I was a railway fireman back in those days, working on the CPR line in Alberta. I did a hard day's work and earned me a fair wage. I was young then, and my pretty little bride was just setting up housekeeping in the little cottage that was all we could afford. Life was good, and I thought everything would continue rolling along that way.
Then came that fateful day in May of 1908. I was working nights that month, and my buddy Twohey was the engineer. We were about three kilometers out of Medicine Hat when a blazing light appeared in front of the engine. It was another train on a collision course with us. Twohey yelled at me to jump, but there was no time. The light was right on top of us. I thought we were dead. Then the oncoming train veered off to the right and ran passed us, its whistle blowing and the passengers staring at us through the windows. But there was only a single track in that stretch of hills, and it was the one we were on. I looked over at the shrieking, rumbling Ghost Train and saw that the wheels were not touching the ground!
Well, we were mighty spooked by the incident. Twohey decided to take some time off from engineering and began working in the yard; but I kept working the night shift as a fireman, not wanting some Ghost Train to drive me away a job I enjoyed.
A few weeks later, I was stoking the fire for an engineer named Nicholson when we heard the shrill whistle blast through the calm night air. We were on the same single track just outside of Medicine Hat, and the brilliant light of the Ghost Train burst out of nowhere, blinding us. Nicholson gave a shout of terror and I thought my heart would stop. As before, the Ghost Train veered off to the right at the last possible second. I saw it race passed us on tracks that did not exist, its passengers staring curiously at Nicholson and I from out of the windows.
That did it. I wasn't about to go back on the tracks after that. I did yard work for the rest of the month of May and a few weeks in June. Finally, I decided that enough was enough, and I gritted my teeth and resumed my role as fireman.
I was firing up an engine in the yard one evening in early July when the report of an accident came in. The Spokane Flyer and a Lethbridge passenger train had a head-on collision on the single track three kilometers outside of Medicine Hat, on the exact spot where the Ghost Train had appeared. The Lethbridge locomotive had derailed and its baggage car was destroyed. Seven people were killed in the accident, including the two engineers. One was my buddy Twohey, and the other was Nicholson.
retold by S.E.Schlosser
Australian Railway Folk Songs
POOR PADDY WORKS ON THE RAILWAY
In eighteen hundred and fifty-one,
I did what many men had done,
Oh, me dungaree breeches I put on,
Chorus: To work upon the railway, the railway.
I'm weary of the railway.
Oh, poor Paddy works on the railway.
In eighteen hundred and fifty-two,
I had some work that I must do,
So I shipped away wid' an Irish crew,
In eighteen hundred and fifty-three,
I packed my gear and went to sea,
I shipped away to Syd-en-ee
In eighteen hundred and fifty-four,
I landed on Australia's shore,
I had a pick-axe an' nothing more,
In eighteen hundred and fifty-six,
Me drinks I could no longer mix,
So I changed me trade to carrying bricks,
In eighteen hundred and fifty-seven,
Me children numbered jist eleven,
Of girls I'd four an' boys I'd seven,
In eighteen hundred and fifty-eight
I made a fortune, not too late,
An' shipped away on the Frances Drake.
The Afghans with their camels played a leading role in the building of the Australian Railways and they've been commemorated with the naming of the trans-continent train, The Ghan. It is said there are more wild camels in the Australian outback than the entire Middle East. THE LONELY FETTLERS
We're just three lonely fettlers located right out West,
Midst heat and sand and desert we try to do our best;
Each morn at six you see us with shovels, bar and jack,
All day long through heat and dust, we toil along the track.
Our camp is on a sandhill, there's nare a soul to meet,
'Cept for a weary swagman who wandered off his beat;
Just twice a week arrives a train with our supplies,
Just old corn beef and taters, some bread, and jam and flies.
You've got the lot the guard says, then gives the rightaway,
That train's our only visitor till our next ration day;
So listen all you fettlers who've never been outside the old suburban,
Any day – come pop along our outback way,
You'll get a family greeting, be sure you will not rust,
For water is so very scarce, you'll eat your pound of dust;
Just keep your courage growing and keep your chin well up,
Then life will be worth living, for full will be your cup.
(By Railwayman Jim Gordon. The Retired Rail and Tramwayman magazine April 1940)
The Railway Hotel plays an important place in Australian architectural heritage and folklore. Usually these buildings, with their distinctive awnings and signs, dominated the main street that inevitably grew up around the train station. It was at these hotels that travellers over-nighted, railway workers were sometimes lodged, commercial travellers used as a base, and the town gathered socially.
The German like his beer
The Englishman his half and half
The Irishman likes his tot and
The Scotsman likes his hot
The Aussie has no national drink
So he drinks the bloody lot!
A man and his wife check into the Railway Hotel. The husband wants to have a drink at the bar but his wife is extremely tired so she decides to go on up to their room to rest. She lies down on the bed... just then, an elevated train passes by very close to the window and shakes the room so hard she's thrown out of the bed.
Thinking, this must be a freak occurrence, she lies down once more. Again a train shakes the room so violently she's thrown to the floor. Exasperated, she calls the front desk and asks for the manager. The manager says , "I'll be right up."
The manager is sceptical but the wife insists the story is true. "Look... lie here on the bed -- you'll be thrown right to the floor!" So he lies down next to the wife. Just then the husband walks in. "What do you think you're doing!", he says. The manager calmly replies, "Would you believe I'm waiting for a train?"
Warren Fahey
The Railway Children
A Ghost Story
One of the more famous urban legends in Texas is that of the haunted railroad crossing in San Antonio just South of the San Juan Mission. It is here that the ghosts of children, killed when a North bound train collided with their stalled school bus, push cars across the same tracks to a safety they could not reach themselves. According to the legend, a bumper dusted with talcum powder will reveal tiny hand prints of the ghost children, left when they pushed the car across the tracks.
At the website folklore the hardy chaps are trying to document the phenomena should it really exist. (That's what they do, document ghosts)
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