5 Amazing tales of Phantom Trains rumbling throughout the hills of Cape Breton, long before the days of the railway.
The following stories were written by Mary L. Fraser
The Survey
When the engineers were surveying the Point Tupper to Sydney branch of the Canadian National Railways, they came one evening to a farmhouse and began surveying the land in front of it. The old farmer came out to them, and told them that they were wasting their time there, for the trains would pass at the rear of the house, for he had seen them there.
The next year a new survey was made, and sure enough to-day the trains pass behind the old farmer’s house.
Bras d’Or
Some years ago, people who lived on a certain hill at Barrachois, Cape Breton, used to watch a phantom train glide noiselessly around the headlands of the Bras d’Or, and come to a stop at a gate leading to one of the houses.
One who saw it herself told me how at seven o ’clock every evening for a whole month, every family on the hill would go out of doors to see it. Every coach was lighted, but no people could be seen.
At the hour of its approach, some people sometimes went down to the track to get a better look at it, but were disappointed at its not coming at all, although the watchers on the hill saw it as usual.
At the end of the month, a man was killed by a train just at the gate to which the phantom train used to come. Nobody saw it afterwards.
Mabou River
One evening, a man who lived a mile above Mabou River, when returning from feeding his cattle in the barn, heard the sound of a train passing where no one ever thought it would pass.
He called his wife and children, and they all listened to the clatter of the “Judique Flier” as it made its way over the grassy slopes and wooded hills of this beautiful countryside.
Contrary to all expectations, when the railway was built several years later, the route it took was through that particular part of the country.
Canso
The main highway at Port Hawkesbury, C.B., skirts the cliffs that rise high above the waters of the Strait of Canso, and runs close to the tracks of the C.N.R.
Across the narrow ribbon of water, Cape Porcupine casts his dark shadow from the Mulgrave side of the Strait, and busy ferry boats hasten to bridge the mile-wide passage. But time was when the houses on the steep hill above the road looked down on a much less active scene.
In these early years, two old women were walking along this highway, when all of a sudden they heard a terrible noise, a rushing and a clatter; then, more terrifying still, an awful, huge, black thing, with one big eye in it, came rattling past them and went right through a fish house that stood nearby. They ran to the nearest house, and entered pale, breathless, scared to death.
Years later, one of them heard a train on the mainland of Nova Scotia, and recognized the sound as the one she had previously heard. She died before the Inverness railway was built.
The track, when surveyed, passed through the fish house.
Mull River
One evening, a young man at Mull River, Inverness Co., was going to a neighbor's house, when he saw before him on the road, a very terrifying object.
It was large, and black, and had a red light in the middle of its back. A stream of light came from the front of it, so bright that he could see the shingles on the house to which he was going. It went up to the house, passed around it, and then came down the road so swiftly that he jumped aside to let it pass.
Terrified, he made the sign of the cross, then looked to see the bright front lights had turned once more to red. He heard no sound. Not until twenty-five years later did he discover of what it was a forerunner.
If you know of any Ghost stories from this area, or have a story of your own that you would like to share, we would love to hear from you!
Read another great story! - The Forerunner of Baddeck
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