Treasure Hunter Searches Rhine River—for a Steam Engine
https://www.wsj.com/articles/treasure-hunt-on-the-rhine-is-for-iron-not-gold-1536513344 [www.wsj.com]
2018-09-10 19:31
Horst Müller likes trains. It makes sense. As a child he lived with his family on the top floor of Cochem station. He once celebrated Christmas dinner in the cab of a steam engine with his father, a driver. He’s collected model trains, devoured train books and photographed trains since he was 12, and eventually became a driver himself. For the past 30 years he has moved beyond “like” to obsession. His fixation: Find a 19th-century cast-iron steam engine lost in the Rhine river before it even took its first journey.
“If it’s not the locomotive,” said Mr. Forkmann, “it can only be the Nibelung hoard”—the fabulous “Rhine gold” of Germanic folklore. For Mr. Müller, that would be a great disappointment.