Railways Ghosts - Ghost Trains - Haunted Railways
The Night Soul Train
I have always loved trains and railways since a very young age, going on a train as a child was not a bore or chore like it is to some, it was always exciting to me and I always looked forward to it with glee.
I find abaondoned places very charming. Abandoned train lines and stations always fascinated me and still do. Some of what I will write is fiction, but its inspired by my real childhood memories, ill leave it up to the readers imagination as to what is fact (what really happened) and what is imagination.
Recently I have been reading about the history of the Brookwood cemetery funeral train service that used to take the dead in their coffins from London to the Brookwood cemetery 30 or so miles away, to give them their final place of rest, so have felt like writing something on this subject for a while now. The funeral train was often called the ‘Ghost Train’ for obvious reasons. The book I am reading is called ‘The Brookwood Necropolis Railway, By John M. Clarke - The Oakwood Press. The book doesn’t have anything to do with the supernatural or ghosts, but I will always see a supernatural connection in my mind to railways. So the following story I will just make up as I go along.
I was a fairly quite child and was often wondering of to do my own thing, so it was not out of the ordinary for me to go off investigating old buildings and derelict places normally on my own.
There was an old abandoned train line not to far from my house, it was overgrown with nettles and other undergrowth, it had patches of oil here and there, but had a spooky charm and musty smell about it that caused me to become quite obsessed by its mystique even in the daylight hours, so I went there often by myself as it was like my place of escape, a secret place that belonged to me, and until this day I have never told a soul about it. And never once did I meet anyone on my secret journeys along the tracks, not one living person like most of us might know anyway.
At some parts along the line it still had old fashioned signal boxes standing high on raised concrete blocks with wooden steps, it also had echoic type disused train tunnels going deep through hills which were not to uncommon as it was mostly open countryside and woodland, with only the odd thatched country cottage here and there to be seen.
I used to love wondering up and down the tracks in the day, especially in the summer, imagining the trains once rushing by so powerfully that it made the earth shake, which the cracks in the concrete sleepers were visual evidence of. It all made me wonder if the trains would ever run this scenic journey again?.
In a sense it seemed sad that no one any longer paid it any attention, but on the other hand if the trains did start to run again the place would no longer be mine, so its abandonment never seemed to much of a emotional tragedy to me, a kind of blessing actually as it really felt like mine, and was only seen and inhabited by me and me alone, or was it?.
I used to investigate the signal boxes, that still had all the controls and levers inside, some even continued to work, you could even hear the tracks locking into place as you pulled on the rusty pumps. Sometimes I would find things like old tobacco tins and smoking pipes that would give me an impression of who used to work there day and night, year after year. I once even found a dusty old railway workers hat and newspaper with the headlines “War breaks out with Hitler’s Germany“ sprawled across the front so knew no one had stepped foot inside for decades past.
I one day returned at nightfall in the late Autumn as it got darker earlier, which would transport the hazy summer days there from bird song and the sounds of bumblebees happily going about their work and the sight of dandelion seeds floating about like fairies on the breeze in the sunlight, to a dark atmosphere of eerie stillness only to be broken by the sound of an owl hooting in the trees above, or the wail of a distant fox looking for a mate, id hear the rats scurrying about under the rails and signal boxes and old abandoned store sheds filled with old tar cans and overflowing paint pots.
Although this night on the tracks made me more cautious and jumpy than in the day, I felt confident enough to be there alone. The nights on the tracks often seemed to bring alive something else, more than just my imagination. Something always seem to be watching me, or at least that is how it felt. I wondered could the unseen eyes watching me be the eyes of the long since passed away signalmen looking down at me from the broken windows of the many signal houses I would pass on my nightly journey? Sometimes I swear I would see dark figures moving about in the structures only visible as a dark mass of shadow in the form of men highlighted by the moonlight that beamed in from behind the other side of the boxes.
