Tar heel junior historian [2008 : fall, v.48 : no.1]

The Ghost Train oi Bostian’s Bridge к More Famous North Carolina Railroad Ghosts by Tony Reevy* You may have heard of the ghost light of Maco, but have you heard about the ghost train of Bostian's Bridge? Bostian's Bridge is a sixty-foot-high arch bridge made of brick and stone. Built for the Western North Carolina Railroad in 1858, it crosses Third Creek just west of Statesville. On August 27, 1891, a passenger train left Salisbury for Asheville on the Western North Carolina Railroad (by then part of a railroad known as the Richmond and Danville). When the train got to Bostian's Bridge, it was 3:00 a.m. Most of the passengers were asleep. As the train crossed the bridge, it left the tracks and plunged off the bridge into the creek. Twenty-two people died from the fall or from drowning. The cause of the wreck remains unknown. A legend surrounds the wreck, though. The story people tell goes like this: Fifty years later, very early in the morning of August 27, 1941, a woman was waiting along the road that ran beside the railroad tracks near Statesville. Her husband had gone to get help after their car had a flat tire. The woman heard a train whistle in the dis¬ tance. A headlight appeared down the tracks, sweeping through the trees as the engine approached. The woman noticed the huge bridge in front of the train. As the engine began to v-T be Cowee f cnnei, Great 5moky Mountains Railroad, Difcboro v-T he Maco Light, Maco v-The Ghost of Mud Cut, near 5wannanoa v-The Vander Ghost Light, Vander v-T he Warsaw Ghost T rain, Warsaw _ cross it, she heard a horrible crash. She saw the train plunge off the bridge, its old-fashioned wooden passenger cars splintering into pieces. They piled into a jagged mound below. Screams and groans of wounded people filled the air. The woman ran across the road and through a field to the side of the creek. Up close, the sight was even more terrible. The engine, its tender (the car attached to the engine carrying its water and coal), and passenger cars formed a twisted mass of wreckage being flooded by the waters of Third Creek. Hearing a car pull up on the road behind her, the woman ran back across the field, screaming that a terrible train wreck had just happened. Her husband was in the car with a stranger, the man who owned the country store just down the road. The three of them headed back across the field and looked down into the quiet waters of Third Creek. No wreck was there. Of course, the men thought that the woman had fallen asleep and dreamed up the whole thing. But when they continued their trip, she made her husband stop by the Statesville train station to find out if there had been a wreck. The aftermath of the 1891 tram wreck at Carolina Museum of History. Bostian's. Bridge. Image courtesy of the Xorth When the couple asked at the ticket window, the station agent looked up from his work. "Funny you should ask," he said. "There was no wreck on the railroad last night. But, fifty years ago today, there was a horrible wreck out there at Bostian's Bridge." As he said this, the woman screamed and fainted. She knew that she had seen a ghost train. Even today, people say that if you go to Bostian's Bridge at about 3:00 a.m. on August 27, you will see the ghost train. These days, riding a train is one of the safest ways to travel. But passenger trains do not run across Bostian's Bridge, only freight trains. The last passenger train on the line, the Asheville Special, stopped running in 1975. A new passen¬ ger train from Salisbury to Asheville is being planned and would cross Bostian's Bridge. If you get to ride it, look for the ghost train! 36 TlljH, Fall 2008 'Tony Reevy — senior associate director of the Institute for the Environment at the University ofXorth Carolina at Chapel Hill— is a David P Morgan Award winner (2006) ami a Pushcart Prize nominee with publications in several genres. His books and cliapbooks include C.host Train!: American Railroad Ghost 1 egends; A Director)- of Xorth Carolina's Railroad Structures (with Art Peterson and Sonny Dowdy); Green Cove Stop. Magdalena; and Lightning in Wartime.