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Are our railways haunted? (ghost stories)

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Lost property

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This is my introductory post, so please bear with me.

I do not have a railway background, my working life has been aircraft maintenance, however, I do have more than a passing interest in the railways, the people, the operations and the history. Consequently, I have recently joined the EVR as a train crew volunteer....and wished I had done so a long time ago.

I found this site, and this thread, by accident as I had a rather "surreal" experience recently on the line in question and wondered if there had been any other events that could be classed as paranormal activity.

I have been reading the many posts therefore, and in particular those from OT.

I will say a this stage I have had too many personal experiences that cannot simply be dismissed as "figments of the imagination" and do feel people are either receptive, or otherwise, to such phenomenon.

OT's comments about RAF ghosts are more than valid therefore and the first part of my working life was in the RAF where I had encounters, notably at Valley and Dishforth.

In the civilian world, I had encounters at Manchester Airport and in my personal life, well, I "felt " my late father die, 20 mins before the hospital phoned as being but one example.

As for aircraft spares, well it can be a "murky world" I assure you with regard to their sources at times.

My surreal experience was closing the level crossing gates at Gorsey Bank.

The bolts are secured by padlocks and I had placed both in my pocket when opening / closing the gates. As I came to take the padlocks out of my pocket, they both, literally "flew" from my hand and both, please remember they were open ready to be locked, attached themselves to the wire lattice work and dangled there.

Now the chances of being able to do this with one would be incalculable, let alone two....hence I thought .....Hmmmmm ? .

Quite happy to contribute further therefore, if anybody is interested and please bear with me if I ask questions that may be obvious to the professionals on here on other topics, but not so to a pure layman albeit one with a developing interest.
 
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Gutfright

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22 Jan 2016
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This applies to the railways too:

There's an easy way to tell if your house is haunted...

It isn't.

©Jimmy Carr
 

alxndr

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3 Apr 2015
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1,467
One of the p-way guys told me some people claim to have heard things in Sapperton tunnel, specifically the short tunnel I think. Doubt there's anything in it though.

Once I was convinced something in the field adjacent was watching me, but almost certain it was either a cow or my imagination. I think it might have been shortly after I originally read this thread! It would be unlikely to be anything else at 3am in the middle of nowhere, but wasn't a pleasant feeling.
 

TheHovisKid

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Heysham
Once I was convinced something in the field adjacent was watching me, but almost certain it was either a cow or my imagination. I think it might have been shortly after I originally read this thread! It would be unlikely to be anything else at 3am in the middle of nowhere, but wasn't a pleasant feeling.
How much of that feeling of "uncanny" is our own brain, automatically alerting us to being in a potentially dangerous situation, in the more primeval sense?

I spend a lot of time up church towers. In my own tower, there are:
  • 56 steps with lights to where you ring the bells
  • 56 steps with lights to where the bells actually are
  • 44 steps with no lights to a locked door onto the balcony where the tower meets the spire.
All doors lock and are kept locked for safety reasons and the keys never leave my car, except in my hands. The lights on the stairs go to the bells, as you may have need to go there, but not beyond due to a bit of economy in 1972 because you will never need to go up there.

Now, the room with where we ring is a yale lock, and I'm fine with that. The room where the bells are is a padlock along the top edge. To lock or unlock that, I have to very reluctantly turn my back on 44 steps and a locked door. I hate it, but only because I can't see more than 7 or 8 steps up and around the curve. Doesn't stop me running like the clappers on the way down though, if I'm on my own in case there's something following me!

Proper "something under the bed" feeling, makes me feel rather silly!

So, I'm not saying things do or don't happen (they clearly do happen, but as to why...) I'm sceptical of a lot of the "weird feeling" accounts, because it's just a natural self-defence mechanism.
 

Southern

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502
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Folkestone, Kent
Just had a bizarre recollection of walking along Lower Addiscombe Road as a child and seeing a train cross the bridge heading towards Bingham Road station...the problem is, I wasn't born until the turn of the 90's and I believe the tracks were ripped up in 1984...
 
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Just had a bizarre recollection of walking along Lower Addiscombe Road as a child and seeing a train cross the bridge heading towards Bingham Road station...the problem is, I wasn't born until the turn of the 90's and I believe the tracks were ripped up in 1984...

Nothing to worry about, it was just running a bit behind time!
 

12CSVT

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Just had a bizarre recollection of walking along Lower Addiscombe Road as a child and seeing a train cross the bridge heading towards Bingham Road station...the problem is, I wasn't born until the turn of the 90's and I believe the tracks were ripped up in 1984...