Whispering sounds I would hear coming from the embankment trees at each side of me, as if someone was following me watching my every move and chatting away to themselves. Was it the whispers of the past, or just the wind in the high grasses that had grown over the years? But then it would hit me, there was no wind at all, as the skies were clear, not a cloud in sight, only the twinkle of stars and the glow of the radiant moon that lit my way, like a precious silver jewel floating in the dark blue sky.
On the odd occasion I would see orange lights in the distance, and as I wondered forward, on closer inspection would see it was swinging from side to side, and that a figure was adjacent to it, but always slowly fading just before I got close enough to see more clearly. Was the strange glow the old gas lanterns of signalmen that once walked down the track on his nightly patrols, or just a firefly and my nervous imagination seeing what it feared most?
Moans would quietly come from the darkness. Maybe sorrowful signalmen sobbing with riddled guilt for the bodies, blood and carnage that once pored out over the landscape because of one fateful night?. I would wonder to myself were the cries from the souls of men in torment for an unspeakable event that still ripples the darkness that surround me? Could they still be heard crying out a tragedy that happened on their watch, forgotten by today, but never to be forgotten by those who are damned to live history over and over again, refusing to move on and into the next? Maybe Reliving their mistake in the dead of night with no one else to witness, but the moon and wildlife that reside there?.
Could the confused victims of the morbid tragedy also still be trying to find their way home, unable to leave their denial of the unspeakable behind?
Somehow I could feel the pasts presence breath and the mundane routine of many souls that would have crunched their way up and down the stony never ending track, softly touching my neck and tingling my hair, as if still working to keep the passengers safe from collision and disaster. It would often dawn on me what a lonely life and existence it was and may still be, and could not help but wonder if maybe my presence was a much welcomed change for the mysterious figures that seemed to glide in and out of the shadows, doing a job for what must seem like a repetitive endless nightshift. Had their nocturnal patrols turned into an eternity without rest, forever fated to wonder night after night in the lonely perpetual moonlit parallel landscape that I now walked, on a railway that refused to work its final labour? Do those who still work it do so in the hope that one day the engines will run again and the steam will punch the starlit sky like in better times past. Could the signalmen still get the passengers safely to their comforting destination, easing their own guilt that so pains them, and find the way home finally for the victims still longing for the warmth of their homes, where that open log fire still spits and crackles with the welcoming sound of their abode?.
I think to myself that maybe one day the guilty souls who dwell there still will get their wish, and the rumble of steel rolling on steel will sound once again and that a train will rush under the dark long tunnels and forward onto its final destination, getting the passengers finally to their station of peace, giving the souls so lost and confused the fore-longed freedom they desired, to break the never ending circle of their eternal work of denial.
From that comforting thought, a loud roar knocked me of my feet and onto the embankment, nettles stung my hands, the rushing of wind and leaves billowed past my face causing my cloths to flap and hair to sway, the sound of repetitive metal knocking metal continued rushing by like a wave of unseen energy, the mixed pungent smell of oil, steam and metal engulfed my sense as it zoomed by, I could see lights flicking reflecting on the trees and ground as if the inside lights of a train were passing, but still not a train to be seen, slowly the wind and sound faded as if tumbling of into the distance and gone forever. I stood up and brushed myself down and looked up to see a stillness and listen to a new silence that was now apparent, the feelings of being watched gone, the whispers from the embankment trees no more, the figures in the signal boxes had vanished, no more distant lights to be seen, just the feelings of peace and relief now filled the night air. I knew at that moment that a train had taken one final journey, taking with it the souls and memories ones damned to the night to work and wonder in guilt forever, taking with them their victims, releasing them all from their confusion and guilt, moving them on to finally work the dayshift and getting the others home, while never looking back.
I never returned again to my personal place and never will, as I think that night I also rode a type of train, and took a personal journey all of my own, to a place of peace only found deep within myself, for which I hope to stay for an eternity. As long as I remembered that night, the place will always remain mine, locked away in my heart forever.
