During the 1940’s in SAN ANTONIO, Texas a school bus with several children were crossing a railroad track on Mission Ave. The bus stalled on the tracks. Several older children along with the driver got out and tried pushing the large bus off the tracks but without warning a train crashed into the bus killing everyone on board.
To this day you can stop your car just before the tracks at MISSION AVE, turn the car off and put it in neutral and take your foot off the brake pedal. The road is on an UPWARD hill leading off the tracks on both sides. Your car WILL start to move UP the hill and accelerate until you cross the tracks about 10 feet and then the car will stop again. People tried to say it was the earth’s gravitational pull. Some ghost believers began putting baby powder on the trunks of their cars and bumpers. After the car is over the tracks you get out fo your car and you WILL see finger prints. CHILDREN’S finger prints on your car.
This story has been recorded in newspapers and Television. Ghost Stories on Sci-Fi Channel recently showed a report on this… The reporter tried this while being video taped and it worked. It is strange to experience this first hand as I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, but ask anyone who ever lived in San Antonio about the tracks and they will tell you it’s the ghost of those children. Next time you visit the home of the ALAMO, take a trip over to mission ave and experience this strange report. However, the San Antonio Light newspaper has no report of the accident, yet the prints are still there and the car does move off the tracks. It was great amusement as a teen taking a date out to ole MISSION Ave
To Paraphrase The Beginning of “The Hunt For Red October”:Nothing In That Story Ever Happened!!It’s A Great Urban Legend,BUT IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!!!Richard K.Troxell Talks About It In His Book “Texas Trains”.Seems That A School Bus Full of Kids Got Creamed By A Train,But It Happened In Utah In The 50’s!!The UP’s 'City of Los Angeles’or’San Francisco’Hit A School Bus That Was Stalled On A Track In A Snow Storm in 1955,I Beleive.I Saw A Mention About It In The Book “Darkest Hours”.Now,If You Head 115 East of San Antonio on I10 or US90,Spend A Night In The Von Minden Hotel in Schulenburg.Legend Has It That It’s Haunted By A Female Ghost From The 40s.Seems Her Lover Joined The Service And was Reported MIA,So She Hung Herself.But The Day After She Caught The “Night Train To The Big Adios”,Her Honey Was Alive and Well and In A POW Camp.If You Ever Plan To Motor East From S.A.,Stop In Flatonia and Visit Our Railpark and Watch A Train At The Junction.Plus,Go 15 Miles Southeast and Visit The"Crossroads Drivie In Theater"In Shiner.-John T.Patterson,Former Flatonia Resident,Current Arlington Resident.Don’t Fear The Roofer!!
Clive Cussler has a great train ghost story in one of his Dirk Pitt novels. Title is something like “Night Train”. I gave the book away so I can’t check.
I have a zombie diesel loco on my layout - it’s a Bachmann Class 37 with a Lenz DCC chip. Sometimes it will refuse to respond to DCC signals and just wanders off down the line ignoring all efforts to stop it apart from the emergency button…
Ok, it’s not spooky - there’s a very good explanation. It’s called dirty wheels and track causing an interruption to the DCC signal but not the track power - it then assumes itself to be on DC power and ambles off!
The original story reminds me of a road over here known as the Electric Brae (sp?) - if you stop the car, put it in neutral, and let the brakes off it appears to move uphill compared to the surrounding terrain. In reality the road has a slight downhill slope, but it’s not apparent to the naked eye.
Overlooking the tracks between Alyth and 12th Ave. yards is the ghoest of … someone. Can’t remember who, I saw it once while railfanning, thought it was a reflection…maybe I was right…maybe I saw a ghost…
Once, before I knew about the Royal Canadian Pcific, it was a dark and foggy night, and I saw 3 F units roll across the bridge above me, must have been a ghost I thought…
Matthew
I am from San Antonio and have been to that crossing several times. As stated before, it never happened. It is even in Snopes as being untrue. There are no records of any such event occuring at the crossing. The story says that all the streets near the crossing were named for the children that died in the accident, but the streets are actually named for the children of the folks who developed the area. I grew up hearing about this quite a bit.
“The Miner’s Silver Ghost”
from My Love Affair with Trains
Merle Haggard, 1976
On a cold and rainy night
I was sittin’ in the light
of my switchman’s shack at my milepost on the mountain.
