VEHICLES, TRAINS, TRACKS, AND ROADWAYS

If there are ghost ships that roam the high seas, it makes sense there would also be other haunted vehicles and craft. Airplanes, submarines, cars, trains.… If someone can die in it, or from it, there’s a good chance a ghostly legend is attached to it!

PIPPO

During World War II, the people in Northern Italy encountered a mysterious and vengeful plane called Pippo. No one was able to identify the type of plane, but it would appear out of nowhere and fire its machine guns at anyone who got in its path, making a pip-pip sound, for which it was named.

Pippo only attacked at night, so people would turn off the lights or cover the windows with thick curtains to avoid being hit with everything from poisoned candy to powerful bombs. Pippo would sometimes fire upon innocent farmers. The legend took on a mystical aspect, although historians venture that Pippo may have been a British reconnaissance plane.

THE LINCOLN PHANTOM TRAIN

Imagine the ghost of an actual train appearing to people in 180 cities! Every April, one such train emerges out of a thick, black fog to make its long trip to Springfield, Illinois, carrying the coffin of Abraham Lincoln. The ghost train makes the 1,650-mile (2,655-kilometer) trip each year, starting in Washington, D.C., but no one ever sees Abe’s ghost on board. They do report seeing uniformed Union soldiers guarding over the coffin on the long trip that mysteriously vanishes before it ever reaches its destination. People also report that clocks and watches stop when the train is passing through their town.

CANADA’S ST. LOUIS GHOST TRAIN

The St. Louis Light is visible at night along an abandoned railroad track between Prince Albert and St. Louis, Saskatchewan. However, this ghost train was debunked when two students determined the cause to be a diffraction of the lights of distance vehicles. Not only did they duplicate the ghost train phenomenon, they won an award for it, too.

A PHANTOM BUS IN LONDON

From the 1930s to the 1990s, Londoners have reported seeing a phantom red London double-decker bus with the route marker 7 on it, but this bus was never a good-luck charm. In fact, it always appeared at 1:15 A.M. with no lights on and drove right at oncoming drivers, who would swerve in a panic to dodge the bus, only to find it vanish before it ever hit them. A London driver died when his car exploded after trying to avoid the phantom bus in 1934 while driving near the junction of St. Marks Road and Cambridge Gardens in Ladbroke Grove.

SOVIET DEATH CAR

In the Soviet Union during the 1960s and 1970s, people reported a terrifying encounter with a car they swore was right out of hell itself. The Black Volga was a mysterious limousine with white rims and curtains. It would appear out of thin air, with horns instead of rearview mirrors, and some say the Devil was its driver. The frightening phantom car would steal children and kill anyone who got near it. Many would drop dead within one day after encountering the car.

The Black Volga would become the stuff of legends throughout the Soviet Union, Poland, the Ukraine, and Mongolia. Some believed it to be nothing more than a very expensive car driven by a Soviet politician to intimidate the poor and downtrodden.

THE SILVER ARROW

Stockholm, Sweden, has always been known for being a lovely capital city, but deep in its subway system, a ghostly train called Silverpilen makes stops at random stations. Sometimes the train is empty, but other times, people report it is filled with ghosts. If you board the train at one of the random stations, you might not ever be heard from again.

The Silverpilen was a real train, an experimental train that was used as a test unit but never made it into production. It was used now and then as a backup train during peak hours. It was retired in 1996, but even today, subway workers report seeing the ghostly train moving through abandoned stations.

HAUNTED RAILROAD TRACKS AND TRAIN STATIONS

South of San Antonio, Texas, is a stretch of railroad near the San Juan Mission. Sometime in the 1930s or 1940s, a school bus stalled on the railroad tracks. The speeding train smashed into the bus and killed ten of the children on board and the bus driver. Locals say that anytime a car stops near the railroad tracks at this intersection, they will feel unseen hands pushing their car across the tracks to safety. Perhaps it is even the spirits of the dead children and bus driver!

