WEBVTT - Trains of Terror, Part 2 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:07.160 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:15.720 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:16.840 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.959 And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:25.040 two in our Halloween season series on locomotive horror and 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.920 Trains of Terror. Now. In the last episode, we talked 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:32.879 about how trains are often used in weird fiction and 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.839 the kinds of themes that they emphasize, including things like 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:42.320 fate and helplessness, isolation, alienation, and especially in nineteenth century stories, 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:46.839 the irresistible changes brought by technology brought on by the 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:51.239 steam era, how it was transforming the landscape, transforming our culture, 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:55.080 and highlighting maybe the fragility of our minds and bodies. 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.360 We also talked about the various inputs leading to the 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:03.279 invention the steam locomotive, and finally we got to the 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:08.679 Victorian panic about railway madness, a belief you'll find at 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.000 tested in a bunch of British newspapers from the eighteen 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.800 sixties through about eighteen eighty, according to which it is 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:20.399 common for men to be driven instantly, violently insane by 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:24.440 the vibrations of a railway carriage in transit. So that 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:26.880 was part one. If you haven't heard that yet, it's 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.279 definitely worth a listen, go back and check that out first. 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:32.800 But we're here today to talk about more that's right. 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:34.880 This week, we're going to be getting into the more 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:39.080 familiar territory of the ghost train. Though even as I 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:43.040 say that and I start thinking about potential mainstream examples, 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:45.520 it's really hard for me to think of a straight 0:01:45.600 --> 0:01:50.920 up haunted train in popular media like Polar Express maybe 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:56.560 comes to minds like the most mainstream example. Yeah, is 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:58.520 it just me or do we just not actually have 0:01:58.600 --> 0:01:59.960 a lot of stories about ghost train? 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:02.920 Well, it's interesting that you frame it that way, because 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.280 I was thinking about the ghost trained as a concept 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:11.160 and thinking about how, Yeah, we have the concept of ghosts, 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.679 which are spectral, insubstantial entities that take the form of 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:20.040 a human I guess sometimes an animal, usually human understood 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.200 to be like the soul or the animate image of 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:27.520 a person who has died. So these are individual human entities. 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.320 They usually move around and I don't know, they interact 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.760 in some kind of sensory capacity. You can see them, 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:36.400 they make noise and so forth. But then we also 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:42.000 have the concept of haunted houses or haunted locations, for example, 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:46.600 a church or a cemetery or a battlefield. These are 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:52.240 places where hauntings by individual ghosts happen, most often understood 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:55.160 to be the location of a tragedy or a death, 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:59.560 or maybe like a place that the ghost frequented in life. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.560 The house, the haunted house is usually an actual house. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.480 I guess. Maybe there are some versions where ooh, there 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:08.120 was never a house there at all, it was just 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:10.280 a vacant lot. But for the most part it's like, oh, 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.839 it's the old the old McCormick place there. 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.200 Yeah, yeah, exactly so. But trains are like in this 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.760 in between realm where I guess they could sort of 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.120 be both because on one hand, they are moving entities 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.400 like people, and so they can sort of be a 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.799 moving form that could pass in and out of your awareness. 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.079 And at the same time, trains are locations like houses. 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.520 People go inside them, inhabit them. They have rooms and 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.760 corridors and doorways. So a train oddly has the ability 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.640 to be like a wandering ghost itself or like a 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.040 haunted house. And I was trying to think, is there 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.720 any equivalent, I guess like a ship, like a you 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.960 could have a ghost ship or a haunted ship. Though, 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.040 like you were saying, or I think you were alluding 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.320 to this, most of the ghost train lord that I'm 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:03.560 aware of and that I could turn up and research 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:08.200 for this episode seems to be about beliefs about a 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.600 spectral train that you believe you see passing as an 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.839 outside observer, not a physical train that you get on 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.760 board and then believed to be haunted like a haunted house. 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.160 The latter is possible in concept, it just seems like 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:25.040 there's less of that. 