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Ghost train stories?

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Posted by Fred M Cain on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 2:26 PM

Overmod,

 

Could easy be.  By all the descriptions I've read about the incident, it happened out in the middle of nowhere in front of a tunnel.  But things change.  Could there once have been a small community there? This supposedly happened about 110 years ago (if, that is it happened at all). Hmmmn. 

 

Regards,

Fred M. Cain

 

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Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 2:18 PM

The Silver Run question deserves a bit more study.

There's a common issue with The War Of Many Names (1861-1865) which involves place names.  The Southern names for many battles involve familiar town or context names (like Manassas) whereas the Union used features on topo maps, often watercourses (like Bull Run).  We might immediately recognize Silver Run as originating in a stream name, but there are also towns getting their name direct (like Laurel Run in Pennsylvania)

I see a GPS reference for Silver Run Station (it's on Silver Run Road):

Latitude: 39.2084121704
Longitude: -81.1970596313
GNIS ID: 1546787

Perhaps those of you with an interest can examine this on Google Earth or comparable satellite view or research it better by location.  

 

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Posted by Fred M Cain on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:37 AM

Flintlock,

Most interesting, I must say!  You know there have also been many, many reports of some kind of a "spook light" along Old U.S. 66 in southwest Missouri and northeastern Oklahoma.  So many people have seen it that it cannot be dismissed.  It's real whatever it is.

Back before the interstates were opened, many a traveler on Route 66 spotted the light.  A few people were even fortunate enough to capture it on film.  But what the heck is it?  I don't think there were/are any railroad tracks in the vicinity. 

Some people theorized that headlights gleaming off the clouds could somehow produce a light like that floating above the ground.  But that explanation doesn't seem too plausable either.

However, I liked the explanation about quartz being under severe pressure causing an electrical field.  That is an interesting possibility.

After I-44 was opened, people didn't drive much on the old road anymore so reports of its presence diminished.  But it has never quite gone away.

https://www.joplinmo.org/575/The-Spook-Light 

Regards,

Fred M. Cain

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:05 AM

Ever hear of "The Hookerman?"  Soon you will!

(Real high-school stuff, by the way!)

https://weirdnj.com/stories/unexplained-phenomena/hookerman-spook-lights/

 

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Posted by Fred M Cain on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 7:17 AM

I can also add that there are a number of versions as to just WHO the girl in white of Silver Run had been.  In the version I posted above, she was waiting for the train at Silver Run Station and either fell or was jilted by her lover and did herself in.

Hmmmn.  I'm not sure there ever was a passenger station at Silver Run to begin with.  Does anybody know?

Another version has the young girl boarding the train at Grafton (or somewhere) on her way to meet her lover in Parkersburg but she never arrived and no one knew what had happened to her.  A while later the ghostly appearances began.

Oh, and an afterthought here.  I take back what I said in my earlier post about there is no explanation.  I think I may have found the explanation.

To see the explanation, just click here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b5aW08ivHU 

Ha, ha, ha, ha ! ! ! ! !

Regards,

Fred M. Cain

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Posted by Fred M Cain on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 7:00 AM
Another GREAT ghost story in my personal opinion is the ghost of Silver Run on the former B&O mainline west of Grafton.  Supposedly, starting around 1910 or thereabouts, the specter of a beautiful young girl with long, black hair and a long, flowing white dress was seen near Tunnel #19 on the B&O by a number of B&O crews.
 
This story was also printed in Tony Reevy’s super fun book Ghost Trains. Sadly, the former B&O mainline across West Virginia was abandoned in the mid 1980s by CSX.
 
The old right-of-way is now a "Rail Trail" and since abandonment several hikers and cyclists have also claimed that they have seen or heard her.  This is really weird.  What is the explanation?  There is none!
 
