with the railroad that its museum is made up of exhibits inside of a rail car.
Town CAO Don MacArthur is leading that plan, which may include moving the museum to the highway as a tourism draw. The story of the 694 has resurfaced at a pivotal moment.
“There has been a lot of work done on our revitalization plan and the train museum we currently have as being one of the highlights to attracting tourists and the exciting stories we have to tell about it – around the national marine conservation area and the train itself and now, with the new discovery of the locomotive,” he said.
“We think that’s a pretty fascinating story. Where to present that story and how to best present that story is where we’re at now.”
