The Railway tunnel in Moonville, Ohio is haunted by the ghost of a man who was crushed under a train. His headless spirit is often seek roaming through the tunnel.
Back in the 1800s, a brakeman’s job on a railway train was a hard and dangerous one. The brakeman had to stand on top of the railcars and use a long metal bar to unhook the brake couplings to slow down or stop the train.
Many brakemen suffered horrible accidents, losing a hand or an arm when they made a mistake. A slip of the hand or foot could plunge him headlong to destruction.
That’s what happened to one brakeman as the train he worked on went through the Moonville railway tunnel. He had been drinking heavily and slipped and fell under the wheels of the train. According to the story, the train wheels ran over his head and decapitated him.
In 1895, a train heading towards the Moonville tunnel was forced to stop when they spotted a white, glowing figure standing in the middle of the railway tracks, holding a lantern. As the train slowed, the engineer saw the ghostly figure had no head. He saw it step off the railway tracks and disappear.
In 1977 a freight train was headed through Moonville. Near midnight, an inexperienced engineer saw a man standing on the railway tracks and swinging a lantern. He was about to brake, but the conductor told him to ignore it. The train was about to hit the ghostly figure when it simply vanished. The conductor told the engineer he had seen this mysterious figure many times before. He told him it was the Moonville Ghost.
In 1993, two students on vacation in Moonville took a shortcut through the railway tunnel. They saw a light halfway down the tunnel, and one of them headed towards it. Suddenly, he came running back out of the tunnel, screaming. There was nobody holding the lantern, it was just floating in mid-air.
People hiking through that area still report seeing the ghost. Thay always describe it as a glowing white, headless figure in the railway tunnel, swinging a lantern. Even those who visit the tunnel in broad daylight have reported seeing the apparition standing in dark corners of the railway tunnel waving his hideous lantern.
This reminds me of a story I had when I was little; three girls had a sleepover and they did ghost stuff and went to the train tracks where supposed ghost was supposed to lurk. It was headless and hung out on the tracks holding a lantern. The made it a papier macher head with a smiling face and everything to give the headless ghost. They went to the tracks at midnight and saw a bobbing lantern in the dark. They hid behind a bush and watched it go. It turned out to be a man walking his beagle, so they went home. They left the head on the counter and went to bed. In the morning when they came downstairs there was a chilling scowl on the face of the head.