Didn't that close in the late 1990s for conversion to Tramlink ?
 

Peter Mugridge

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Bingham Road closed in 1983; Addiscombe lasted until 1997 when it was closed for the remaining part of the branch to become part of Tramlink in 2000.

The tram stop at Addiscombe is the nearest to the former Bingham Road station, but is not on the same level - the embankment was removed.
 

a good off

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326
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Control Room
This is my introductory post, so please bear with me.

I do not have a railway background, my working life has been aircraft maintenance, however, I do have more than a passing interest in the railways, the people, the operations and the history. Consequently, I have recently joined the EVR as a train crew volunteer....and wished I had done so a long time ago.

I found this site, and this thread, by accident as I had a rather "surreal" experience recently on the line in question and wondered if there had been any other events that could be classed as paranormal activity.

I have been reading the many posts therefore, and in particular those from OT.

I will say a this stage I have had too many personal experiences that cannot simply be dismissed as "figments of the imagination" and do feel people are either receptive, or otherwise, to such phenomenon.

OT's comments about RAF ghosts are more than valid therefore and the first part of my working life was in the RAF where I had encounters, notably at Valley and Dishforth.

In the civilian world, I had encounters at Manchester Airport and in my personal life, well, I "felt " my late father die, 20 mins before the hospital phoned as being but one example.

As for aircraft spares, well it can be a "murky world" I assure you with regard to their sources at times.

My surreal experience was closing the level crossing gates at Gorsey Bank.

The bolts are secured by padlocks and I had placed both in my pocket when opening / closing the gates. As I came to take the padlocks out of my pocket, they both, literally "flew" from my hand and both, please remember they were open ready to be locked, attached themselves to the wire lattice work and dangled there.

Now the chances of being able to do this with one would be incalculable, let alone two....hence I thought .....Hmmmmm ? .

Quite happy to contribute further therefore, if anybody is interested and please bear with me if I ask questions that may be obvious to the professionals on here on other topics, but not so to a pure layman albeit one with a developing interest.

Welcome Lost Property, yes please continue.
 

GER1994

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I have a few stories I could share if people are interested. I'm afraid they aren't particularly exciting but certainly I found them to be strange and a couple to be a bit unnerving.
 

yorksrob

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I have a few stories I could share if people are interested. I'm afraid they aren't particularly exciting but certainly I found them to be strange and a couple to be a bit unnerving.

Yes, they sound interesting (and if you don't post, we'll never know anyway).

Please go ahead :)
 

GER1994

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Okay well this one is my experience. I was working nights at a particular railway station and one of my jobs was to clean the offices used by the admin workers and mangers. The offices are all located along a corridor that has a couple of small stairways to the different levels. Anyway I had just cleaned the Gents loos which are at the far end of the corridor complex. I was looking at the floor when I looked up approaching the first small flight of stairs. As I looked up I swear I saw a figure move across the hallway in front of me. A little shocked I just thought I was seeing things and it was fatigue from the night shifts I had been doing. As a side note these stairs in particular seemed to feel a bit "off" for whatever reason and I had experienced some strange sensations throughout my night shifts but not really thought anything of it. It was about 3 weeks later that the story gets a little creepy. I was chatting to a colleague and somehow we got on to the subject of ghosts and whatnot. My colleague asked did I know about the ghost at the station? I said I hadn't because at that point I knew nothing of any stories or legends. He said that there was believed to be a ghost on the station and many people had seen, heard or felt things when on the station at night. Rather strangely he asked me to guess where I thought the station was haunted. I completely guessed and replied "Is it the offices by any chance?" Dead on (forgive the pun) Suddenly the event 3 weeks earlier seemed a little bit more spooky. I still think it was probably fatigue but I do think it strange that I happened to experience this in an area reputedly haunted despite no prior knowledge of the stories or legend.
 

DarloRich

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This applies to the railways too:

There's an easy way to tell if your house is haunted...

It isn't.

©Jimmy Carr

This. There are no ghosts. It is funny how people only see ghosts late at night or very early in the morning. They never come out at noon in a crowded room. Odd that.
 

GatwickDepress

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Can we keep the whole "are ghosts real?" discussion off the main thread please?

It's very much Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
 

deltic1989

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They never come out at noon in a crowded room. Odd that.

Funny you should say that as I recall a story that took place many years ago where that very thing is said to have happened.
This isn't railway related but interesting none the less.
The tale I relate was told to me by a shipmate of mine, during a long night watch.

