Ghost train (folklore)

Ghost metro train

In ghostlore, a ghost train is a phantom vehicle in the form of a locomotive or train.

Folklore

• Silverpilen (Silver Arrow) is a Stockholm Metro train which features in several urban legends alleging sightings of the train's "ghost".^[1]
• The St. Louis Ghost Train, better known as the St. Louis Light, is visible at night along an old abandoned rail line in between Prince Albert and St. Louis, Saskatchewan. Two local students won an award for investigating and eventually duplicating the phenomenon, which they determined to be caused by the diffraction of distant vehicle lights.^[2]
• A phantom funeral train is said to run regularly from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois, around the time of the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's death, stopping watches and clocks in surrounding areas as it passes.^[3]

Popular culture

Ghost Train is the name of numerous plays, films, TV series and episodes, albums, songs, and other creative works. Notable examples are listed at Ghost train.

• The Ghost Train (play) was written in 1923 by playwright and actor Arnold Ridley. Based on the author's personal experience during a rail journey, it was a popular success. Ridley later went on to appear as a regular in the cult situation comedy, Dads Army
• In Enid Blyton's 1948 Famous Five book Five Go Off to Camp, mysterious "spook trains" are exposed as a cover used by criminals.^[4] The story was subsequently adapted for television^[5] and radio.
• 1981: Clive Cussler, Night Probe! One of the interesting little plot twists is the "ghost train" (a.k.a. The Manhattan Limited express passenger train), which plunged into the Hudson River on a dark stormy night. However, the train still makes its fated run on stormy nights, charging up the abandoned trackbed and suddenly vanishing on reaching the site of the bridge.
• In the Season Two episode of Thomas & Friends "Ghost Train" (1986) Percy tells Thomas the story of a ghostly engine that was told to him by his driver, although later his driver tells him that it was only a pretend ghost he saw on the television. Since this episode there have been a number of other episodes in which ghost engines have played a part.
• The 1989 film Ghostbusters II features the Ghostbusters encountering a ghost train in the subway system of New York City while investigating the paranormal pink ooze underground.
• The 1991 film Sometimes They Come Back features Southern Pacific 5021 as the Ghost Train with red smoke effects.
• The Captain Planet and the Planeteers episode "The Blue Car Line" first aired in 1992 features Looten Plunder and Argos Bleak using holograms inside railroad cars in Australia to trick people into believing that the train is haunted, so Looten Plunder and Argos Bleak instead can make money on a massive freeway.^[6]
• The Ghost Train is a playable level and a boss in the Final Fantasy VI video game, released in 1994, which transports the souls of the dead to their "final location". The same boss appeared in the most recent remakes of Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years as a tribute to the sixth chapter of the series.
• In 1994, Oasis (band) released the song 'Bring it on Down" with the lyrics "What was that sound ringing around your brain? Today was just a blur, you've got a head like a ghost train"
• In The 1995 Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode "The Tale of Train Magic" tell the story of the ghost train of 713.
• In the 1996 Hey Arnold! episode "Haunted Train". Grandpa Phil tells Arnold and his friends that 40 years ago, old Engine 25 (a grimy 4-8-2 Mountain-type steam locomotive that worked for the Great Northern Railway) was heading towards the station to pick up passengers when its engineer went 'mad' and drove the locomotive and its passenger cars off the tracks and into the Firery Underworld and on every anniversary of the locomotive's last run, it returns to take unknowing passengers to the Firery Underworld.
• The beginning of the 1997 direct-to-video comedy-drama fantasy film Casper: A Spirited Beginning is set on a "death train" bound for Ghost Central Station.^[7]
• Miner's Silver Ghost – Merle Haggard famously wrote and performed this song about a ghost train that fell down a ravine and wrecked while trying to send rescue aid to a cave-in 50 years prior and it appears when a cave-in occurs in a nearby mine.
• Tweetsie Railroad features ghost train event that is themed to the fictional "Great Train of 1913". By 2015, it is now themed to "Monster Hunters".

References