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.040 Yeah, I think it is probably an idea that is 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.640 infected by these other concepts, like you said, the haunted house, 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.720 the haunted domicile, and a train is kind of a 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.480 place that you live. It is an environment, but it's 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.520 also a vehicle. And we have a long legacy of 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:44.120 ghost ship stories. But it's interesting because that doesn't really 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.120 line up one hundred percent because with the idea of 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.400 a ghost train, because with ghost ships you have, of 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:53.560 course tales of a flying Dutchman and everything from a 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.640 haunted unoccupied vessel maybe it has Dracula on it and 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.800 so forth, or a straight up spectral vessel. But then 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.640 a lot of this is based on the historic reality 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:08.880 and even contemporary reality of ships that have either been 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.240 damaged or abandoned, or something terrible has happened and they 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.960 are left to be moved around on the water by 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.679 wave and wind, something that isn't really in the cards 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.320 for a train, you know, especially in the modern air, 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:28.240 but even historically, like if you had an unknown train 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.920 moving around and it was a physical reality, bad things 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.279 would happen pretty quickly. And yes, the idea does tie 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.919 into fears of those things happening, and I think a 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:39.560 lot of the examples you can look at of ghost 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:48.120 trains are tied to either memories or anxieties concerning train accidents. 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.800 But yeah, it doesn't really it seems to be influenced 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.000 by all these other concepts, but also it doesn't line 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:55.960 up one percent with any of them either. 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.159 Yeah, I think that's right. This is kind of a 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.240 but this also because the train has this potential duality 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.200 that it could be like a haunted house or like 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.840 a like a ghost itself. It was making me think 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.960 about the different moral understandings we have of individual ghostly 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:19.840 entities versus haunted locations in horror fiction. Because I don't know, 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.120 maybe you have some counter examples to this but I 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:27.719 was thinking that in most horror stories, individual ghosts, though 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.800 they invoke fright, are usually looked on with pity once 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.000 you know their story. They are usually said to be 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:39.320 victims in some way, people who suffered, whereas haunted locations 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:44.160 are often characterized as evil or malicious in themselves. There's 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.920 this idea that like a haunted house is a bad place. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.719 It's like the Overlook hotel. The hotel is evil. 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:53.440 Yeah. Yeah. 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.200 And yet while a train could be a location like 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.080 this haunted house that you often think of as a 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.000 bad place. When I read through all this ghost train lord, 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.080 I don't get that feeling like, oh the ghost train, Ooh, 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.960 that's wicked, it's bad, it's malicious. Instead, it has more 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.760 the character of the individual wandering ghost. It's something that 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:15.760 may be frightening, but is mainly to be kind of 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.280 pitied to tell a sad story about. 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:20.880 Yeah, that's the impression I get as well. So we'll 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:22.520 keep that in mind as we roll through some of 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.960 the specific examples here and perhaps out there there's a 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.240 wish we'll touch on this again. But there are a 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.200 lot of ghost train stories out there. There's a lot 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.960 of train related urban legend, so we have things that 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.800 have been circulating for a while, and you know, stories 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.240 that are just kicking out. Perhaps, so if you were 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:45.000 familiar listener with a story of a malicious ghost train, 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.880 or just any ghost train story that we don't mention here, 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.000 or if you have additional thoughts on things we mentioned here, 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.000 obviously write in because we would love to hear from you. 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.880 Absolutely, contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.280 Please share with us your local ghost train story, especially 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.200 if there's something unusual about it. 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.480 Now, before we get into specific ghost trains and ghost 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.720 train stories, I do want to just kind of an 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.520 overview of what seemed to me to be sort of 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:16.080 like three definite types of ghost trains to consider. Okay, okay, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.560 So the first type we'll come back to this one 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.960 in some specifics here shortly, is the idea of just 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.480 lights and or sounds of trains on or near the 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.200 tracks that never materialize. The idea that I hear the 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.520 sound or I see the lights of a train that 0:08:31.560 --> 0:08:35.240 should not be here, and then that train never arrives. 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.480 But it causes you a lot of anxiety because, oh, 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:39.520 if there's not supposed to be a train here right now, 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:40.319 that's a bad thing. 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.840 You know, this ties into you and I were looking 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.120 at an example of a play about a ghost train 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:49.880 off Mike. We ended up not getting into it in 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.480 our outline really here, but there's a play called The 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:57.360 Ghost Train by an author named Arnold Ridley, which turns 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.080 out to have a quite bizarre twist where there's like 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:01.760 a story of a ghost train and then it turns 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:07.520 out to be like a communist counter espionage thriller. But anyway, 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:09.880 I think that that story was said to be inspired 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.000 by the author's experience of being stuck at a train 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.959 station at night and hearing what sounded like a train 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.160 approaching and thinking it was coming arriving to pick him up, 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:22.960 but then it just like seeming to pass without him 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.560 ever seeing it. And the explanation is the train was 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:28.640 there was a train coming by him, but it was 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:32.800 being diverted along a different track that was. So he's 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.160 like in the night hearing a train approach and then 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:36.760 leave but never sees anything. 