By Faeden Barry Stevens
Source of pictures
Pic 1
Pic 2
I have always loved trains and railways since a very young age, going on a train as a child was not a bore or chore like it is to some, it was always exciting to me and I always looked forward to it with glee.
I find abaondoned places very charming. Abandoned train lines and stations always fascinated me and still do. Some of what I will write is fiction, but its inspired by my real childhood memories, ill leave it up to the readers imagination as to what is fact (what really happened) and what is imagination.
Recently I have been reading about the history of the Brookwood cemetery funeral train service that used to take the dead in their coffins from London to the Brookwood cemetery 30 or so miles away, to give them their final place of rest, so have felt like writing something on this subject for a while now. The funeral train was often called the ‘Ghost Train’ for obvious reasons. The book I am reading is called ‘The Brookwood Necropolis Railway, By John M. Clarke - The Oakwood Press. The book doesn’t have anything to do with the supernatural or ghosts, but I will always see a supernatural connection in my mind to railways. So the following story I will just make up as I go along.
I was a fairly quite child and was often wondering of to do my own thing, so it was not out of the ordinary for me to go off investigating old buildings and derelict places normally on my own.
There was an old abandoned train line not to far from my house, it was overgrown with nettles and other undergrowth, it had patches of oil here and there, but had a spooky charm and musty smell about it that caused me to become quite obsessed by its mystique even in the daylight hours, so I went there often by myself as it was like my place of escape, a secret place that belonged to me, and until this day I have never told a soul about it. And never once did I meet anyone on my secret journeys along the tracks, not one living person like most of us might know anyway.
At some parts along the line it still had old fashioned signal boxes standing high on raised concrete blocks with wooden steps, it also had echoic type disused train tunnels going deep through hills which were not to uncommon as it was mostly open countryside and woodland, with only the odd thatched country cottage here and there to be seen.
I used to love wondering up and down the tracks in the day, especially in the summer, imagining the trains once rushing by so powerfully that it made the earth shake, which the cracks in the concrete sleepers were visual evidence of. It all made me wonder if the trains would ever run this scenic journey again?.
In a sense it seemed sad that no one any longer paid it any attention, but on the other hand if the trains did start to run again the place would no longer be mine, so its abandonment never seemed to much of a emotional tragedy to me, a kind of blessing actually as it really felt like mine, and was only seen and inhabited by me and me alone, or was it?.
I used to investigate the signal boxes, that still had all the controls and levers inside, some even continued to work, you could even hear the tracks locking into place as you pulled on the rusty pumps. Sometimes I would find things like old tobacco tins and smoking pipes that would give me an impression of who used to work there day and night, year after year. I once even found a dusty old railway workers hat and newspaper with the headlines “War breaks out with Hitler’s Germany“ sprawled across the front so knew no one had stepped foot inside for decades past.
I one day returned at nightfall in the late Autumn as it got darker earlier, which would transport the hazy summer days there from bird song and the sounds of bumblebees happily going about their work and the sight of dandelion seeds floating about like fairies on the breeze in the sunlight, to a dark atmosphere of eerie stillness only to be broken by the sound of an owl hooting in the trees above, or the wail of a distant fox looking for a mate, id hear the rats scurrying about under the rails and signal boxes and old abandoned store sheds filled with old tar cans and overflowing paint pots.
Although this night on the tracks made me more cautious and jumpy than in the day, I felt confident enough to be there alone. The nights on the tracks often seemed to bring alive something else, more than just my imagination. Something always seem to be watching me, or at least that is how it felt. I wondered could the unseen eyes watching me be the eyes of the long since passed away signalmen looking down at me from the broken windows of the many signal houses I would pass on my nightly journey? Sometimes I swear I would see dark figures moving about in the structures only visible as a dark mass of shadow in the form of men highlighted by the moonlight that beamed in from behind the other side of the boxes.
