JOURNAL IV

It's been a while since I have had time and energy to do anything on the 508 search. Lots of people have been asking me lately what is going on with the train??? I had to ease off the train hunt for a number or reasons this summer but things are slowly coming back to normal and I want to do something else this fall before the river gets covered with ice.

While nothing has been done in the water for a while now, I have started writing e-mails and making phone calls again. I e-mailed the ocean mapping group people in Fredericton to see if they could possibly lend us a hand. The C.S.L. Heron is in the Fredericton area and is equipped with state of the art underwater mapping equipment. Unfortunately the ship is booked and cannot be of service to us this year. However they did agree to possibly look into scheduling a visit next year if the locomotive has not been found before hand.

I have also been trying to contact Parks Canada in Ottawa for advise on how to proceed if the locomotive is found. If the engine is found, I want to know what to do after that.

I might even try to get something in the newspapers in the next few weeks letting people know that the search is resuming. This might also trigger further developments.

I have also been restoring salvaged pieces 1, 2 and 3 and they are really starting to look nice. I believe those pieces where part of the braking system on the locomotive. Definitely from the wreck, if not from the locomotive. Anyways, I plan on giving them to the Grand Falls Museum when I am done polishing them. At least then we can show visitors some pieces of something we found at the wreck site.

I will also try and keep my journal updated a little more frequently. I think lots of the regular readers where starting to think I was going to let this fall in the water (pardon the pun) but that couldn't be further from the truth. The barge is gone but the mystery has yet to be solved.

I'm going to finish tonight with a strange little fact which I found out a couple of weeks ago at the coffee shop. This man comes up to me one morning while waiting in line and asks me the following question. "What is the number of the locomotive you are looking for?". It is important to know that this mans house is built directly where the South abutment once stood. This is the side of the bridge that the locomotive never reached. I told him I was looking for engine number 508 and he looked at me with a big smile and said: "That's my house number!". I go by his house every day on my way to town and since he told me that, I cannot help but look at the 508 sign which hangs above is garage door. What are the odds of that happening? Of all the numbers that house could of been assigned, it had to land on 508, not 805, 507 or 509 but 508!!! Coincidence? There have been many of these strange coincidences since I have started playing around with this mystery.

I am trying to get another dive organized this fall. This time the divers will be from our Canadian military based out of Gagetown, New Brunswick. I know personally one of the divers who agreed to come give us a hand. I would however like to try and get a side scan of the riverbed done before doing so. Every time we have gone exploring the site, we had an extra little something than previous attempts.

One diver, one boat, no underwater lighting, poor visibility. We did manage to locate the piers underwater and confirm the old bridge location. We also collected some old spikes which were used in the construction of the bridge. We confirmed that I had scanned the wrong span of the bridge on the ice with the magnetometer. If you read carefully some of the journal newspaper articles from my Journal III section, it is misleading to read the second span and also the third span as being the one that broke. Only one span collapsed and according to the second magnetometer scan, covering a greater area, it would of been the third one. So I was off but not according to some reporters back in 1900. It just goes to show that century old documents are not entirely reliable and that is why I cannot rely on them to abandon the search.

An extra diver this time but with rain coming down like nails at times, it made it even darker at the bottom. The visibility was still a huge factor to deal with again this time.

On the 103^rd anniversary celebration of the accident (June 21, 2003), It will go down in history as being a day dedicated to solving the 508 mystery. We had eight divers this time with underwater lighting and a much better grip on the search area than all previous dives. At one point in time, I think I counted up to eight boats dedicated to the search efforts. The media was present and we had a hotdog roast at the nearby marina. Lots of local residents came to see with interest what was going on. Did they find it??? was a popular question that day at the marina. The day was also filmed with two cameras. One camera was on the boat with us and and the other on shore asking some of the gatherers their thoughts on the search effort itself. To this day I still haven't seen that footage!!!! I only viewed the footage from the first dive and it looked really good. The second, fourth and fifth dives were not filmed because of the camera mans (Pierre Morin) conflicting work schedule. However the magnetometer scan preformed by the U. N. B. volunteers was filmed. We shot most of the footage that day on the river but we also got some ground based shots as well.

We had fun celebrating that day but we still didn't find the engine. Again the poor visibility was an issue.

One diver and one boat this time but one big advantage......underwater communication capability!! Wow, what a difference that made in getting the diver to go exactly where we wanted him to go. Unlimited air supply and even underwater filming equipment if we where to stumble onto a locomotive ready to smile for the camera. We did find some pieces which I strongly believe are off the sunken engine but no locomotive. Piece #2 (from my July 3 journal entry) was found resting at the bottom but half broken off another bigger piece which was buried in the sand. We tried to loosen it by digging around it and tying a rope in hopes of pulling it free with the boat but in the process we snapped the 3/4 " nylon rope without even bugging anything underwater.