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:42.920 You know, the approach of a train is kind of haunting, 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:47.440 almost supernatural occurrence in some ways, you know, because you're 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.160 standing there and perhaps you hear just like that initial 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.599 hum of the rails, maybe the air is suddenly a 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:57.560 little bit different. You get to get some of that 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.679 sort of underground air coming out if you're in a 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:05.520 subway system, all ahead of the actual roar of the train, 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:08.800 the lights of the train, and so forth, there are 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.600 a lot of subtle hints leading up to the arrival. 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:16.840 All right. So that's the first, you know, rough categorization 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.680 for ghost trains. The second one I want to highlight 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.559 are just straight up overtly creepy or ghostly trains, straight 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.480 up spectral trains, trains with ghosts on them that are 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.800 sometimes connected to railway disasters but sometimes to other mishaps 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.199 and tragedies and so forth. And then there's this third area, 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:39.240 and this is empty trains witnessed moving down the tracks. 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.880 And this is the category that is going to include both. 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.360 Just straight up, here's a train. It doesn't look like 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:49.319 it has people on it, but it is a physical train. 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.680 And also here's a train that is you know, there's 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.600 nothing suspect about it's about who's piloting it. We know 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:58.760 it's either we can see the human or we know 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.720 that this is an automated rails system, whatever the case. 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.280 But why is there a train with no people on it. 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:06.640 Why is it stopping and letting no one out and 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:08.120 then continuing on its way. 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.000 You know, it's funny how this connects to the idea 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.360 of the ghost ship which you were talking about, could 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.640 be inspired by sightings of real ships that were saying 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.240 people have abandoned them. And you see a ship drifting 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.200 in the waves with nobody on it. That's a very 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.640 chilling site. But that would be a real thing people 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.679 would observe in various situations. Obviously, a train is a 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:31.679 little bit different, because a train isn't going to be 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.760 completely abandoned and drifting on the waves. It needs to 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:37.960 be moving for some reason, like somebody's got to push 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:41.000 a button to make it go. But it may in 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.800 fact be empty of passengers, and just like seeing through 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.800 the windows and seeing it empty can be a creepy site. 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.160 Yeah, absolutely, you know, thinking about the trains that go 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.319 by directly by my house. There's the Marta Train, the 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.920 public transportation train system here in Atlanta, and sometimes there 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:00.720 are empty train cars that are going by because you 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.920 know that one's done for the night. And then there's 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:08.920 the CSX line, and this is freight, not passengers, though 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.360 at least on one occurrence. I did see some empty 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:15.559 passenger trains on the tracks. I think they were being 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:17.880 I assume they were being moved somewhere, you know, either 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.280 I don't even remember how nice they looked. Maybe they 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:22.320 were brand new being moved somewhere to go into service, 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.160 or they were being retired or scrapped or something. But 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:30.280 you know, there is something potentially creepy about seeing this 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.520 space that is made for people, devoid of people, but 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.600 still in motion, as if it's going somewhere but without people. 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.280 A lot of horror movies used to great effect the 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.400 empty subway train, you know, the subway arrives in the station, 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.520 the doors open, there's nobody inside, nobody on the train. 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:49.120 It is a creepy feeling. 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.120 Now. I was reading a bit more about this idea 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:56.640 of ghost trains, and there is this unofficial classification for 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.120 a ghost train, at least in Britain, that has nothing 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.040 to do with hauntings. And these are trains, according to 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:07.400 Amanda Ruggeri and Why Britain Has Secret Ghost Trains twenty 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:12.360 fifteen BBC. These are low frequency routes that often entail 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:16.439 mostly empty, if not entirely empty cars, and this is 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.720 a reality that the author describes as being due to 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:21.720 a quote bureaucratic hangover. 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.439 Okay, so these are trains that are operating normally. They're 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.240 just like they haven't adjusted to the fact that there 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.120 is little or no demand for travel along the route 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:32.160 where they're going. 