In 1875, a train named Tarnplanen made headlines across newspapers in both America and Europe. Not because it was fast — it wasn’t. Not because it was modern — it wasn’t that either. What made Tarnplanen unique was simple: it was the first and only train that traveled from the U.S. to the U.K. by crossing the Atlantic Ocean. And then, halfway through its journey, it disappeared. Completely. No wreckage, no survivors, not even a single item from the train was ever recovered.
Contents
A Train Across the Atlantic?
To understand Tarnplanen, you first need to understand the world back then. 1875 was a time of wild ambition. The transcontinental railroad in the U.S. was completed only a few years before.. Steamships were carrying passengers across oceans, but someone wanted more — something different. That someone was Charles Fenwick, a wealthy industrialist with more money than patience. He believed rail was the future, even across water.
He teamed up with a group of engineers to create a massive, reinforced track laid over a chain of floating steel pontoons. It stretched from the coast of Maine toward western Ireland, designed to float but anchored every few miles with deep-sea pylons. Nobody thought it would work. But they built it anyway — section by section, ship by ship, over three years.
And then came the Tarnplanen — a custom train built for slow movement and high comfort. Every seat was plush. Every window was wide. The dining car was said to feel more like a hotel lounge than a railway car. It could hold 86 passengers, plus 14 crew.
The First (and Last) Trip
On September 4th, 1875, the Tarnplanen left the eastern port near Rockport, Maine. Crowds gathered to watch the massive locomotive slowly make its way onto the ocean track. It wasn’t fast — barely 15 miles per hour at most — but nobody cared. This wasn’t about speed. This was about being part of something new.
Reports from a supply ship that followed Tarnplanen for the first leg say passengers were relaxed, even excited. The sea was calm. The train moved slowly but steadily west to east.
Then it reached the halfway mark — somewhere around 1,500 miles from shore on either side.
And then it was gone.
No Signals, No Debris, Nothing
The last contact was at 1:42 a.m. on September 6th. A routine lantern signal to the trailing ship. After that, darkness. When the trailing vessel reached the next checkpoint five hours later, the train was not there. They continued forward. Nothing. No overturned pontoons. No trace of broken rail. Just open water.
Search efforts were launched. Ships scoured the area for weeks. Divers were sent down — though the depth made that almost useless. There were no survivors, no floating luggage, no wreckage. Not even oil slicks or torn cloth.
The track itself? Still intact. Crews walked sections and found no signs of failure or tampering. Just a perfectly ordinary stretch of track that suddenly… ended in nothing.
Theories and Questions
Of course, theories popped up.
- The Structural Failure Theory: Some engineers claimed the pontoons may have failed under strain, dragging the whole train down before anyone could escape.
- Sabotage Theory: A few pointed at Fenwick’s enemies — he had many — and suggested sabotage.
- The Vanishing Theory: Locals in both Maine and Cork talked about the sea “swallowing” it whole. Wild stories mentioned fog, flashes of light, and even odd compass behavior.
The strangest theory? The Loop Theory — that Tarnplanen never actually sank but somehow left the physical world. A few fringe scientists claimed it had entered a rift — like time or space bent at that moment.
Nobody could prove anything.
The Aftermath
Fenwick died in silence three years later, having never recovered from the incident. His company dissolved. The track was dismantled. Most of the floating parts were sold for scrap, others sunk in storms.
And the Tarnplanen? It became a myth. For years afterward, fishermen in the mid-Atlantic claimed to hear faint train whistles in the fog. Some even said they saw lights, far off, just above the waterline. But nothing was ever confirmed.
What Remains
There are no remaining photos of the Tarnplanen. Just blueprints and a few newspaper sketches. The names of the passengers are etched into a small iron plaque kept in a museum in Portland, Maine. These days, hardly anyone knows about it.
But for a short moment in 1875, the world watched as a train dared to cross the sea.
And then it vanished.