Interestingly, many of the haunted train stations are located in countries outside of the United States. In West Bengal, locals insist the Begunkodor Railway Station is haunted by a lady in a white sari. Located in a very remote village, the station had been shut down for over forty years but was reopened in 2009.

In Delhi, India, the Dwarka Sector 9 Metro Station is haunted by a very angry female ghost who was killed on her way to school by the train. Now she chases cars that go by the station, knocks on the doors and windows, and scares those who dare to travel late at night.

In Kolkata, the Rabindra Sarobar Station is haunted by shadow phantoms who are seen on the platform, the spirits of the many suicides that occur on the metro tracks. The apparitions appear around 10:30 P.M. when the last metro runs.

In Ireland, the Connolly Station in Dublin runs rampant with ghostly sightings of soldiers who died in bombing attacks during World War II, seen in many buildings throughout the station area.

If you ride the Caobao Road Subway in China, you might feel invisible hands pulling you toward the platform or, in the case of one unlucky man, being pushed off the platform or see the spirits of those who may have been embalmed at a nearby mortuary or were the victims of several mysterious deaths at the station. Those near Line 1 of this Shanghai subway system also report the ghost of a girl wearing red, who committed suicide, seen sitting on the platform.

England’s Addiscombe Railway Station was home to many ghosts until the year 2001, when it was demolished to make room for a tramline. The figure of a man was often seen roaming the station and may have been a train driver killed in the early 1900s. Trains move here in the nighttime, when nobody is around to move them!

Singapore is home to many haunted stations, but none more so than the Singaporean MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) station in Bishan, central Singapore, which was built on a former cemetery, and the Novena station nearby, which was also built on a cemetery! The ghosts of headless figures, spectral coffin bearers, and phantom passengers roam both stations, according to witnesses.

The Panteones Metro Station in Mexico is a terrifying place after dark, according to witnesses and train engineers who hear screams and knocks and see apparitions all along the track. The name Panteones means “graveyard,” and the station is built near two cemeteries, which could explain the paranormal phenomena often reported here. One of the most haunted spots is a tunnel between the Panteones and Tacuba stations, where shadowy lumps appear and disappear and strange knocks are heard in the pitch black.

Canada has its Waterfront Station in Gastown, Vancouver, built back in 1915. It is one of Vancouver’s most haunted buildings and sports a female ghost dressed in 1920s flapper attire dancing to music. She, and the music, vanish when approached. The ghost of an elderly woman dressed in white roams the station, and even poltergeist activity has plagued workers there, who say their desks move around by themselves.

In the United States, the most notorious haunted station is Union Station in Phoenix, Arizona. Before the airport was built in the 1950s, Union Station was the transportation hub of the area. Closed by Amtrak in 1995, the station since then has been used now and then for tourist trains and now is the headquarters to company offices. Employees have seen shadow figures running away from the station and moving about in the attic. A ghost named “Fred” has been popularized as one of the main spirits, although he was named by a maintenance worker who said the name just came to him. Maybe it is Fred who opens and closes a heavy door at random times, scaring the workers out of their wits.

Another haunted American train station is the Saginaw, Michigan, train station on Potter Street. It is one of the largest Victorian-era train stations in the country, opened in 1881 and designed by the famed New York architect Bradford Lee Gilbert. The last passenger train left the station in 1984, and the station officially closed in 1986 after being used for freight trains only. Witnesses claim to have seen the ghosts of dead soldiers who were shipped back to Saginaw from the war via the train. A local casket maker would build caskets for the soldiers, and his actual shop was located in the depot itself. Some people report seeing a “lady in white” floating around the station, too. The station is now private property and part of the Saginaw Depot Preservation Corporation.

SPOOKY TUNNELS

You don’t have to be claustrophobic to be terrified of entering a long, dark tunnel, for who knows what lies waiting for you in its depths? Ghosts like to hang out in tunnels because there are plenty of haunted ones to go around, perhaps because many accidents occur in the darkness, when drivers are disoriented or distracted. Many tunnels are associated with local urban legends and lore, so if the thought of rats, spiders, and other creepy crawlies don’t scare you, buckle up. The spirits will.

