Don’t get derailed by the details… This is a cache to honor some local oral history.
CONGRATULATIONS TO BUCKEYECACHER111 for FTF!
There is a local legend that a locomotive, or a whole train, derailed just east of Route 49 and fell into a large area of quicksand and was never seen again. Stories are even told that part of the train turned up close to Cincinnati, having floated down an underground river.
So what’s the true story? According to Beer's History of Darke County, Ohio, page 297:
"Many years ago, in the construction of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis Railroad in the northern part of the county, the route of the track necessitated the running over one of these peat bogs. To the apparently dry loam, with its dense growth of vegetation, was added sufficient gravel and other material to complete the bed of the road, and in due time the rails were laid and the track used. But one morning, not long after, as the train came along, a great break was espied; the track had evidently disappeared, and upon investigation, the truth was revealed. The track, instead of crossing over dry peat bog, was rather laid over a hidden lake. Vast quantities of mosses and aquatic plants, together with branches, trunks of trees, and other accumulations, had collected until they had formed, as it were, a super-aquatic soil of several feet in thickness, and of such a remarkable density and buoyancy as to support, for a time, the weight of a passing train."
It isn’t possible for any quicksand bed to be large enough to swallow an entire train. Quicksand is caused by an active spring, the flow of which is sufficient to keep an area of sand in semi-suspension. This usually occurs in a spot no more than a few yards wide. A bog, however, can easily be large enough to swallow several engines, and examples of thick mats of apparently dry organic soil floating over a hidden lake are relatively easy to find throughout central and upper Midwest.
So what about the training washing down an underground river to Cincinnati? Not possible.
There is the Great Miami Aquifer, an excellent source of water for those who are fortunate enough to live over it. However, it is hardly what we think of as a river. Rather, water slowly flows through the sand and gravel which fills the old riverbed making it impossible for a train to pass through.