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.920 That's correct. She goes on to write, there is no 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.800 single definition of what constitutes a ghost train, although the 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.560 general consensus is that it's when a service is so 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:46.080 infrequent the train becomes effectively useless, slippery or not. Though 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.360 the term ghost train seems apt, it implies a service 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:52.160 that is not exactly whole, something that whispers through towns 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:56.720 and countryside, leaving barely a dent in its wake. And 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:01.280 it's really interesting to read about these because a lot 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.640 of people don't, you know, aren't even aware that these exist. Perhaps, 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.160 But there are hobbyists, ghost train hunters, they call themselves, 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.120 who seek these out. They try and find these lines 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:15.280 or these particular trains, and sometimes they run at strange hours, 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.280 and you know, they're stopping. It stops their way out 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.000 out in the middle of nowhere and so forth. But 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.040 they kind of like pride themselves on hunting them down 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.560 and getting their pictures made on them. Or with them. 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:32.440 But as the article explains, these trains are often legal 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.840 placeholders to keep a line from being closed. Absolutely the 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.960 sort of lines that are mostly useless currently, but it 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.360 would be controversial to close them. It would be perhaps 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.480 bureaucratically expensive or require a lot of effort to close them. 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.920 And another big fact is, of course, you know, populations 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:57.200 don't stay the same. You know, what may be a 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.480 ghost station and a ghost train line today could be 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:04.560 vitally important, say five years from now, ten years from now, 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.520 as population shift and new communities develop and so forth. 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:12.600 The more official name for these are parliamentary trains, since 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.120 in the past and at any rate, it took an 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.520 act of Parliament to shut down a line, so against 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.200 speaking to the amount of effort that it would go 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:24.920 you'd have to go to to actually close one of these. 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:30.920 There of course corresponding parliamentary ghost train stations. Again, these 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:35.280 are also sought out by hobbyists, and these trains and 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.120 these groups are still very much around, so I would 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:40.640 love to hear from any ghost train hunters out there. 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.840 I also have to note that, especially with subway systems, 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.480 there are various examples of ghost stations that are no 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:51.760 longer in use, often for logistical reasons or expansion reasons, 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.720 such as the famous City Hall station in New York City, 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:59.400 noted for its Romanesque Revival architecture. Sometimes stations such as 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:03.440 this are used on tours, or they're repurposed. And yeah, 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:07.360 there's something captivating about the idea of such places, stops 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.440 that are on the line but no longer stops, human 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.000 spaces that have literally been carved out of the interior 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.120 of the earth, but are just no longer used by 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:20.240 human beings. And you know, after I was putting together 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.040 my notes on this section, I was walking back to 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.160 my house from a place that I was working remotely, 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.840 and as luck would have it, I was walking right 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.640 past a ghost tunnel of the Marta rail system here 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:38.560 in Atalanta. There's about two hundred feet of tunnel, originally 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.760 built for a Tucker North to cabline expansion that was 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:46.400 never completed, now just a yawning urban cave amidst other 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:50.600 track structures. And I really don't think i'd noticed this 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:55.720 until yesterday. I looked up and there's a YouTube page 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.920 called V twelve Productions that does a lot of stuff 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.720 on trains and also some stuff on like urban and 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.080 Atlanta architecture and so forth. They did a nice video 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.480 on it about six years ago. So now I know 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:13.800 all about this kind of haunting cave, this unnatural human 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.560 made cave in the earth, just you know, a stone's 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:17.400 throw from where I live. 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:19.760 Did you take this photo in our outline here? 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:21.800 I did not. I felt a lot of people have 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.399 sought this out. I think some people were doing a 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.520 little sneaking around to get in there and get closer, 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.199 because there's it's not just the tunnel, there's also a 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.600 length it's like, what do you call it? A trench 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:39.479 that was constructed too. Like Basically, the situation was they 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:46.199 were building out the Marta bridgework overhead, and if they 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.960 were going to do this line, they would need to 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.280 make the tunnel now rather than later. It would be 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:53.280 just so much cheaper to go ahead and build the 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:57.240 tunnel early than to do it later once everything else 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:58.720 was built up around it. 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.000 The steep cutting in the earth reminding me of that 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.160 haunting descriptive passage from the signalman. Right, you know, there's 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:09.320 just the strip of sky and seeing the stone on 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:13.720 either side the damp walls. But it's one of these 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:16.840 visions that's both gloomy and beautiful at the same time. 