In the late 19th century the wife of an Admiral was hosting a dinner party at their London residence.
Before dinner the guests congregated in the hall to await the arrival of their host.
To everyone's shock and surprise, the Admiral himself walked down the stairs.
Shock and Surprise indeed as the Admiral was at the time engaged in operations in the West Indies.
The way the story goes is that the Wife was informed of her Husband's death a few weeks later (No E-mail or Phones back then), and when she saw the date of the death, it was the date of the dinner party.
A spooky tale right enough.

The debate over weather or not Ghosts exist is one that could be had until the end of time, with those that believe putting up equally as convincing arguments as those that don't.
But surely there is nothing wrong with a good ghost story, weather they're real or not.
 

yorksrob

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Okay well this one is my experience. I was working nights at a particular railway station and one of my jobs was to clean the offices used by the admin workers and mangers. The offices are all located along a corridor that has a couple of small stairways to the different levels. Anyway I had just cleaned the Gents loos which are at the far end of the corridor complex. I was looking at the floor when I looked up approaching the first small flight of stairs. As I looked up I swear I saw a figure move across the hallway in front of me. A little shocked I just thought I was seeing things and it was fatigue from the night shifts I had been doing. As a side note these stairs in particular seemed to feel a bit "off" for whatever reason and I had experienced some strange sensations throughout my night shifts but not really thought anything of it. It was about 3 weeks later that the story gets a little creepy. I was chatting to a colleague and somehow we got on to the subject of ghosts and whatnot. My colleague asked did I know about the ghost at the station? I said I hadn't because at that point I knew nothing of any stories or legends. He said that there was believed to be a ghost on the station and many people had seen, heard or felt things when on the station at night. Rather strangely he asked me to guess where I thought the station was haunted. I completely guessed and replied "Is it the offices by any chance?" Dead on (forgive the pun) Suddenly the event 3 weeks earlier seemed a little bit more spooky. I still think it was probably fatigue but I do think it strange that I happened to experience this in an area reputedly haunted despite no prior knowledge of the stories or legend.

Great stuff - which station was it ?
 

colchesterken

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I used to like the old Wanstead Park station ( my local ) when the ticket office was under one of the arches, it was built of wood with the old style ticket windows and boxed in staircases, all gas lit. going back to the late 50 s, been modernised at least twice since those days Not haunted but kind of eerie in a Harry Potter sort of way
I am sure it will be impossibly super modern when GOBLIN is reopened
 

GER1994

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It was Ipswich station. Another story was that a cleaner was cleaning the toilets overnight and saw a woman standing in one of the cubicles and when they looked round she had gone. There are various stories and whatnot that go round and I can only vouch for those I have personally experienced. Myself and a colleague were in our office one evening when we both heard someone whistling. It was neither of us and so I went to check to see if it was a passing passenger but the closest person was quite a way down the platform and as it seemed to come from right next to us we didn't think it was them. A rather strange one I thought.
 

yorksrob

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It was Ipswich station. Another story was that a cleaner was cleaning the toilets overnight and saw a woman standing in one of the cubicles and when they looked round she had gone. There are various stories and whatnot that go round and I can only vouch for those I have personally experienced. Myself and a colleague were in our office one evening when we both heard someone whistling. It was neither of us and so I went to check to see if it was a passing passenger but the closest person was quite a way down the platform and as it seemed to come from right next to us we didn't think it was them. A rather strange one I thought.

Ah thanks. I've been through Ipswich several times but never explored.
 

Bevan Price

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Not actually on the railway, but happened whilst using an all-line rover. Had done a Class 31 on a Kings Cross suburban one evening - I think it was to somewhere like Palmers Green. Went outside the station to briefly explore the surrounding area.

It was a time when public toilets were still common, and being in need of a "call", I spotted a toilet in the distance. As I approached, I saw a man descending the steps (I must have been about 50 yards away). I followed him down the steps - and encountered a completely empty toilet. Creepy.
Was I daydreaming, or had he actually walked behind the toilet entrance (although I should have seen him when I got nearer). Or was this some strange abnormal vision ? I shall never know the truth.

(It was urinals only - no cubicles or staff room in which someone could be "hidden from view").
 

