Story: This is the coupling mechanism for a train. The reason it is in this stream bed in the gorge at Watkins Glen is because in the early 1900s, there was a train trestle that ran across the gorge, very high off the bottom. One spring, the gorge flooded and the bridge washed out, apparently with a train on it. The result is that all throughout the gorge, you can see twisted bits of treste at the bottom of holes, couplings like this, and the occasional rail.