We had a paranormal group visit RMEO one night last year.

They reported our station seemed "very busy", although no specific contacts were made in the station. One individual reported being roughly shoved off the steps of CP caboose #437183, although of course nobody was there (in our realm at least).

Photographs indicated numerous "orbs" (bugs or something else entirely?) but I don't believe they took sound recordings.

A number of people have felt very uneasy in our station at night over the years, which the paranormal group suggested is a sign of vague awareness of spiritual activity.

One of our trustees, was working alone in the station one night and had an unsettling feeling that she was being watched. Then she heard a distinct male voice say "Hello"... of course, only Dawn was in the building. Needless to say, she quickly left without shutting off the lights!

Is our station haunted? Who knows. I've never sensed anything at the museum despite a number of interesting experiences (encounters?) in my youth. Working in engineering and science, I tend to take everything with a very large grain of salt. Perhaps that is clouding my vision.

Have any RyPN readers had experiences that can't be explained at their museums?

Steve Hunter
Cardinal, Ontario

We had a locomotive that some thought was haunted, it would shoot small fireballs around the inside of the electrical cabinet occasionally when you closed the throttle from load operation.

But it turned out that the generator field dissipation resistor had burned out. When you powered off it was dumping the residual of the field back into the 74v system creating arcs between exposed contacts.

Sure got the attention of everybody in the cab though, and it didn't require hearing frequencies beyond the range of the human ear.

PC

The H3 at the RRMPA, No. 1187, is definitely haunted. All kinds of hard-bitten, engineering types have had the hair on the back of their neck stand up around her. No idea why ...

I don't find it surprising being that many of these railroad buildings/stations/equipment have been around since the turn of the century. Alot of individuals have been through them and more than likely a few have become "attached" to them and have not moved on.

Hopefully the paranormal team will return with more equipment and be able to check everything out. Researching the history of the building and land would be important too. Since they mention an 'intelligent EVP' it points more to an actual spirit there and not an event, incident, or specific period of time playing over and over again.........being residual.

It will be interesting to see what they find if they go back there again.

Since the U.S.S. Olympia has been mentioned several times already, it too, is haunted. Had all of the usual investigations done; and one of the folks who is trying to save it is in communication with them on regular basis.

He plans to use this as selling point for the ship; i.e. to attract the paying crowds who seek out these things. He says it is a paying business in buildings that give ghost tours; I can't help but wonder if touting that the ship is haunted might drive other potential visitors away.

Why does the mock TV commercial in the movie Ghostbusters come to mind? "Who ya gonna call?" The one really "spooky" place I've been to is the site of Kemp siding on the (long abandoned) Southern Pacific line between Fillmore and Saugus north of Los Angeles. I was there close to sunset, and it was a bit creepy, but I was already aware of how a construction camp was wiped out, with considerable loss of life, when the St. Francis Dam failed in 1928. Power of suggestion, or ??????. I didn't hang around after sundown to find out.

Its funny how nobody's pointed out that this is nonsense. This is nonsense.

Art Bell retired, guys.

Art,

While I agree with you, speaking as a veteran of a number of "Ghost Tours", my girlfriend would differ with your opinion. Nonsense it may be, but it is certainly marketable nonsense. And nonsense does sell, if you don't believe it check out that "Inter-Web" thing.........................

Nonsense? Yes and no. It could be used in a positive manner. It could be used to raise awareness of your project maybe even on national level. There are some people that would pay money to "experience" The what ever is or isn't going on. These people spend BIG money on their hobby. Sound familiar? It could be an untapped income producer.
Here in Ohio they open the old Mansfield reformatory a couple times a year, I think you still may be able to spend the night. This place looks way past creepy, personally I would not spend the night there. (If ever a place would be haunted this would be it and sure looks it) It sells out fast. Like instantly fast. It is not cheap either.
It also gives us a chance to educate people (Core mission) as to the history we are all trying to save. The story (history) behind why it may or may not be haunted can be filled with historical facts. There doesn't have to be some large lose of life to be haunted, It could be something as simple as the people that worked for the railroad treated their job as a way of life and was part of their "being" and still keep watch.
You may even get some new members out of it. It could prove to fun as well.

Refering to Jack's comments, if "creepy" doesn't sell, how come "Hollywierd" is still making all of these (mostly atrocious) horror movies? Don't ignore any market segment whose money is green......................

As a hardened skeptic who has seen how many of the "paranormal phenomena" turn out to be outright fraud or trickery, I caution:

Allegations of "haunting," ghosts, etc, have NO business in the presentation of FACTUAL history in and of railroading and rail preservation.

Nonetheless, it is certainly possible to "exploit" such believers for your mutual benefit. The strategy should be to separate yourself by a step from actual claims of haunting, etc.

We have a historical preservation society in this city that hosts occasional "ghost walks" through the historic neighborhoods, led by a costumed tour guide who is a member of said society (and apparently a true believer in the paranormal). The tours seem to be popular with tourists, and raise some income for the society (I hope--I don't look at their books). And frankly, you can't prove a negative. It's entertainment, just as sailing across the harbor in an older boat could be.