Each individual will simply have to decide for themselves if she’s real or not.  As for me, I’m super skeptical but want to keep an open mind.
If you do a search for "The Lady in White of Silver Run" you can find quite a few references to it.  Some of the details of the story vary somewhat. By one account, she was riding on the pilot of the locomotive wailing and screaming in pain.  By another account she was seen on the pilot having a great time while waving at people.
 
Here is one version of the story as copied and pasted from a website:
 
 
"The North Bend Rail Trail in West Virginia is known for its tunnels. Especially its haunted tunnels. 
The tunnels on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line between Grafton and Parkersburg, West Virginia were built just after the Civil War, between 1867 and 1870. By the late 1950’s, railroad freight cars were getting taller and wider. The narrow, low tunnels on the B & O line were creating a problem area referred to as “The Bottleneck” by railroaders because of the difficulty of getting the larger trains through the tunnels. B&O decided to do a “clearance” project, widening the tunnels and raising the roofs to accommodate the new trains. 
Some of the tunnels were “daylighted”, or had their roofs removed so they were open cuts instead of tunnels as part of this project, but ten of the original tunnels remain today. Hikers and bikers pass through them regularly, most unaware of the ghostly legends connected with several of the tunnels—stories of grisly deaths, apparitions, strange noises, and frightening experiences. 
The Lady in White
Of these tales, the most well known by far is the Silver Run Tunnel’s Lady in White. Silver Run, or Tunnel 19, is located not far from the little town of Cairo, which was once famous for its marble-making industry. Today, the Silver Run tunnel and its resident ghost attracts hundreds of visitors annually to tiny Cairo.
According to the legend, a young woman waited for her betrothed at the Silver Run station. She was to be married, and was wearing a long white dress as she watched for her lover. 
…”a young woman waited for her betrothed at the Silver Run station.”
He never came. Did she fall accidentally? Or did she jump in grief and despair when she realized she’d been jilted? No one knows, but not long after her death whispers began to spread that her ghost had been seen in the tunnel. One night, an engineer reported a woman in white who appeared at the tunnel entrance just as his train was approaching. The engineer tried to stop, but there was not enough time. The train struck the woman, sending her flying off the tracks.
When the train finally stopped, the engineer and his crew searched in vain for the young woman’s body, but it was nowhere to be found. After that report, engineers regularly reported seeing the woman, and tried to avoid hitting her. Each time, the story was the same. She vanished into thin air.
One engineer decided he would not stop for the apparition. When she appeared in front of his train, he blew the whistle but did not brake. The train smashed into the woman and she sailed up and over the engine.
The telegraph office in Parkersburg began getting strange messages for every station between the office and Silver Run. A woman in white was riding on the cowcatcher of an incoming train! As the train pulled into the station, a crowd was waiting. But there was no woman in white, only a pale-faced engineer who looked like he’d seen a ghost.
 

Regards,

Fred M. Cain

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Posted by M636C on Tuesday, November 24, 2020 6:05 AM

Overmod

Grim Reaper ... if you really see the face of death on the railroad...

https://railworkersunited.storenvy.com/collections/593503-merchandise/products/25690680-poster-the-haunt-of-hunter

 

Of course, in his later days, EHH looked even more like death than the cartoon....

Peter

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Monday, November 23, 2020 9:34 PM

scilover

I have one here about Grim Reaper! But no really related to train..

 

 

Reminds me of the Irish legend of the banshee.  The banshee isn't like the Reaper, but is a wailing female spirit who's a harbinger of the imminent death of someone in the household, and the odd thing is, or was, only one or two people in the house will hear it, no-one else, and not necessarily the one who's going to die.

Is it true?  Actress Maureen O'Hara said she heard the banshee the night before her grandmother died.  My grandfather (on my mother's side) as a boy assisted his father and other men in burning down a tree that was supposed to have been a home for banshees.  So some believe it's true.

Americans of Irish extraction don't have to worry about banshees though, they didn't follow the Irish over here.  Leprechauns, on the other hand...