I don't want to spend all winter asking myself "Did we already find it or was it just another bigger relic like the ones we've already collected?" I will surely go crazy having to ask myself this for another six to eight months! So this time why not resort to military intervention? That's funny.....I think it's already been mentioned on the message board somewhere. The plan is to try and get a side scan done soon but if unsuccessful, we will have to do without because there will be a sixth dive in 2003.

400 Votes today on the online survey question. To date, 97.8 % of the people who took the time to vote on this website are for the salvage of the locomotive if found. Click here to see the current count or take a few seconds to vote yourself if you haven't done so already.

I haven't posted anything on the website in a while but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I had to be in Fredericton yesterday for a meeting and I decided to take full advantage of being in close proximity to the Provincial Archives. I also brought pieces 1, 2 & 3 from the salvage pictures of my journal. I wanted to show them to my boss who just so happens to be a locomotive enthusiast. I had suspected that those pieces where from the engine, more specifically the braking system, and he seemed to agree with me. This said, it would appear that the locomotive hunt has been fruitful to a certain degree this summer. We now have relics of the mysterious engine. It's encouraging to also know that as I write this paragraph a rope is actually tied to a bigger piece of the engine at the bottom of the river (See October 1, 2003 entry for specifics).

I am currently reconfiguring the website. I have added a new section to the main page tonight which is entitled "Research Section". It is a more organized section of newspaper stories related to the wreck. I plan on searching the archives this winter and adding my findings to that section instead of the journal. My visit yesterday only allowed me 45 minutes but Fredericton is only 2 hours away.

The long awaited section of the Trans Canada Highway from Grand Falls to St-Leonard opened to traffic today. We can now commute from Grand Falls to St-Leonard in approximately 10-15 minutes and Grand Falls to Edmundston in 30 minutes!

For a while now I have been wanting to sit down and share what I have in mind now that the barge is gone and the cold winter is upon us once again. I know some people are wandering if there is still something going on with the train story because I have been asked often lately. The answer is yes. The search effort this summer was ignited with the presence of the barge and its possible availability was what sparked me to go at it hard. Now that that opportunity is gone I will concentrate on at least finding out if the locomotive was left behind for starters. Never mind rushing into this now, I have all the time in the world to look for it. I don't want to stretch the search forever but I also want to take my time and get things organized at my own pace. The thought of finding the engine and pulling it out this summer was very thrilling to the imagination but a tad unrealistic and possibly even inapplicable. Things always look simple enough when you start working on any project but technical barriers always surface along the way. So not worrying about any salvage effort, the project has significantly been simplified. Lets just try to solve the mystery first and deal with whatever happens when that time comes.

As promised I was able to dedicate some time at the Fredericton Provincial archives a couple of weeks ago. I managed to find additional interesting articles documenting the accident. None of them mention the locomotive having been pulled out but one article does mention the locomotive and tender where going to be very difficult to raise. I will type them up when I get time and post them in the research document section of the website. I will also add a note in my journal saying so when I post them.

I will soon be transferring my webpage over to a different website. I recently got high speed and will be moving my webpage to my new Rogers web space account. I now have up to 70 Mb of web space which will allow me to merge all sections of my website. I will also have all the required space to post some documentary clips. My new e-mail at home is now erichris@rogers.com . So in a couple of weeks, if the shortcut to my website doesn't work anymore, just go to the Gemtec Limited website and click on the 508 quick link.

I have VERY interesting news to report later this week concerning the ongoing search efforts. Let's just say the mystery could be solved a lot quicker than I could of imagined......... ;)

On a lighter note, I finally finished transferring my webpage to the new account and that took most of the evening. I have also changed little details to make it more friendly to navigate. I will post the BIG NEWS on Thursday night sometime. I am away tomorrow and I won't be back till Thursday.

I have been talking to John E. Hughes Clarke (Associate Professor at UNB, Chair in Ocean Mapping) this past week. I contacted him to discuss the possible availability of the C.S.L. Heron this spring. The problem with the Heron is bringing it up here. Many expensive sensors are part of the Heron's hull. This is when I mentioned the possibility of doing some winter exploration using the ice to our advantage. John then told me to contact a man by the name of Nick Burchill, he works for a company called Kongsberg Maritime. His office is in Dartmouth N.S. (13 hours away round trip) but after minutes of explaining my story to him, we were trying to pick possible dates for the sonar survey. We picked February 11, 12 & 13. The only thing to do now is hope that the severe cold chill breezes by and brings milder temperature (minus the snow) for mid February. The instrument will map the bottom of the river with amazing detail. I will try and get some images from Nick to demonstrate.