Whispering sounds I would hear coming from the embankment trees at each side of me, as if someone was following me watching my every move and chatting away to themselves. Was it the whispers of the past, or just the wind in the high grasses that had grown over the years? But then it would hit me, there was no wind at all, as the skies were clear, not a cloud in sight, only the twinkle of stars and the glow of the radiant moon that lit my way, like a precious silver jewel floating in the dark blue sky.
On the odd occasion I would see orange lights in the distance, and as I wondered forward, on closer inspection would see it was swinging from side to side, and that a figure was adjacent to it, but always slowly fading just before I got close enough to see more clearly. Was the strange glow the old gas lanterns of signalmen that once walked down the track on his nightly patrols, or just a firefly and my nervous imagination seeing what it feared most?
Moans would quietly come from the darkness. Maybe sorrowful signalmen sobbing with riddled guilt for the bodies, blood and carnage that once pored out over the landscape because of one fateful night?. I would wonder to myself were the cries from the souls of men in torment for an unspeakable event that still ripples the darkness that surround me? Could they still be heard crying out a tragedy that happened on their watch, forgotten by today, but never to be forgotten by those who are damned to live history over and over again, refusing to move on and into the next? Maybe Reliving their mistake in the dead of night with no one else to witness, but the moon and wildlife that reside there?.
Could the confused victims of the morbid tragedy also still be trying to find their way home, unable to leave their denial of the unspeakable behind?
Somehow I could feel the pasts presence breath and the mundane routine of many souls that would have crunched their way up and down the stony never ending track, softly touching my neck and tingling my hair, as if still working to keep the passengers safe from collision and disaster. It would often dawn on me what a lonely life and existence it was and may still be, and could not help but wonder if maybe my presence was a much welcomed change for the mysterious figures that seemed to glide in and out of the shadows, doing a job for what must seem like a repetitive endless nightshift. Had their nocturnal patrols turned into an eternity without rest, forever fated to wonder night after night in the lonely perpetual moonlit parallel landscape that I now walked, on a railway that refused to work its final labour? Do those who still work it do so in the hope that one day the engines will run again and the steam will punch the starlit sky like in better times past. Could the signalmen still get the passengers safely to their comforting destination, easing their own guilt that so pains them, and find the way home finally for the victims still longing for the warmth of their homes, where that open log fire still spits and crackles with the welcoming sound of their abode?.
I think to myself that maybe one day the guilty souls who dwell there still will get their wish, and the rumble of steel rolling on steel will sound once again and that a train will rush under the dark long tunnels and forward onto its final destination, getting the passengers finally to their station of peace, giving the souls so lost and confused the fore-longed freedom they desired, to break the never ending circle of their eternal work of denial.
From that comforting thought, a loud roar knocked me of my feet and onto the embankment, nettles stung my hands, the rushing of wind and leaves billowed past my face causing my cloths to flap and hair to sway, the sound of repetitive metal knocking metal continued rushing by like a wave of unseen energy, the mixed pungent smell of oil, steam and metal engulfed my sense as it zoomed by, I could see lights flicking reflecting on the trees and ground as if the inside lights of a train were passing, but still not a train to be seen, slowly the wind and sound faded as if tumbling of into the distance and gone forever. I stood up and brushed myself down and looked up to see a stillness and listen to a new silence that was now apparent, the feelings of being watched gone, the whispers from the embankment trees no more, the figures in the signal boxes had vanished, no more distant lights to be seen, just the feelings of peace and relief now filled the night air. I knew at that moment that a train had taken one final journey, taking with it the souls and memories ones damned to the night to work and wonder in guilt forever, taking with them their victims, releasing them all from their confusion and guilt, moving them on to finally work the dayshift and getting the others home, while never looking back.
I never returned again to my personal place and never will, as I think that night I also rode a type of train, and took a personal journey all of my own, to a place of peace only found deep within myself, for which I hope to stay for an eternity. As long as I remembered that night, the place will always remain mine, locked away in my heart forever.
By Faeden Barry Stevens
Source of pictures
Pic 1
Pic 2
