survivingworldsteam Wrote:
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> I do believe that some lost locomotives, like the
> one Clive Cussler searched for awhile back, were
> later recovered and scrapped.
The Clive Cussler search for the Kansas Pacific locomotive, seemed to have been predicated on the testimony of only a few local residents at most who had retained the knowledge that the locomotive had never been recovered as information directly from the wreck clean up activity. I think they were mistaken, and here is why:
A wreck like that would have typically attracted large crowds of spectators who would have asked a lot of questions and paid wide-eyed attention. They would have been told that the KP locomotive was missing in the flood. It was likely that they heard the comment, “It may never be found.” But after the first day or so, the excitement dies down and the crowds go home. Meanwhile the wreck cleanup and repair process goes on for many days. Eventually, as the water goes down, and the work progresses, they find the locomotive in due course, more or less buried in the bottom sand. They dig it out and send it back to the shops.
I think the idea of the locomotive being permanently lost got cemented into the local consciousness when large crowds were paying rapt attention as spectators right after the wreck, and the anti-climactic recovery, days or weeks later, simply failed to undo the original popular perception of the locomotive being lost forever.
Clive Cussler came up with the explanation that the KP scammed the insurance company by claiming the locomotive was lost, and then snuck the locomotive back to the shops in the darkness of night, and kept it hidden from the insurance company. In my opinion, that explanation is ridiculous.