So the plan is to scan the area where we found the magnetic anomalies this summer. If the engine is in the river and if it is not buried.......we will see it.

Things are starting to fall into place quite nicely for the February sonar survey on the river. I am pleased to announce that Wayne Hodges from W.E. Hodges Surveys Ltd. of Drummond will be donating his time in staking out the site. I had to call him this week for work related stuff and we started talking about the locomotive project and he quickly donated his services. Thanks!

The next item we will need is going to be a portable shelter. We need something light, no too big so we can move from hole to hole easily. The shelter is needed to house the laptop and other gear that we will be using on the river. If anybody has any suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

On a different note, me and the kids (Alex & Andrew) had a hell of time this weekend building an IGLOO!!! I know, I know.....where did you get the snow to build an igloo? Well, it just so happens that the wind created a snow bank behind the house that was really hard and we decided late Saturday to start building it. We had JUST enough snow to build it. We used one handheld saw, two sleds for trucking from the snow quarry to the site and lots of energy! The bottom pieces were cut bigger and as we progressed higher, we slowly diminished their size until the dome was complete. Let me tell you the dome section was really difficult to build but thankfully I had help from one of my buddies, Butch Paradis, to complete it. All of the pieces where cut at angles to give the structure some strength. My parents were over last night and we patched it all up good. I hosed it down with water after that in order to give even more strength. We have put approximately 20 hours in its construction but it was all worth it. The igloo can easily accommodate 4 adults standing and is about 7 feet high (interior) with an inside diameter of 8 feet.

The igloo will be in the local newspaper next week and will also be published in Enginuity magazines next publication. Pretty COOL! Here is a picture of it.

Well the igloo is still standing even if it's been mild here for a full week now. It's a welcome change since the last few weeks have given us chilling -30 °to -40 ° Celsius temperatures. I called Nick Burchill from Kongsberg Maritime yesterday wanting to confirm the 11th for the survey on the river. He said he was gone from the office last week and before giving the green light he had to verify is e-mails to make sure nothing had changed in his schedule. He called called me back today informing me he has to give an important company presentation next week and will not be able to make it. We have rescheduled the survey to March 3rd, 4th and 5ft, 2004. This is kind of good for me because I have been working away from home for the last bit and have not had time to organize myself 100%. Next week I am gone away to Moncton on Monday and Tuesday...so Wednesday was pushing it a little for time. Let's hope we get a break for March break.

Only a couple of weeks left before we know if the engine is in the river or not. I am really starting to get excited about the whole thing. Time flies when your having fun. March 4th marks one year since my first Journal entry.

Onto more pressing news......it's almost time......the BABY is coming on Tuesday! We don't know if it's a boy or girl but most seem to think it will be a girl. We can't wait to find out for real but I say if it's not a boy...it's a girl. Can't go wrong with that comment. A boy would extend the Ouellette roots into another generation. On the other hand a girl would bring balance to the household and give Christine some hope. I fear another guy in this house will surely make her go mad !!!

I will post some pictures tonight when I get back from the hospital. Christine is doing fine but still feels a little pain. She now takes comfort in the fact that she will not be alone with a bunch of guys anymore. :)

Yup...mommy and baby! Everything went well this week and Jessy actually got cleared to go home before Chris today.

Me and Christine have been debating real hard on what Jessy's middle name should be. I have my favored choice and she has hers. The choices we have come up with are Jessy Jean and Jessy Jane. Both of them have a nice Jessy James ring to them but we can't seem to pick one. In order to help us decide on the one we will pick, we came up with a good way to split the tie breaker. We'll have an online pole and get you to decide. It's free and feedback is always best when it's honest and confidential. So please take the time to help us out on this very important issue. ;)

It's a busy week for me regarding preparations for next weeks survey on the ice. I called Nick Burchill from Kongsberg Maritime this morning to see if everything was still a go. He told me that so far everything looks good unless some unsafe weather conditions arise like last week.

1 - Calculate the coordinates for the survey. (DONE) Compliments of Andrew Demerchant from GEMTEC Limited . ...Thanks

2 - Get the survey staked out towards the end of the week. (DONE) Compliments of Wayne Hodges and crew from W.E. Hodges Surveys Ltd. .... Thanks

3 - Get holes done on the ice this weekend. (DONE) with the help of Marc Laforge, Daniel Laforge, Andrew Mulherin, Alex Mulherin, Francis Theriault and Bert Laforge's ice drill.