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:29.000 Yeah, now getting into some more examples of like straight 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:33.480 up ghost trains, actual spectral trains, haunted trains, trains associated 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:38.040 with ghosts or supernatural creatures. We're gonna turn briefly here 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.359 once more to Japan. I want to add the caveat 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.000 that again. There's so many ghost train traditions around the world, 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:47.160 and some of them are rather popular, but we ultimately 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:49.000 had to focus on ones that maybe had just a 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:52.240 little more in some cases, a little more scholarship around them, 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.040 or just a few more just interesting things to point out, 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:56.840 because some of them are just like, hey, there's a 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.399 ghost train, Yeah, rides around. We're not sure it's going 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.399 where it's coming from maybe Hell, we don't know, And 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:07.560 you know, those are fun and that maybe there's less 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:08.520 meat to chew on. 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:09.920 There for us. 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:12.840 But anyway, there are a few different traditions in Japan, 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:17.400 one of which concerns the legendary Tanukis of Japan. We've 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:21.840 discussed these before. You have. These are the okai versions 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:26.520 of the actual Japanese raccoon dog, which, to be clear, 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:30.400 are far more closely related to dogs. They are part 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.800 of the kind of day family, so they are there 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.240 essentially dog can. They are not raccoon can, except in 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:39.760 a very distant since. 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.920 They look like raccoons though they've got that kind of 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:44.200 head shape and coloration. 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.560 Now, if you've ever watched the excellent nineteen ninety four 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.760 Studio Ghibli film Pom Poko, then you know all about 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:54.080 these guys, and if you haven't, you should go watch it. 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:56.920 It's I believe it's on Max in the States, and 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.480 it's excellent, taking viewers into the world of shape shifting 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:06.119 by way of their testicles. Bake danuki. These are yokai tanuki, 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:11.920 supernatural tanuki and their struggles alongside a changing, modernizing world. 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.400 And this last bit is a common theme in tanuki lore, 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:19.919 especially during the Meiji era. The tanuki are a symbol 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.880 of the folkloric wilds of rural life. The traditional tanuki 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:27.760 statue also entails multiple symbols for good luck, and you'll 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.240 find them in both rural and urban Japanese neighborhoods today, 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:36.160 in front of homes and so forth, in pandemonium and parade. 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:40.560 Japanese monsters and the culture of yokai. Michael Dilan Foster 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:44.240 describes ways in which the tanuki and the locomotive stand 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:47.800 in stark opposition to each other. So you know, a 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.760 reminder here the first Japanese rail line opened in eighteen 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.600 seventy two and remains an impressive and highly connected form 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:57.280 of public transportation there. 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:02.360 Yeah, but I call reading. And by the way, Michael 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.879 Dylan Foster is a folklorist I've cited on the show before. 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.760 His book of Yokai is great, but I think I've 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.760 seen him write that there was some on record, some 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:17.240 ambivalence about the edition of the railroad to Japanese life. 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.160 Yeah, yeah, and that seems to be reflected in these 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:26.320 tales of the tanuki. They're sort of two main legends 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:31.119 slash accounts to take into account here concerning the tanuki 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.360 and the train, and they both occur where these two 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.920 worlds meet, you know, the world of the folklore, magical 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:44.320 wild and this rapidly modernizing world. So you imagine a 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:48.440 lonely train track running through the wilderness in Japan, and 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.320 if you're aboard one of these trains, or maybe you're 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:54.680 working on the rail, or maybe you're at some sort 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:59.680 of like very rural train station, and suddenly you hear 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:03.040 the sounds or you see the lights of an oncoming train, 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:05.520 Well that's a cause for alarm for all the reasons 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:09.399 we've cited so far. So if you're if you're if 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:11.639 you're on a boarded train, perhaps you slow or stop. 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:13.720 If you're working, well, then you know, you freak out. 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.600 You try and get in touch with with with the 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:18.359 folks and let them know that there's some sort of 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:21.600 unexpected train on the track. But then, as is the 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:25.480 case with ghost trains, sometimes it never shows up. It 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:28.040 becomes clear that this was a false alarm. There was 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:33.240 no train, and in this case, via the supernatural Yokai explanation, 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.800 this was clearly the work of the Tanuki's mimicking the 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:40.640 sights and sounds of a train to mess with these humans. 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.800 A little trickster is okay. So this, I think is 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:48.040 a is a slightly more humorous take on the ghost train, 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:52.080 Like there's a bit of a spirit of pranksteriness about it. 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.480 Yeah, yeah, where it's like, oh Tanuki's they they got 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:58.360 us again. But then there's a flip side to it 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:02.320 and uh, and this is where one sees the side 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:05.600 of a dead Tanuki, perhaps cut in half by train 0:23:05.760 --> 0:23:08.640 by a roaring train by the side of the tracks, 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:13.440 and Foster describes it as follows. The confrontation between tanuki 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:17.000 and steam train, a common trope during this period, gestures 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:20.919 dramatically to the changing meanings of yokai. The old forms 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:23.760