Shadows in the Steam Read online

  Title Page

  Introduction: Ghosts and Spooky Spectres

  List of Locations

  1. The Stories

  2. Ghosts of the London Underground

  3. The Development of the London Underground

  4. Haunted Underground Stations

  5. Closed Railway Stations

  6. Defunct Underground Stations

  7. ‘Ghost’ Steam Trains

  8. Road Signs to Ghost Stations

  9. The Haunted Underground in Film and Television

  10. Troglodytes!

  11. The Haunted Underground and Literature

  12. The Haunted Railway in Film and Literature

  Glossary

  Advertisement

  Copyright

  ‘Millions of Spiritual Creatures walk the Earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.’

  John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV

  The ultimate mystery of life is what happens to us when we die. Is the vital spark, the soul that makes each of us unique individuals, simply snuffed out to be followed rapidly by the decay of our physical parts? Most of us are uncomfortable with the idea that the world with which we are so familiar continues after we die and, in particular, that it will cope perfectly well without us. How much better to hope or believe that there is indeed an afterlife? Such a possibility is, however, viewed by most of us with a mixture of awe, trepidation and downright fear.

  Many of the world’s religions are preoccupied with the question of the continued existence of our souls after physical death. Indeed some religions teach that the earthly life is merely a preparation for the next, and that, when we die, we will have to account to the Deity for what we have done with our lives. Such religions have created elaborate codes of rights and wrongs which we ignore literally at our peril.

  Most religions have created destinations for the souls of the departed. In the case of Christianity this is Heaven, the place where the righteous and good go and enjoy an idyllic existence for ever-after, and Hell, a state of perpetual nastiness for those who have devoted themselves to a life of sin. Some Christians believe in a third destination known as Purgatory. This is where souls undertake a process of being tried and tested until a decision is reached as to whether they should be elevated to Heaven or consigned to Hell.

  If it is believed that human souls live on after the death of their material parts, it is only a small step to visualise the dead returning to the world of the living under certain circumstances. In many cultures it is thought that the dead yearn to return to the scene of their earthly lives and that they bitterly resent and envy those who they left behind who are still alive. The soul therefore returns, often angry and seeking revenge on someone who it perhaps believed wronged it while it was still alive. If, for example, its life was ended by murder, perhaps it wants to settle the hash of the murderer. There may be all sorts of other reasons why it wants to make its feelings known to the still-living.

  On occasions the soul is apparently a trifle confused, but it appears to want to sort out some things that were left unresolved or otherwise unsatisfactory when its owner died. Perhaps it objects to the manner and place of its burial. Equally the soul may return if its physical remains are disturbed or treated with a lack of respect. It may return to provide someone living with a warning concerning their behaviour or perhaps to tell them of an impending disaster. A prime time for a ghostly reappearance in the land of the living is on the anniversary of a person’s death. Again, if any of this is to be believed, the ghost sometimes returns out of curiosity, simply to check on how affairs are being conducted in its absence. Some ghosts seem intent on returning to resume the habitual activities they undertook while still alive. Yet others act as if they want to seek atonement for the sins they committed while they were living. When it manifests itself on its return, the soul is said to be a ghost. Manifestations attributed to ghosts have both fascinated and frightened humans since the dawn of mankind.

  There are many ways in which ghosts make themselves known. They may be seen or heard, although more often people claim that they have ‘sensed’ their activity or presence rather than anything more tangible. Perhaps they have smelt the stench of bodily corruption or experienced a sudden and literally chilling fall in the temperature around them. Unexplained footfalls; items removed or rearranged without apparent human agency; disembodied sighs, cries and groans; things that go bump in the night. Some people claim to have caught images of paranormal entities or activity on film, but the authenticity of such images is often disputed.

  All these and a host of other unexplained phenomena feature in the continuous flow of reports made by people who claim to have had encounters with ghosts or other supernatural phenomena. Many of these people are not naturally suggestible, are not attention-seekers and may even be positively stolid and unimaginative. Some were frankly sceptical about anything to do with the paranormal before they had such an experience. In most circles a person talking about seeing ghosts is likely to invite ridicule. Being the butt of mockery makes most people feel uncomfortable. For this reason it is likely that many unexplained phenomena go unreported and therefore unpublicised.

  Some of the following stories are of what might be called ‘serial hauntings’, where apparently the same ghostly activity is repeated in or around the same place. Other activities seem to be more of a one-off. Perhaps the ghost has completed the purpose for which it came back and, having no further business in the everyday world, returned whence it came. No one has ever been able to give a fully satisfactory explanation of why ghosts can apparently make their presence known to some people but not to others in the same place and at the same time. The ghosts may not even be the returning spirits of humans. Ghostly phenomena associated with cats, dogs and horses, for example, have also been reported.

