“Amateur NC ghost hunter looking for ‘ghost train’ hit and killed by real train” by Jeff Rivenbank
FTA:"…STATESVILLE, NC (WBTV) - A man who was with about a dozen people who were looking for a legendary “ghost train” in Iredell County was hit by a locomotive and killed early Friday morning.
The incident happened on a train trestle at 2:45 a.m. near the 900 block of Buffalo Shoals Road.
Robin Chapman, a spokesperson for Norfolk-Southern Railroad, said the eastbound train consisted of three locomotives and no freight cars…"
The above is a link to an historical account of what happened to The Southern Rwy’s Train #9 ‘Fast Mail’ on that August night in 1891 west of Saulsbury, N.C.:
FTL; "…A FRIGHTFUL ACCIDENT.
TWENTY-FIVE PEOPLE KILLED.
A PASSENGER TRAIN JUMPS THE TRACK ON BOSTIAN’S BRIDGE THIS MORNING – LIST OF THE KILLED AND WOUNDED – AN OCCURRENCE WITHOUT PARALLEL IN THE HISTORY OF THE STATE…"
FURTHER:“…It is supposed that as the engine, which was making 25 to 30 miles an hour on a down grade, struck the bridge, the track spread. Why it should have done so is unaccounted for by the fact that the ends of the ties at the approach to the bridge were found to be rotten…”
The original accident happened exactly 119 years earlier. The historical account is pretty vivid in its details. And then again exactly 119 years later another person is killed by a train at the same location and about the same early hour. From the accounts this location is becoming some what of a local attraction. The fact that it was a light locomotive move is kind of a spooky happenstance. Feel for the guys on the lates incident. It was noted that the deceased man did push another person to safety and she
What I like is the repeated references to a, “Trestle,” in the article. Mighty funny looking trestle! Or isn’t, “Masonry Arch Bridge,” tought in journalism school these days?
On another website’s forum there was a post and a link to a newspaper article from this past week about a bird scientist who was killed by a CN train in Illinois. Evidently he was studying the possible effects of the EJ&E merger on said birds. And though he apparently had no official permission or clearance to be on or near the tracks then, he was working for CN as a consultant or sub-contractor of some kind . . . [:O]
Within this last week; I read an article in an old issue of the Ducks Unlimited Magazine referencing a gift by the CN Rwy to Ducks Unlimited for a gift of… IIRC… it as a million (?) dollars for habitat protection, and research along the areas(something about pot hole ponds?) of the CNR (nee: ICRR operational areas).
I’ll try and find it and post a link, (not having much luck with this search[:(] )