Wink

 

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Posted by Overmod on Monday, November 23, 2020 8:44 PM

"Yes, be afraid.  Be very afraid"

-- Mel Brooks

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Posted by SD70Dude on Monday, November 23, 2020 8:30 PM

Oh, that's good.  

If only it was just a joke.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, November 22, 2020 12:16 PM
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Posted by scilover on Sunday, November 22, 2020 10:23 AM

I have one here about Grim Reaper! But no really related to train..

 

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Posted by Fred M Cain on Tuesday, November 17, 2020 9:47 AM

I feel compelled to respond to my own post here.  I apologize for the fact that I didn't have my geography quite right here.  I was going too much on my own memory from the time that I researched this about 15 years ago.  Adding to my difficulty is the fact that the geography for this area really is somewhat complicated.

First of all, the large, spidery (and now abandoned) Springville Trestle on the B&P which spans Cattaraugus Creek is at the EAST end of the Zoar Valley, not the west end where I'd put it in my previous post.

The famous Portageville Trestle on Norfolk Southern that was completely rebuilt (replaced, really) is not on Cattaraugus Creek at all but spans the Genesee River gorge.

Sorry about that !

Regards,

Fred M. Cain

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Posted by Fred M Cain on Thursday, November 12, 2020 7:48 AM

Anonymous
There is a book called Ghost Trains that has stories of haunted stations, bridges, tunnels, etc. You can probably get it at yor local book store.
 

 
I just happen to have this book.  It is a REALLY fun read.  It's the kind of book that after reading it, you can put it on your book shelf, then pull it back out a few years later and read it again.  When my kids were younger and still at home, they enjoyed the book as well.
 
It has a lot of neat ghost stories.  You can either read the book cover to cover or skip around from story to story.  Some of the stories are REALLY spooky.
 
The author makes no claim as to whether ghosts actually exist or not - he tends to avoid that controversy altogether.  Instead, he has merely documented and printed legends of railroad ghosts over the years.
 
You can find the book here:
 
 
One of my favorite stories in the book involves a catastrophic train wreck in New York’s Zoar Valley.  The Zoar Valley is sort of a spooky place to begin with.  Quite a few people have died there over the years from falls while hiking.
 
Anyhow, according to the legend, a spidery train trestle crossed the chasm right at the very deepest spot.  Late one night the train was coming (a passenger train) and the engineer saw too late that the bridge was out.  He slammed the breaks but the train crashed into the gorge anyways.  People in a nearby village could hear the screams of the dying passengers.
 
According to the legend, for many, many years later on certain dark, spooky nights, people in the village could hear the train crash and the screams of the dying passengers.
 
This legend piqued my curiosity enough that I began searching for which railroad this happened on and when.  What I discovered was that NO railroad ever crossed the Zoar at that location to begin with.  The BR & P (later B & O) bridge crossed that same river further west but was not technically in the Zoar Valley itself.  Nevertheless, I suspected that’s where the wreck happened.  I began to research this and found out that no train ever rain off the bridge there.  The bridge still stands today but that particular rail line was abandoned about 15 or 20 years ago.
 
There is another such bridge well EAST of the Zoar.  I think it was an Erie or DL&W bridge, I’m not sure now anymore.  That bridge is now part of Norfolk Southern and is still very much in use.  NS completely built a new bridge at that location as documented in TRAINS Magazine.  However, this is far enough east of the Zoar that the wreck couldn’t have happened there either.
 
So, it’s just a legend that’s all.  The author was documenting legends.  I’m not quite sure I believe in ghosts anyways.  However, ghosts seem to be very much a part of the human psyche – whatever the explanation is for that I have no idea.
 
Regards,
Fred M. Cain
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Posted by BaltACD on Wednesday, November 11, 2020 8:47 AM

jeffhergert
I see ghost trains all the time.  Our train line up is full of them at times.  Trains that have no power or cars assigned to them.  Trains that will run eventually, but it could be a couple days later.  Makes it hard to figure out when one is going to be going to work.

