New Jersey's deep sea train graveyard: Locomotives lost in the 1850s found preserved 90 feet under water



Archeologists have discovered a train graveyard off the coast of New Jersey, where two rare locomotives from the 1850s lay preserved under 90 feet of water.



It remains a mystery how the two steam engines were sunk. There is no historical record of them ever being built and no record of them being lost.

Explorers believe that the engines were lost in a storm five miles off the coast of Long Branch, New Jersey, as they were being transported from Boston to the Mid-Atlantic.

Graveyard: This is one of the two rust-encrusted locomotives found five miles off the Jersey Shore. They remain remarkably well-preserved, despite the rust

Surviving: The smokestacks are still visible on this rare 1850s train. Researchers believe the steam engines were lost as they were being shipped from Boston to the Mid-Atlantic

Side-by-side: The two engines sit upright together, as if pulling into a train station

They either fell off the barge, experts believe, or were deliberately pushed off to prevent the ship from going down in rough seas.



Though they are encrusted in 160 years worth of rust - they remain remarkably well preserved.



'It looked like they were steaming across the bottom in a race,' Dan Lieb told the Philadelphia Inquirer, recounting the first time he spotted them. 'You could imagine them on tracks at a station with steam coming out of the valves, and people and luggage on the platform.'

Lieb, a member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Explorers Club, is now working with the New Jersey Museum of Transportation to determine what to do with the steam engines.

Outdated: The two engines are Planet Class 2-2-2 T models, similar to this Pioneer steam locomotive. They were already an outdated when were made

Encrusted: The steam engines on caked with rust and barnacles that have built up over the 160 years they have been under the sea

Rare find: The engines were discovered in 1985 by a boat captain who was surveying the ocean bottom with a manometer and happened to run over the aging hulks

One plan under consideration involves pulling both locomotives to the surface to restore them.

The locomotives are rare Planet Class 2-2-2 T models, which were only made for a short time because they became obsolete nearly as soon as they were produced.

They were fully-loaded, self contained 15-ton locomotives at a time when steam engines were being produced at 35 tons.



The steam engines are located five miles off the coast of Long Branch, New Jersey

Restoration: The New Jersey Transportation Museum is considering a plan to bring the locomotives up to the surface and study them

Murky: The murky waters make it difficult for divers to fully inspect the two steam engines

They were packed with power for their size, Mr Lieb says, but were too small for their time.

Paul Hepler, the first to discover the locomotives, found them by chance in 1985. He was mapping the ocean bottom with a magnometer, when the device picked up two huge metal objects below.

'I didn't know what it was at first because the water was dirty and the visibility was so bad back then,' he told the newspaper. 'Once I got a better look at it in later dives, I could see they were locomotives.'