The Moonville Tunnel in Vinton County, Ohio, was once part of a railroad track system through a remote, woodsy area. The region was used for coal mining, so no train ran the tracks for over twenty years since it was closed down. But that doesn’t stop locals from seeing an old railway brakeman’s ghost standing at the tunnel entrance. He’s an old man, dressed in engineer garb, holding his lantern, which he waves at oncoming cars. His appearance has become a common occurrence to the folks in Vinton County.

Niagara Falls, Ontario, is home to the aptly named Screaming Tunnel, a now unused passageway for farmers moving livestock under the railroad tracks. The tunnel is said to be haunted by the ghost of a young girl who died under the limestone bridge, although locals don’t exactly agree on how she died. Some say she was a murder victim who was killed at the tunnel, and others suggest she may have escaped a house fire and died under the archway of the bridge.

Legend has it that if you stand in the middle of the tunnel and light a match, it will go out and you will then hear the ghost girl’s screams. However, some locals say the sounds are echoes of the cries of coyotes, which are always nearby.

Another Canadian tunnel known as the Blue Ghost Tunnel became so popular with ghost hunters that authorities were forced to board it up! A paranormal investigator stumbled on the Merritton Tunnel in Thorold, Ontario, while looking for a different tunnel. But this longer tunnel also had its own ghosts, including an eerie, blue mist inside the tunnel and the spirits of two engineers who died when their respective steam locomotives crashed in 1903.

The Screaming Tunnel near Niagara Falls on the Canadian side is where a young girl died. If you enter the tunnel, you can still hear her screaming.

Tennessee’s famous Sensabaugh Tunnel was built in 1920s and named for the man who owned the land, Edward Sensabaugh. Rumor has it that Ed let a homeless man into his home as an act of charity, and the man tried to steal some jewelry. When Ed confronted him, the homeless man used Ed’s little girl as a human shield. The man ran away with the little girl and drowned her in the tunnel. But another rumor states Ed was a madman who killed his entire family and threw their bodies into the tunnel. People today claim to hear the cries of a baby girl and say if you turn off your car engine in the middle of the tunnel, you won’t be able to start it up again.

Central Colorado is home to a number of tunnels along a 35-mile (56-kilometer) stretch. Three in particular are said to be haunted and are named “One,” “Two,” and “Three.” Legend has it tunnel “Three” collapsed on top of a school bus filled with children in 1987, killing everyone on board. If you are traveling through the first two tunnels, you may hear the giggles of little children. However, at the entrance of tunnel “Three,” you will more likely hear terrifying screams.

However, there is no real proof this bus accident ever happened. Tunnel “Three” did partially collapse back in 1987, and there are those who claim to see the ghosts of dead railway workers, but this is one case where there is no reality to the legend.

The Hoosac Tunnel in Massachusetts opened in 1876 and at the time was the longest tunnel in North America and the second longest in the world. The tunnel soon became known as the “Bloody Pit,” thanks to many accidents that occurred during construction in 1867. A leaking gas light caused an explosion and wall of fire down the main shaft. Thirteen people died in the blast, and when the shaft later flooded, the bodies appeared. Overall during the twenty-four-year project, over 195 people lost their lives. Later, workers would hear and see the ghosts of several men in the tunnel at night, and the ghosts of miners would appear on the hillside near the tunnel. However, one tunnel worker named Joe Impoco claimed that in the 1970s, he encountered a disembodied voice that warned him to stay out of the tunnel twice, both times saving his life.

Virginia’s Big Bull Tunnel was built in the nineteenth century by rail workers who also built a Little Bull Tunnel. For fun, they named the shorter tunnel Big Bull! The shorter tunnel is now home to some ghostly apparitions, most notable those of a man who was scalped in the tunnel in 1901 and another man who fell from a train in 1904. Workers in the tunnel have reported hearing the voices of men coming from inside the walls and have not been able to find their origins.