Railway ghost tales

[Sidecar Racer]

Found this artical about the 47 .

 

 

 

http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/Oubliette/47299.html

[Rivercider]

No personal experience from me, but my latter years in Bristol TOPS office (1994/1995) we were single manned in a room upstairs above the cash/ticket office,

in Bristol Temple Meads, on a night shift the TOPS clerk was the only person on duty on that floor of the building.

 

I had heard stories that there were ghosts in the building, including a former director of the Great Western Railway, who had hung himself,

and Emma Saunders (a pioneer member of the Railway Mission) who was known as the 'Railwaymans Friend'.

At night the wind would rattle the skylights above the corridor, and a 12 hour night shift in winter could be pretty lonely.

One of my colleagues was quite sure of a presence in the building at night, and some of the Telephone Enquiry staff were always eager to get out at 22.00

leaving the TOPS clerk as the only person on duty on the first floor.

However at night I was always reassured that if Emma was the 'Railwaymans Friend', then I had no worries, and I never felt anything threatening.

 

cheers

[Chris Chewter]

Whilst reading up on abandoned London Underground stations, I came across this website about ghostly goings on connected with the tube:

 

http://hauntedearthghostvideos.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/ghostly-stations-of-london-underground.html

[Pete 75C]

What an interesting thread - I've only just discovered it.

Do I believe in ghosts? Maybe I do. If anyone has the patience, the following is something I experienced in 1983.

 

16 years old - just started work at Sutton station (South London) as a junior railman. About two months into the job, there were just two staff on duty to lock up after the last arrival. My job was to check the station for any stragglers and then lock the front doors in the booking office. Having locked them, I walked back through the barriers to head back downstairs. Just wanting to go home, you can imagine my annoyance seeing someone halfway up the stairs from platforms 2 & 3. I called out to him that he had to leave and I turned around ready to unlock the doors. As I unlocked them, it struck me as odd the way he was dressed. Dark suit, waistcoat, watch chain etc... very formal.

I think you've guessed the next bit. By the time I had unlocked, he was nowhere to be seen. Between the two of us, we searched the station from end to end, all waiting rooms, toilets etc. Took us a while. He was just no longer on the station. There were a few ways he could have got out, but we thought it unlikely he'd go to the bother of climbing a wall when I was about to let him leave through the booking hall...

I genuinely thought no more of this until I mentioned it to the supervisor a few days later. I gather the supervisor mentioned it to our acting station manager (Cedric Pearce, I think his name was) and I was duly called into the SM's office. I'd been in there a few times, but had never really paid any attention to all the historic photos of the station that were hanging on the wall of the office. The SM asked me to take a look at some of the pictures...

Imagine my surprise when I recognized the station master at Sutton between 1908 and 1914 as the man I'd seen on the stairs.

I got the distinct impression the SM and the supervisor had been sharing some kind of private joke. I later found out that he'd been seen on the station many times over the last 70 years or so, and always either on the stairs or the station footbridge...

[Guest]

I found this programme on the tele the other day, I found it very interesting!

It was called 'Ghosts on the underground', an hours worth of ghost stories to do with the underground!

 

 

Go to 1:00, best story by far!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7vCqzIWDxg&list=PLAE3B78560AF23C0D&index=5

Edited February 9, 2014 by 80104 Productions

[Pacific231G]

Nothing like a good ghost story but the truth may be less psychic and more physical, though maybe more interesting.

 

There does seem to be fairly good evidence that high levels of infrasound in the 15-20 Hz range can generate many of the phenomena associated with "haunting" such as feelings of dread, cold shivers and even grey figures appearing in peripheral vision. There's a slightly anecdotal paper "ghost-in-machine" published in 1997 by Vic Tandy and Tony Lawrence of Coventry University based partly on a "haunting" experience of Tandy's in a lab and some more controlled experiments carried out by Richard Lord, an acoustic scientist at the National Physical Laboratory, and others with invited concert audiences and published in 2003.

 

Railways and particularly railway tunnels are excellent infrasound generators with plenty of opportunities for resonance at low frequencies. As well as various stories, the documentary "Ghost on the Underground"  also included a researcher who measured the levels of infrasound in a notoriously haunted part of the Underground. He found sound levels of something like 110-120dB so louder than a disco but of course unheard. The "haunting" there was associated with someone who'd been killed in an accident but unfortunately there've been enough fatal accidents, suicides, homicides and other tragedies to provide a suitable "ghost" for almost anywhere that appears haunted.

 

infrasound also travels for far longer distances than audible sound and can be associated with potentially threatening natural phenomena such as volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, fires and sea waves.  We and other animals may have evolved to respond appropriately to such sounds: basically by wanting to scarper. Even though we can't hear infrasound, sensing any of these threats long before there's anything to see or hear would have significant survival value: apparently even the roaring of lions includes a lot of low frequencies in the infrasound range.

 

Monitoring of Infrasound is even being developed as a way of detecting forest fires and Tsunamis.

 

There is another possible reason for the sensations associated with hauntings that does mean they shouldn't be ignored. Apparently the same  feelings of dread, depression and even apparitions,  can be associated with carbon monoxide poisoning. If you think you've seen a ghost check your CO detector before you check out the local exorcist!!

Edited February 9, 2014 by Pacific231G

[winterbournecm]

I heard an interesting "theory" about these manifistations once. The gist of it was that what we see are actually "films" of historic happening being replayed in locations. This would account for "legless" knights as the floors may have been raised over the years. So essentially, we are seeing a replay of events. The similar could be said of figures walking through walls stairs where once there was a door etc....

 

Convinced?, hmmm...

[pete_mcfarlane]

I heard an interesting "theory" about these manifistations once. The gist of it was that what we see are actually "films" of historic happening being replayed in locations. This would account for "legless" knights as the floors may have been raised over the years. So essentially, we are seeing a replay of events. The similar could be said of figures walking through walls stairs where once there was a door etc....

 

Convinced?, hmmm...

That's the premise behind Nigel Kneale's extremely scary TV play 'The stone tape'. Which is well worth a watch. 

[John M Upton]

Late one Sunday night some years ago I was walking up the spiral like stairs in Brighton Train Crew depot when i heard footsteps coming down so I stopped to let a chap, looked like a driver, pass me by as he was coming down as I was about to go up to the loo.

 

He was wearing full old British Rail 1970's era uniform which as we exchanged the customary pleasantries at the time never registered as odd. It was only when I came back downstairs a minute later and went into the crew room and asked the only other person that was there who the guy in the old BR uniform was to be told that we were the only two people except the Production Manager in the building that a shiver went down my spine...

[Sidecar Racer]

 

infrasound also travels for far longer distances than audible sound and can be associated with potentially threatening natural phenomena such as volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, fires and sea waves.  We and other animals may have evolved to respond appropriately to such sounds: basically by wanting to scarper. Even though we can't hear infrasound, sensing any of these threats long before there's anything to see or hear would have significant survival value: apparently even the roaring of lions includes a lot of low frequencies in the infrasound range.