5 - Get tarp for shelter. (DONE) Donated by Philip Roach & Luc Beaulieu......Thanks

6 - Build shelter. (DONE) With the help of Alex Mulherin, Andrew Mulherin, Marc Laforge and Jean Sebastien Roy.....Thanks

Here is a picture of the shelter we built last night in order to accommodate Nick's instrumentation. Once we are done on the river with the shelter, we will use it at work as a mobile winter concrete testing shelter. It's 4ft wide, 6 feet long and 7ft high.

Now everything is ready for Wednesday. The ice cutting will be done the day of the survey in case we need to add a few holes.

The survey on ~~Wednesday~~ Thursday will consist of descending a sonar device (Supplied by Kongsberg Maritime) into the water to about a meter from the bottom. Once at proper depth, the device will perform a 360 degree sweep of the bottom. It will be set to extend to 50m creating a scanned circular area having a diameter of 100m. We laid out five points on the river Friday and at each of these locations we will be cutting an opening in the ice. The sonar device will be lowered into all five holes and the images from each will be pieced together to generate a very good image of the entire area of interest. The area to be scanned will be the one which revealed magnetic debris this summer with the help of Karl Butler from the University of New Brunswick and his magnetometer scan.

I talked to Nick Burchill this morning to find out when he expects to roll into town this week. He is leaving early Wednesday from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia around 8h00. The trip will take him 6 to 8 hours so he will get here in the afternoon. We will then go over the survey technicalities and get ready for Thursday morning. The survey itself will take place on Thursday March 4, 2004. This will mark the one year anniversary of my search efforts. This is what Nick wrote back to me when I asked him about some survey details last Friday. I wanted to know if we were going to see the images on the ice or if they were going to be calculated later elsewhere. He writes the following "We will be able to see the bottom immediately. We can record the files for review later, but the images are instantaneous. It's like looking around with a rotating camera". Excellent!!!

We went out on the ice today to get the holes done. Marc Laforge managed to borrow his uncles (Bert Laforge) ice auger and to my amazement we put five holes down within an hour. The average ice thickness today was 24 inches (2 ft). Present was Marc Laforge, Daniel Laforge, Andrew Mulherin, Alex Mulherin, Francis Theriault and of course....me...Eric Ouellette.

I called Wayne Hodges today to see if he wanted to help us haul the shelter on the ice with his track 4 wheeler. He accepted and now we are all set with shelter mobility issue.

The following drawing is the area which we will be scanning. The triangle in light blue is the same as the one above in the magnetometer survey (Feb. 29, 2004 journal entry). The letters A, B & C have the same coordinates. The red triangle is simply a bigger version in order to make sure we get everything. The holes have been put down today where the numbers 1 to 5 are located. The circles are simply a representation of the area which will be covered with the sonar instrument. The only thing left to do now is sit back and enjoy this beautiful weather!!! :)

Marc and Daniel Laforge have offered their services to help build a sonar anchor. We will need to lower the instrument underwater to about 3 feet (1 m) from the bottom and it will have to remain motionless in order to give us accurate images. The plan is to attach the weight under the sonar and lower it with a rope. When the anchor reaches the bottom we will keep a tension on the rope. Here is the anchor.

Well Nick Burchill has made it safely to Grand Falls. We went for supper together and then came home to look over details for tomorrow. We plan on being on the river around 9h00 but we need to build a different lowering mechanism before the actual survey, so we don't expect any images before 10h00. Pierre Morin will be filming the historical event and has again gotten replaced at work to come along. CBC TV and the Victoria Star will also be in attendance. I did an interview today with CBC radio (French station) and it will air tomorrow morning early on the Grand Falls FM frequency of 100.3. The interview should air around 7h15, 7h45 or 8h15.

It's all come down to this. The scan tomorrow WILL reveal what lies at the bottom of the river where the metal debris field was located.....The area of interest. So this being said, the only thing I would really want to know in order to sleep well tonight is my March 4^th 2004 Journal entry!!!

We had a very long day out on the ice but we also had a very nice day weather wise. We had lots of helpers and we even made it on CBC TV (channel 11). The survey went great but did not conclusively solve the mystery. It simply made it necessary to have just one more dive. We found a long straight object which is approximately 22 feet by 6 feet. It is sticking out of the bottom about 3 feet. It was located directly between the piers of the old bridge. We did not see any striking features like wheels or anything like that, simply a long straight edge object with debris at one end. The orientation with reference to the old bridge alignment was almost believable. However I'm not going to be convinced until we get more divers down there to confirm. It's real nice to know the exact location of the anomaly. We could have carved a hole on the ice today and hit it with a stick...a 30 ft long stick. It might also be a natural outcrop which resembles what we wanted to see....never know. We also did lots more holes on the ice but did not detect anything worth noting. So no more wasting time looking all around, we have at least refined the search area within the size of a locomotive. The next dive will surely put the mystery to rest.