Jeff

There is a corollary to Ghost Trains - Trains that are created 'before their time'.

When I was working - Terminals were 'supposed' to give 12 hour advance notice of the need for a train that was outside the normal 'scheduled merchandise' operating plan.  The intent was for the 12 hours to allow time for the parts of the organization required to allocate resources (power & crew) to implement plans to support the train.  In reality, sometimes, 2 hours was the real gestation period - authority for the train was requested and the train called, with both power and crew being on hand at the time the train was requested.  Such happenings could leave adjoining Divisions 'holding a empty bag' where the run time for the train to a crew change point was on the order of 4 hours.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by jeffhergert on Tuesday, November 10, 2020 9:59 PM

I see ghost trains all the time.  Our train line up is full of them at times.  Trains that have no power or cars assigned to them.  Trains that will run eventually, but it could be a couple days later.  Makes it hard to figure out when one is going to be going to work.

Jeff

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Posted by seppburgh2 on Tuesday, November 10, 2020 9:48 PM
 

Ok while we are on the subject, does the NS still run through the tunnel where John Henry lost the race with the steam drill?  Have there been any reports of John hunting that tunnel?  Growing up my two heroes were Casy Jones (he had his own TV show) and John Henry (somehow back then I tired John Henry to the Miner in the CW song Big Bad John.)

 
 
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Posted by Shock Control on Tuesday, November 10, 2020 12:04 PM

When I was a kid in the 1970s, there was a railroad track near where we lived.  The track intersected at two different through-roads nearby.

On a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the fall or spring, I would walk up to one of the roads with the railroad intersection, and then walk the length of the track to the other.  It was probably only a mile or so, but as a kid, it felt like forever.

This stretch ended with the intersection at the second through-road.  At this location was an ancient TV/electronics repair shop.  It was essentially a log cabin.  I would look through the broken windows, and I would see a bunch of ancient electronics, all covered in dust and cobwebs.  It was clear that no one had set foot in the place in a very long time.

So here is the creepy part: On two different occasions, as we were driving home very late at night and passing by this stretch, the TV repair shop was lit up from the inside. My recollection is that this happened precisely two times.  I remember us slowing down to try to see what was going on.  We didn't see any activity through the windows.

I moved away in the 1980s, and never returned to this area until sometime circa 2004.  The TV/electronics repair shop was gone by then. It was a creepy place even before those two incidents, and lights being on late at night made it even creepier.

 

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Posted by SeeYou190 on Wednesday, November 4, 2020 10:35 PM

You cannot have a thread titled Ghost Trains without including Alan Rails (AKA "Ghost Train") from the Vindicators.

All Aboard . . .

-Kevin

Living the dream.

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Posted by SFbrkmn on Friday, October 30, 2020 2:45 PM

BNSF(ex SF yd Newton, KS). In 1959 a carman was killed in one of the yd tracks. On many occasions afterwards for yrs, crews working at the east end of the yd at night could see a faint white light way down there, as if a carman light. One night a train was built. It is the car dept job to blue flag and lace the train and insp. Two carmen work from each end and discovered every air hose was coupled and ready to go. No one ever came up w/an answer on that.                                                                    I was working a3rd shift job my first yr there in '99. Stormy night just outside town to the north. I had to go down in there to make a couple of joints. Forman told me w/a grin to "keep my eye out" the the carman ghost. Yep down there wondering if a ghost was going to jump at me from between the cars.                  The story of the carman ghost has likely faded out but was legend for many yrs 

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Posted by Juniata Man on Saturday, October 24, 2020 1:11 PM

LOL!  Love it!!!


zugmann

 

 
Overmod
Q.  Why would he need a lantern if he has no head?

 

So his head can see his body looking for him.  

 

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Posted by zugmann on Saturday, October 24, 2020 12:05 PM

Overmod
Q.  Why would he need a lantern if he has no head?

