The Story of Bernie, the Loco Engineer. Khartoon Lake, Third Lake Lois Lake Powell River BC

Now this story I have heard a few versions of, the location is always within a certain area but never precise, but its funny.

I have heard more times that this took place where the Salmon Hatchery is on Third Lake, now known as Khartoon Lake. There used to be a logging camp and sort there, and it was where most of the locomotors ran their loads to and dumped them to haul down the lake. This story is about a guy who I only have every heard is Bernie. The story goes that one day the guy that preps the loco was called in to light the furnace, but only a small fire to get the boilers working some. The prep guy has to grease everything, tighten bolts, fire the boiler, fll the water tank and this job is not a pleasant job, and it takes about 1 to 2 hours to prep a loco properly, so he does it.  He calls for the Engineer, who had the nickname Bernie ( I suspect it was really spelt Burnie). I asked why was his nickname Bernie and have been told always that it was his nickname because he had a bad habit of burning the locies, getting them too hot, not enough water or just crash and burning them.  Anyhow back to the story, so along comes Bernie, he overlooks the loco and gives the prep guy his ok to leave,  jumps up into the cab, blows his whislte and turns the valves and starts the loco moving towards the dumping docks. As the prep guy watched, Bernie steps off the loco and watches it speed away without him, well the prep guy went into a bit of shock ran up to Bernie and grabbed him and shook him and asked him in no uncertain terms or words, what he was doing. Well Bernie aparently was a big german man, and he grabbed the prep guy and tossed him a few feet without much effort, the prep guy got back to his feet, stared at the loco heading down the dumping docks and said to Bernie,  “I need this job, I need the money”.  Bernie just shook his head at the prep guy, turned and watched the loco go off the dock, into the water, steam rose and it disappeared, then he turned to the prep guy and his reply was,  “well dont worry about your job, we are getting into trucks, we dont need loco’s anymore” and walked back to his quarters and went back to sleep leaving the prep guy standing there in disbelief.    So somewhere along Lois, or Second, or Third Lake is a loco sitting in 40 to 50 feet of water, near some old logging camp where they had a dumping tresle that ran 100 to 200 feet out.

About OldFart

I was born in Powell River, British Columbia and have been a part of it since 1965.
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