Spooky stories from the UP...


Those are some neat stories, Eric. It seems that every railroad is replete with spooky things and ghost stories. I knew a Santa Fe engineer that claimed that ghosts of dead railroaders would fly beside Santa Fe trains east of Barstow. He described them as a glowing white light with a tail, like a comet, but it also had eyes. :eek: He worked for the Santa Fe for almost 50 years and said this was always during the days of steam. No one ever saw the ghosts again after diesels took over. I'm sure there's some natural explanation that has to to with steam engine smoke or steam but it must have been pretty creepy at about 0300 east of Bagdad. I don't know if you've ever been out along the Santa Fe line at night from Barstow to Needles but it's really dark and you see all kinds of spooky things.
 
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Jim, and all, I had what I consider a paranormal experience, while traveling on the old Rt 66 (now National Trails Highway), about 2 miles East of Essex Rd (~25 miles East of Amboy).

It was about 2 AM, around 45 degree's outside. I had the heater on full temp, fan level 2, in defrost mode, keeping myself and the interior of the car warm. As I crested a hill I passed a long abandoned gas station/resort. The interior of the car quickly cooled off, so cold that it caused my windows to fog up nearly instantly. The hair on my body stood on end, and it felt like someone was riding with me. I slowed down fast, looked around the vehicle nervously, and saw nothing. It took a good 15 minutes for the car to warm back up. I've only been through the area once since after dark... This happened in late 2004.
 
Whew, that's pretty hard to explain, Josh. I would have been a tad concerned myself. I've been to that area many times, camping and railfanning, and there's something about that part of the desert on a cold, clear night that seems make things appear out of nowhere and strange things happen. My engineer friend told me about the one time he saw the ghost and you could actually see his face turn white as he described it to me. :eek:

BTW, just to needle you, it's actually the National Old Trails Highway. :)
 
Eric - I'm confident you'll have many ghost stories to tell about Red Mountain and those other area ore mines once that park gets fully operational!;)

Josh - now that's scary!
 
There's local story around where i work. Supposedly back in the 70's a train stopped and the conductor/brakeman walked the train after it went into emergency. After an hour or so the crew got kindof curious as to what happened to the conductor. The crew walked back to find the conductor decapitated under a car. Apparently he was under the car and somehow the cars rolled. I haven't heard it in a while, but people used to say on the day of the conductor death around the same time, trains would go into emergency at that spot and the crew would see a headless figure carrying his head to the headend of the train to finish his trip home.
 
Found another......Not many people know where Bossier City louisiana it but....
There's a curve on the KCS line near the city limits of bossier. Story says that a young mother and several of her children were hit by a train when there vehicle stalled on the tracks. The screams of the family are said to be able to be heard from 1030-1130 on certain nights.

story found on http://theshadowlands.net/places/louisiana.htm
 
Not ghosts, but...

Supposedly an NS or CSX train was running through the mountains of Kentucky next to a river late one night when all the units lost power. Train kept rolling around a curve and the lead unit smacked into one of several UFOs that were hovering near and over the water. Lead unit suffered some cab damage. UFOs took off, units came back online and the train continued to the next division point.

Crew radioed in and there was a contingent of govt black ops types who got everybody away from the train and who proceeded to crawl over the units in biohazard suits. They covered the units with tarps and the units were gone a few hours later.

Dunno, I've spent a good amount of time stargazing and while I've seen some strange things, I've never seen anything that I'd report as a possible UFO. Never have seen anything that I'd call a ghost either. Bummer...
 
Heard a few good horror stories from the old heads, only had one spooky situation though. Walking my train real late one night after going into emergency on the west side of a big hill, it kept sounding like someone was walking loudly behind me. i'd stop, and the steps would stop after a second or so. Start walking, and i would hear it again, a couple of seconds later. Nearest road was about 3/4 of a mile away, nearest building was a good mile. I've walked a LOT of rock, i know what dislodged ballast sounds like, and i know what it sounds like to have someone walk with me. It coulda been an echo, or ballast i knocked loose rolling down the embankment, but i hurried the hell up, just the same!
 
First, I'd be hesitant to recommend anything that came for Rense. He's an anti-semetic, panic promoting nut case. Look at his home page and tell me if you think he posts reliable information.

Second, apparently this was a self healing aircraft if it could do that much damage to a train and still fly off, unharmed. Assuming these were actually advanced beings with an advanced flight vehicle, do you think they wouldn't be able to detect a train because the units had shut down and it was "kind of quiet"? I suspect they'd have a lot better sensor system or we'd be seeing them on our front lawns every other night. I don't know if this really happened to that train or not but, if it did, the UFO story was some kind of cover for a screw up on the part of the train crew.

Third, look at the timeline. The train hit something at 0247 hours. In less than 2.5 hours, the "Black Ops" people were able to mobilize this operation in the middle of nowhere in Kentucky? Having worked in law enforcement for almost 30 years, I can tell you for sure that there's no agency that can get that kind of manpower and logistics in place in 2.5 hours. Why would the CSX dispatcher and/or other officials notify the Feds, in any case? Local agencies handle train collisions, not the Feds. The only federal agency that gets involved is normally the NTSB, and I've never seen any of their investigators show up in less than four hours, and that was in the middle of a business day, for any train wrecks or plane crashes we had.

Something stinks about this whole story.
 
First, I'd be hesitant to recommend anything that came for Rense. [...] Something stinks about this whole story.

The story is on other Web pages as well, no idea who posted it originally.

Never said I believed it - my undergrad degree is in astronomy and I knew J.A. Hynek personally.

I thought ppl were just posting stories here.
 
BB, indeed, they are posting "stories". The difference is that this one claims to be true and happened with witnesses and evidence. My comments were directed at what I feel is the lack of truthfulness in the story. I mentioned the web site only because it is well known among among hate groups a place to tout antisemitic propaganda and wacky conspiracy theories. I was sure you wouldn't want to be associated with such a group but posting a link to Rense's web site helps promote it.
 
Not ghosts, but...

Supposedly an NS or CSX train was running through the mountains of Kentucky next to a river late one night when all the units lost power. Train kept rolling around a curve and the lead unit smacked into one of several UFOs that were hovering near and over the water. Lead unit suffered some cab damage. UFOs took off, units came back online and the train continued to the next division point.

Lol. Even otherworldly tourists don't respect the power of a moving train.
 



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