So his head can see his body looking for him.  

It's been fun.  But it isn't much fun anymore.   Signing off for now. 


  

The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, October 24, 2020 11:19 AM

Juniata Man
Hmm; are you sure you weren't one of those grownups?  ;-)

Not at all!  Just trying to explain why the phenomenon always repeated exactly the same way.

Likely the fact that the supposed PRR guy was a BRT brother would help account for it. Wink 

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Posted by Juniata Man on Saturday, October 24, 2020 11:06 AM

Hmm; are you sure you weren't one of those grownups?  ;-)

Curt

 

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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, October 24, 2020 10:23 AM

Juniata Man
The legend associated with this had it being a headless PRR brakeman walking with his lantern searching for his head.

Q.  Why would he need a lantern if he has no head?

A.  That's why he has to keep trying...  to paraphrase the old Three Stooges gag "I can't see!!  I can't see!!!"

 

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Posted by Juniata Man on Saturday, October 24, 2020 7:30 AM

I grew up in central PA. On back roads roughly paralleling the former PRR between Mattawanna and Newton Hamilton was a location known to teenagers as "the light".  Basically this spot was a farmers field, bordered by a tree line on three sides - open along the road.  On moonless nights, a blob of light would appear in the far left corner of the field - at or right behind the tree line, slowly move from left to right along the field then follow the right side tree line toward the road.  It would get about halfway to the road, disappear then immediately reappear at the original spot and repeat the process.

The legend associated with this had it being a headless PRR brakeman walking with his lantern searching for his head.

Grownups all tried to debunk this phenomenon but, we teens knew it was "real". ;-)

Not sure if teens in that area still visit or even know about "the light" but, it provided excitement for many of us in the late '60's/very early 70's.

Curt

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Posted by M636C on Saturday, October 24, 2020 1:45 AM

There was a British play of 1923 called "The Ghost Train" which was turned into a film in 1931 and again in 1941.

The 1941 movie is available on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGbylI9gVsI

I like it...

Peter

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Posted by chatanuga on Saturday, October 24, 2020 12:04 AM

I've been down to Moonville, Ohio, a ghost town on the former B&O across southern Ohio.  It's supposed to be one of the most haunted locations in Ohio.  I've made a few trips down there, and each trip has been different in terms of experiences.

There was also a story I read in a book when I was a kid where a conductor or other member of a train crew was in love with an engineer's wife.  He killed the engineer, making it look like an accident.  He then married the engineer's wife, and they bought or built a house along a riverbank across the river from the railroad line that the engineer used to run on.  As they were going up to the door of the house, they saw the headlight of a train approaching in the distance.  Apparently the tracks came downhill towards the riverbank and then made a sharp turn to run alongside.  The train that was approaching had the engineer's locomotive pulling it and had been stopped at the station at the top of the hill when the crew had left the cab.  While the cab was empty, the locomotive started off by itself, racing downhill towards the bend at the river.  As the wife of the engineer and the conductor were about to go inside the house, they heard a scream of a steam whistle, turned, and saw the locomotive fly off the curve, and fly across the river, crashing into the house and killing the couple.  If I remember right, the story said that every year on the anniversar of the accident, a phantom locomotive is seen flying across the river and disappearing where the house used to be.

Kevin

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Posted by GN24 on Friday, October 23, 2020 5:07 PM

also I have witnesssed an actual haunting on the rails!

I was walking along an old line in a thunderstorm and well I heard the faint sad cry of a steam locomotive in the dicstance and this line has been abandond for years! so I looked down the line and saw the fricking engine itself I started to run and I wouldn't stop eventualy the engine caught up to me I jumped to the side and watched it rocket past me I was able to get a faint look at the cab and there was nobody driving! as it reached the level crossing it let out a loud shreaking bloodcurtleing hoot from it's whistle then it just vanished into thin air.

the locomotive looked like a Union Pacific 2-8-0

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