I was reading my Journal II tonight wanting to see what I wrote when I first heard the Moncton diver story. This is the information I got from that. Take note that I have never been able to talk directly to these divers...simply through a third party conversation from a dive shop employee in the Moncton area who did speak to them.

- It was found exactly where it plunged 100 years ago at that time. It never drifted.

Another thing to know is that I have personally seen these divers getting dressed on the river bank three years ago ready to go diving. I asked the contractor, who I was working for, what they where doing? He told me they had asked him for his permission to set up on his lot in order to go diving on an old sunken locomotive. I knew noting of the accident back then but a couple of weeks later I met the contractor again at the local coffee shop and he immediately came over to me and said something like this. "Remember the divers on my lot back when you where working for me?". He went on to say, "They told me before they left that they had found the engine". This I have been told three years ago. It just so happens they were parked where the north abutment is located. How I wish I could of been more interested back then and gone over to talk to them before they left.

I will thank the volunteers tomorrow and add some cool pictures from today. I'm tired.

I figure I put all of this time into it, I should be the one who goes down on dive 6. We have pin pointed only one object which could possibly be the engine and I will literally get to the bottom of it and check it out. Luc Pelletier's wife called me last week letting me know he his giving a diving course this spring. I told him last year I wanted to take it if he ever gave it again. I always wanted to do that and now the timing of it all couldn't be better.

Helpers: Viateur Ouellette, Andrew Mulherin, Marc Laforge, Daniel Laforge, Louis Laforge, Peter Carswell.

Here is an image of what we found lying at the bottom of the river between the old bridge piers. The center of the image is the sonar head location. The object near the sonar instrument underwater is about 6.3 m (20 feet) by 1.2 m (4 feet) and as you can see is almost directly between the two piers. The top pier is the pier closest to the South shore and is located approximately 25 meters from it. The center of the scanned area in the following image is 60 meters from the South shore.

The following picture puts everything in perspective. I drew a red line approximately where we have located the anomaly. Some say when the river was lowered in 1980 they would of seen the engine if it was left behind. This picture was taken in the late 1800, more than 30 years before the dam construction. The water level is clearly very low and yet the second, third and fourth spans have water running underneath them.

If you have Rogers Cable, I am going to be on at 18h00 and/or 21h00 on Monday March 15. If the interview doesn't air on Monday night it will air at the the same times on Wednesday instead.

I started my scuba diving course this morning in Edmundston. We went over the course content, price, duration etc. Unfortunately some interested in the course where not available this morning and the official start date has yet to be set. There is also the issue of getting more students lined up in order to make it worth while and affordable for Luc to give it. If anybody is interested in getting certified, get a hold of Luc Pelletier (instructor) at (506) 992-3705. The course is 60 hours and is given at a cost of 430$ in Edmundston. If more people from Grand Falls are interested we could always carpool and cut down on travel cost. I (Eric Ouellette) can be reached at (506) 473-1597 for more information ( erichris@rogers.com ). Luc hopes to gather enough people to officially start in the next few weeks. His e-mail address is the following:

For those who already have their certification and would like to assist for a refresher course, the cost is 170$. It will be given at the same time as the full certification.

Luc Pelletier called me last night and unfortunately the scuba diving course has been canceled. Some who had signed up for it had to back out because of their work schedules. It would of been real nice to dive on it personally but Dive #6 is going to happen this summer....dive course or not. ;)

Nothing new to report on the train so here's some recent pictures of Jessy Jane! She will be 12 weeks on Tuesday. At 12lbs she has since doubled in size.

I have slowly started making preparations for the big dive this summer. I was talking to Wayne Hodges the other day and he offered once again to help me locate the exact location (on water) we want to explore with the divers. I have a marker at the bottom but this will make it even easier for us to locate the anomaly. As for the divers, I have made one phone call to one of my good buddies who knows lots of military friends. I also want to get some underwater filming gear for dive # 6. If I can't go down, at least I will be able to see and so will everybody else!

Here is a picture of what I have been up to over the past long weekend. I have attempted to do a little landscaping of my own around the house. I got an old pump from my uncle in Woodstock and decided to restore it and put it to good use as a decoration. I have invested all of my long weekend into building the trench, sidewalk, underground water reservoir and the rock filled channel. I'm still not done but most of it is operational for now.

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