I do contract work with a couple professional magicians. One of the tenets of magic is that there is an implicit understanding between the audience and the illusionist that they are engaging in a short term of mutually-agreeable fraud and deception. That line is crossed when someone attempts to prolong the deception and use such deception for monetary gain--for example, to claim to be a psychic or faith healer for profit. This is why certain magicians--James Randi, Penn & Teller, etc.--are at the forefront of skepticism and debunking fraudulent "paranormal" practitioners.

Is it OK to make money from "exploiting" those that want to believe in a haunted station, train, bridge, etc.? That's up to us, and many of us will take whatever money we can get. But as a corollary, suppose someone wanted to bus in a college or tourist group monthly and give a half-day's lecture to them on the "evils" of the railroad industry--a one-sided pro-labor, anti-management rant, then a spiel on how they exploited slaves, destroyed indigenous Native American culture, etc., then how they pollute terribly, "steal" land from people, etc.--all horribly exaggerated for maximum slander. Is their money just as "green" as the paranormal enthusiasts'?

And now back to our program........

Old places are creepy - especially when in unrestored condition. I did the early stabilization work on the Salisbury SRy depot back in the '80's - never a quiet moment. Probably the worst was falling through the rotten tower floor into the basement, but that wasn't paranormal, just clumsy. Pigeons roosting in the tower sounded from a distance like whispered conversation.

The C of G site in Savannah was railroad since 1852, was theoretically in part a slave cemetery before that, was factually a Revolutionary War battlefield before that, and suppposedly a Yamacraw Indian mound before that.........It was odd when creepy stuff wasn't going on in the off-limits areas, especially after dark. Anyboody wants to do ghost programming, I'd start there.

Oddly enough, I never experienced the same sense of creepiness anywhere on the Spencer Shops site back in the early '80's, when all but one building was unrestored. More concerned about live humans who were out in the property, up to whatever. The dead have never bothered me, but the living are troublesome a lot.

dave

As I said in a previous post, I am a skeptic, at least about what so-called experts claim about the paranormal. However, in my other "hysterical" hobby, Civil War reenacting, I have had a couple of goose-bumpy experiences. Gettysburg is called the most haunted place in America. Walking or driving through the battlefields, (especially at night) you definitely feel like something is different. Not creepy or scary, but there is a presence. The place truly is Hallowed Ground.
Back in 2005, I was a participant in (and involved in the planning of) the 140th Anniversary Appomattox reenactment. The event was held on some of the original ground just outside of the NPS Historic Site. Sunday's scenario was the stacking of arms by the Confederate troops. There were about 900 of us that marched down a hill to a field next to the river. We were formed up by battalions, and Robert E. Lee's General Order No. 9, announcing the surrender of the Army of Northern Va. was read to us. Even though we knew that we were in a reenactment and what to expect next, the emotion of that moment was overwhelming. It was like it was coming from the ground we were standing upon, and hit you learning of a death. We then marched up a dirt road, many of us with tears streaming down our faces, and stacked our weapons and colors in front of about 800 Yankees at attention and a couple of thousand spectators. If there really are ghosts, some of them were marching with us that day.

Even though we knew that we were in a reenactment and what to expect next, the emotion of that moment was overwhelming.

And there in lies the seeds of great mass movements, some like yours, benign and reflective-others not so innocent-think of the chills felt by the crowds in Nuremberg in the 30's. That a group of autoselecting enthusiasts have a common experience proves only that human beings are capable of shared emotions, we don't suddenly become sort of distributed specter detector when we assemble.

It does nothing to prove the existence of any (let alone heightened) supernatural activity. Gettysburg is significant because we know something of it, but there have been other sights of mass slaughter, some, like Gettysburg due to complicated but deeply held conviction, some for plunder, some for sport. If mass slaughter was a catalyst for the paranormal, there would be a whole lot of places where the hair on your neck would rise because of battles long forgotten or never recorded.

Gettysburg is indeed hallowed ground, and increasingly polluted by these campy "ghost tours" that obscures the significance of the events that led to 50,000 men perishing (and one civilian casualty) in THREE DAYS. Gettysburg has more significance to the general subject of this board than is generally realized if the assertion (can't remember where I heard this, sorry) that Lee's ultimate destination was Scranton (to take out the Iron Furnaces and a source of Union logistical advantage in the first war with significant rail involvement).

There's always been a peripheral commercialization with Gettysburg, but the proliferation of ghost tours fuse our morbid curiosity with mortality with history and trivialize it in a new way. Some posters have posited that the ghost tours are relevant because they are potentially profitable. Ghost tours rely on the same things many politicians do, ignorance, gullibility, inadequate skepticism, and our love of a good story. Maybe its inevitable in what Stephen Carter called the "culture of disbelief", or perhaps people increasingly like being scared because we are regressing to our primitive emotion-driven selves.

In any case, its has nothing to do with preservation, unless you believe historic preservation is enhanced by historic prostitution. If you really want that, talk to former Conrail CEO David LeVan who seems obsessed with casting lots on this hallowed ground, his reasoning is much along the same lines that historic appreciation goes along with capital appreciation (well, his because over time, the house wins)