The storm was pretty bad
and the telephone was dead
and it was just eleven hours till the dawn
when much to my surprise
the telegraph jumped into life;
when I read the code, I thought, “Could this be true?”
A train was on its way,
headed up the mountain grade,
but she didn’t have no engineer or crew.
At the other switch they tried
to put her on the mountain side,
but she kept on comin’ up the mountain grade.
Well, I quickly doused the light
to try to see into the night:
maybe I could spot her headlight in the rain.
She was poundin’ down below;
I could hear her whistle blow,
and I thought, “Lord, that’s a high and lonesome sound.”
Then the telegraph again:
there’s been a cave-in at the mine,
and a hundred men are buried ‘neath the ground.
Lord, she’s comin’ now, I see,
‘round the bend and straight at me,
and her boiler’s glowin’ red as coal in Hell.
Her headlight switchin’ wide,
searchin’ all the mountain side,
but the only sound she’s makin’ is a wail.
The I recognized the train
by her number and her name:
she’s the Miner’s Silver Ghost, ol’ 41!
Then she vanished off the track
by that lonely switchman’s shack
like a mother who was lookin’ for her son.
Now I heard a story
how an engine went to glory
over 50 years ago, this same line.
It was steamin’ for a cave-in;
every man needed savin’,
but it missed a curve and trestle near the mine.
And every now and then
you’ll hear her whistle on the wind
if the mountain slides and many men are lost.
It’s a high and lonely wailin’
searchin’ up and down t
During the 1940’s in SAN ANTONIO, Texas a school bus with several children were crossing a railroad track on Mission Ave. The bus stalled on the tracks. Several older children along with the driver got out and tried pushing the large bus off the tracks but without warning a train crashed into the bus killing everyone on board.
To this day you can stop your car just before the tracks at MISSION AVE, turn the car off and put it in neutral and take your foot off the brake pedal. The road is on an UPWARD hill leading off the tracks on both sides. Your car WILL start to move UP the hill and accelerate until you cross the tracks about 10 feet and then the car will stop again. People tried to say it was the earth’s gravitational pull. Some ghost believers began putting baby powder on the trunks of their cars and bumpers. After the car is over the tracks you get out fo your car and you WILL see finger prints. CHILDREN’S finger prints on your car.
This story has been recorded in newspapers and Television. Ghost Stories on Sci-Fi Channel recently showed a report on this… The reporter tried this while being video taped and it worked. It is strange to experience this first hand as I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, but ask anyone who ever lived in San Antonio about the tracks and they will tell you it’s the ghost of those children. Next time you visit the home of the ALAMO, take a trip over to mission ave and experience this strange report. However, the San Antonio Light newspaper has no report of the accident, yet the prints are still there and the car does move off the tracks. It was great amusement as a teen taking a date out to ole MISSION Ave
During the 1940’s in SAN ANTONIO, Texas a school bus with several children were crossing a railroad track on Mission Ave. The bus stalled on the tracks. Several older children along with the driver got out and tried pushing the large bus off the tracks but without warning a train crashed into the bus killing everyone on board.
To this day you can stop your car just before the tracks at MISSION AVE, turn the car off and put it in neutral and take your foot off the brake pedal. The road is on an UPWARD hill leading off the tracks on both sides. Your car WILL start to move UP the hill and accelerate until you cross the tracks about 10 feet and then the car will stop again. People tried to say it was the earth’s gravitational pull. Some ghost believers began putting baby powder on the trunks of their cars and bumpers. After the car is over the tracks you get out fo your car and you WILL see finger prints. CHILDREN’S finger prints on your car.
This story has been recorded in newspapers and Television. Ghost Stories on Sci-Fi Channel recently showed a report on this… The reporter tried this while being video taped and it worked. It is strange to experience this first hand as I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, but ask anyone who ever lived in San Antonio about the tracks and they will tell you it’s the ghost of those children. Next time you visit the home of the ALAMO, take a trip over to mission ave and experience this strange report. However, the San Antonio Light newspaper has no report of the accident, yet the prints are still there and the car does move off the tracks. It was great amusement as a teen taking a date out to ole MISSION Ave