Jamie.D

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Not mainline related but still railway related,
I live in Scarborough and I now work on the NBR. A few years ago (when i was 17) i was a Volunteer on the railway, me and this other lad were about half way down the line on leaf duty (Clearing leaves that have fallen during autumn allow access to the track for winter work)

We had already bagged about 2 tons of leaves in large bags ( the type building merchants transport sand ect. in) and were just about to start our third bag, We heard a loud LNER/ BR eastern bell type whistle ( just like a B1s ) almost like it was about to come round the corner. It's a blind corner so you can't see either end of it. The railway at this time had two locos on site at the time and neither were/are fitted with bell type whistle they have chime type whistles.

We both looked at each other in shock and went to investigate. we walked round the bend to see that both the engines on the line were at the main station about 1/4 of a mile away, As we walked towards the bags of leaves we heard a small whistle toot again of the bell type whistle. we both quite quiet for the rest of the day, But ever time I pass that point on the line I get a strange feeling.

Another experience I had while doing an early morning track walk(To check the railway and turn on the turntable at scalby mills station). It was quite foggy / misty(Being so close to the sea it sometimes is like this.) As i walked around the corner onto the beach section I got about half way along the double track section and heard what sounded like a groan or grunt type sound. on my left, As i turned i looked up the hill next to the line and saw what appeared to be a Black shadowy figure stood about halfway up the hill stood what appeared to be about 5-10 feet up just floating. once i blinked he started to move towards me but then suddenly vanished.

They used to be an army barracks up said hill but i'm not sure if anything happened at the barracks it just seemed to freak me out at the time as the hill is only a gentle slope and they is nothing they which you could stand on to be so high up.

These are just from personal experience and happened a little while ago now and i haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary since being offered a job on the line.

I can't believe I've just come across this topic and i have enjoyed reading it ( I'm not even fully finished yet :P ) I just thought i would share my experience with you guys and girls.

Thanks for reading.

Jamie D
 

trainmania100

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I've seen lots of ghosts whilst about on the railways.
Dockens has written about ghosts on the railways , mainly his short story the signal man
 

AndyJB

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Hi Andy...this story is written aboutin Herberts railway ghosts and phantoms book. According to the author two elderly gents set out to debunk the story, only to come face to fce with the apparition.

It scared them sensless by all accounts :)

I realise its an old post I am quoting, but nonetheless - I purchased WB Herbert's 'Railway Ghosts and Phantoms' some time ago but that particular story wasn't in it (although it is a good read nonetheless). Is this story in one of his other books? Is there anyone who owns copies of his books that could confirm which one the aforementioned story appears in if possible please?
 
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Tackleberry

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20 Feb 2016
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37
Location
Abingdon
I certainly do believe in ghosts and have experienced several goings on, non railway and railway!!
In chronological order :-
When I was probably in my early teens (or slightly younger, baring in mind I'm 34 now) we were living in an ex council house in Basingstoke and for some strange inexplicable reason I had an eerie feeling about the stairs and hallway.
Anyway one night laying awake I saw a black shadow float past the bedroom door, asked my brother if he saw the next morning and up until last year my dad denied it but yes in fact all those years ago he did see it!!!
Booking on at Reading station one night in the offices on the old platform 4 I heard furniture being dragged around, thought nothing of it as the DM I was working with that week had a habit of rearranging the office layout, yet when I tried to go into the offices all the doors were locked!!
On another night shift a DM asked if I had ever been into the clock tower, said no so off we went when half way up the stairs there was this loud bang, I turned round and ran as fast as I could!!!
DM tried to explain as a pigeon but there was no fluttering before or after, and I never did go back up there again...
Living in another house, this time renting a room just outside Greenham Common, our landlady asked us if we had heard children playing and talking when her own kids were at school, I said no, but a few weeks later I heard them clear as a bell in the hallway but it wasn't particularly disturbing or scary!!
Another night babysitting the kids and they were in bed asleep I kept hearing running around upstairs so went upstairs to tell the kids off but they were fast asleep...
Onto the more disturbing one now, many won't believe this but it did happen!!!
Having a couple of drinks on a Saturday night and listening to music as you do do with the other half when a particular song came on, got shivers down back and thought nothing off it until the other half asked if I was alright as I looked different...
I started to talk as her dad, baring in my mind my other half is from Finland and I know no Finnish!!!
Still happens every now and again, sometimes her dead brother tries to come through but not as often as it used to...
You may think of this as farm yard fertiliser but it is true!!!!
 

Jamie.D

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AndyJB , I've just finished reading the book ( it's a great book ) and I believe that the story you are looking for is Number 30 ( The Elsham Phantom Train) page 78 :) .

Like I say it's a great book well worth the £3 I paid.

Thanks
Jamie.D
 
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