  Children’s fictional stories may have ghosts covered in white sheets, rattling chains and emitting screeching noises. In adult fiction the ghosts are generally more subdued or understated. In the works of that doyen of ghost story writers, M.R. James, the ghosts are little more than hints or suggestions. In spite of being so understated, they are capable of being extraordinarily menacing and malevolent. Truly the icy finger tracing out the spine.

  Ghostly phenomena continue to exert a perennial interest even in a modern world dominated by the apparent rationalities of science and technology and a largely secular world deeply imbued with scepticism and cynicism. Each year priests carry out innumerable exorcisms in all seriousness intended to bring peace to the living and repose to the spirits of the dead.

  Something atavistic, a vestigial sixth sense, can cause the hair to rise on the back of the neck at certain times and in certain places. Frissons of unease developing into fear may cause a rash of goose pimples for reasons we simply cannot explain. While we do not really like being spooked in real life, we love scary stories and most of us enjoy being comfortably scared. Ghosts are big business. Fictional ghost stories, ghost walks, films and documentaries about the paranormal have never been more popular. Spiritualism and psychic research are going strong and still trying to obtain the incontrovertible evidence that will sink the sceptics once and for all. Ghosts remain as much a part of popular culture as they were in the Middle Ages.

  Do ghosts exist? If so, what are they? Do they have any objective existence or are they simply the product of superstitious minds, personal suggestibility or overheated imaginations? If we accept the claims of serious people that they have had experiences of a paranormal kind, what was it that they actually saw, heard or otherwise sensed? Isn’t there a commonsense or perfectly mundane explanation for most or all of these phenomena? Even if we do not wish to probe too deeply into these questions, most of us can still appr
eciate a spooky story or movie or can keenly anticipate jumping out of our skins at the appropriate moment on a ghost walk. They are part of the rich and fascinating tapestry of fact, folklore, myth and legend. There are even serious academic studies written on the subject, such as the very readable The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts, by Owen Davies, published in 2007.

  One theory of haunting is that ghostly phenomena are a kind of spiritual film, a force generated in places where deeds of violence or great emotional upheavals have taken place. An energy is released which replicates at least some of the sights and sounds of these powerful events. This energy then allows the re-enactment of these events to be experienced from time to time by the still-living, or at least by those apparently receptive to paranormal or psychic phenomena. If there is any substance to this theory, it does account for the disappearance of some habitual or long-established haunting phenomena. The highly charged emotional ether simply dissipates over time.

  If you ask people what kinds of places they expect to be haunted, they would probably include ‘Gothic’ semi-derelict mansions; the crypts used as charnel houses or bone-holes in some ancient churches; churchyards; hoary ivy-clad old ruins; dark and dingy castle dungeons; crossroads where gibbets used to display the mortal remains of executed highwaymen; and also the local ‘lover’s leap’, the scene of years of tragic suicides provoked by the miseries of unrequited love. To some extent such scenes are clichés. The spiritual film idea, if it has any plausibility, helps to explain why the locations where ghostly activity is reported are often much more mundane. While railway locations such as tunnels, the overgrown formation of long-abandoned lines and closed stations in particular do seem to provide ideal scenarios for paranormal comings and goings, reports often come from everyday places such as level crossings, signal boxes, station footbridges and even the interior of well-occupied railway carriages.

  We believe that some honestly presented reports of strange phenomena have unknown but entirely simple and everyday explanations. People subjected to experiences involving extreme emotions such as terror may not be reliable witnesses. Some reports are made by people seeking attention and publicity – a few days of capricious celebrity. Other reports are the work of deliberate hoaxes or sometimes of people who have allowed their imaginations to run away with them. With the stories mentioned in this book, we believe that the people involved genuinely experienced or sensed something odd. What that might be is not easily explained, and, of course, may not have been anything to do with the paranormal. We want to let the stories do the talking and we try to provide some historical background and railway detail as appropriate.

  The railways of Britain cannot be seen in isolation. They were both a product of and a major contributor to the complex set of interacting economic and social developments which historians conveniently call the Industrial Revolution. This was the starting point of the modern world. The railways, in conjunction with the electric telegraph which was developed as an aid to safety, initiated the revolution in high-speed communication and transmission of information which continues to this very day. Of the early railways, the most significant was almost certainly the Liverpool & Manchester, opened in 1830. This joined two of the north’s most important cities, was designed to use steam locomotives from the start and was soon bringing real economic benefits to the industrialists of south Lancashire and Merseyside. It also had one almost totally unexpected effect – it showed that there was a market for people to travel just for the sheer pleasure of travelling.

  A tunnel ghost? Or a little photographic sleight of hand?

  Right from their inception, the railways elicited mixed responses from the public. Some regarded the steam locomotive as a frightening fiery devil, it and the iron road it ran on being unwelcome intruders into the placid English countryside, while others were fearful of its speed, of its lofty viaducts and especially its baleful tunnels. There were those, however, who found railways exciting for bringing places which had been distant closer together and for opening up opportunities for travel and adventure.

  Any train, especially a steam train, takes on a more mysterious and romantic aura after dark, and many of the stories which follow are about experiences that occurred at night. Surprisingly, perhaps, there are relatively few good ‘factual’ railway ghost stories, given the social, cultural and wider impact of the railways. We have produced a selection of these, but omitted many where the phenomena described have been the same or very similar to the ones we have chosen, and we make no claim to providing a comprehensive guide to such tales or for an even geographical spread. Tunnels and signal boxes feature extensively, as do many level-crossings. Did the crossing-keeper go by the name of Charon?

  We will leave this introduction with the words embossed on a cast-iron notice of the Great Northern Railway near Stafford, on its branch line from Derby and Uttoxeter. It was to be observed by engine drivers, and it read: ‘Whistle at Cemetery Crossing’.

  BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

  High Wycombe

  CAMBRIDGESHIRE

  Conington

  Peterborough

  Soham

  Yarwell Tunnel

  CORNWALL

  Bodmin Road

  St Keyne

  COUNTY DURHAM

  Darlington, North Road Station

  CUMBRIA

  Lindal Moor

  Maryport

  Tebay

  DERBYSHIRE

  Chesterfield

  Tunstead Farm

  DORSET

  Bincombe Tunnel

  GLOUCESTERSHIRE

  Charfield

  GREATER LONDON

  Addiscombe

  GREATER MANCHESTER

  Ashton Moss

  Bradley Fold

  Manchester Mayfield

  HAMPSHIRE

  Hayling Island

  Swanwick

  HERTFORDSHIRE

  Hatfield

  ISLE OF WIGHT

  Newport

  KENT

  Pluckley

  LANCASHIRE

  Bispham

  Entwistle

  Helmshore to Ramsbottom

  LEICESTERSHIRE

  Rothley

  LINCOLNSHIRE

  Barkston

  Bourne

  Claxby & Usselby

  Elsham

  French Drove

  Grantham

  Grimsby

  Hallington

  Hibaldstow Crossing

  Tallington

  MERSEYSIDE

  James Street

  Walton Junction

  NORFOLK

  Abbey & West Dereham

  NORTH YORKSHIRE

  Middlesborough

  Sandsend

  NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

  Burton Joyce

  Mapperley Tunnel

  Rolleston

  OXFORDSHIRE

  Shipton–on–Cherwell

  SHROPSHIRE

  Shrewsbury

  SOMERSET

  Dunster

  Stogumber

  Watchet

  SOUTH YORKSHIRE

  Beighton

  Hexthorpe near Doncaster

  SUFFOLK

  Bury St Edmunds

  Felixstowe

  Sudbury

  SUSSEX

  Balcombe Tunnel

  Clayton Tunnel

  West Hoathly

  WEST MIDLANDS

  Coventry

  WEST YORKSHIRE

  Clayton

  Haworth

  Huddersfield

  Otley

  Wakefield Kirkgate

  Yeadon

  WILTSHIRE

  Box Tunnel

  Monkton Farleigh Mine

  WALES

  Saltney Ferry

  Talybont–on–Usk

  SCOTLAND

  Auldearn

  Dunphail to Dava

  Kyle of Lochalsh

  The Glasgow Subway

  Pinwherry

  The Tay Bridge

  The Waver
ley Route

  GHOSTS OF THE LONDON UNDERGROUND

  Aldgate

  Aldwych

  Bakerloo Line

  Bank

  Bethnal Green Station

  British Museum

  Covent Garden

  Farringdon

  Jubilee Line

  Kennington

  Liverpool Street

  London Road Depot

  Marble Arch

  Moorgate

  Vauxhall

  Closed Railway Stations

  Crystal Palace

  Defunct Underground Stations

  ‘Ghost’ Steam Trains

  BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

  High Wycombe

  The first railway at High Wycombe was the Wycombe Railway, opened in 1854 from Maidenhead via Bourne End. It was leased to the Great Western Railway (GWR) and extended in 1862 through Princes Risborough to Thame, and later to Oxford. Subsequent lines gave High Wycombe direct services to Banbury, Leamington and Birmingham on the GWR, to Rugby and points north via Ashendon Junction and Brackley, by courtesy of the Great Central Railway, and to Paddington via Beaconsfield over the line of the Great Western & Great Central Joint. The line through High Wycombe is still operational.

  One night a railwayman had been having a drink or two with friends in a pub close to High Wycombe Station. Tearing himself away from the convivial company, he made for the station to catch a late train home to Beaconsfield. There were few people about at this time of the night, the station was quiet and the platform for his train was completely deserted when he got there. He had a few minutes to spare before the train was due. He then heard footsteps crunching along the ballast at track level. They approached and passed close by with no one visible to make the crunching! He heard the distinctive sound retreating into the distance, only to stop abruptly when some other passengers arrived on the platform. His train ran in and soon deposited him at Beaconsfield. He was not drunk nor was he given to flights of imagination but it was a puzzled and confused man who made his way home that night.