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Post by dem bones on Nov 23, 2011 6:13:08 GMT
if you've not already had the pleasure, one for you Shrinkproof. i'm sure you've read better railway horrors than 'C. L. N's Captain Tom's Fright ( The Galaxy, March 13, 1867), but it's notable in that it's believed to be the first work of fiction to make use of a device - i refuse to use the word "trope" - later immortalised in The Perils Of Pauline, although in this instance the victim is a fearless foreman as opposed to a damsel in distress. This would have slotted quite comfortably into a 'William Pattrick'/ 'Richard Peyton's anthology. (you'll need to be logged in to download it) Attachments:
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Post by Shrink Proof on Nov 23, 2011 16:44:46 GMT
Fine stuff and, no, I hadn't read it before. The Civil War setting reminded me a little of Ambrose Bierce, although less well written (it took too long to get going & wasn't as creepy as Bierce).
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Post by ripper on Dec 19, 2012 18:27:17 GMT
Steve Duffy wrote a werewolf story entitled Running Dogs, set in a country railway station, which was included in his collection The Night comes On, published by Ash-Tree.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jul 17, 2013 8:23:55 GMT
A late addition to the railways anthology (something like "The Wrong Side of the Tracks") is E F Benson's "Corstophine", a tale I'd read ages ago but completely forgotten until reminded of it by Dem in his Benson thread - thanks.
Two friends are chatting over evening whiskies and one relates a recent odd experience. He's had a premonition in which he alights from a train at Corstophine station, somewhere he's sure he's never actually visited. He has to kill an hour there waiting for a connecting train. He leaves his luggage in the care of a porter (those were the days of proper rail travel!) and walks out of the station to explore the town. The description of his walk through the Yorkshire mill town and out into the start of the Moors is very well done. It has a real dream-like feel to it. The place is swelteringly hot and sultry (like the current heatwave), utterly deserted (though the mill chimneys are all belching thick black smoke), oppressively silent and getting steadily darker and darker. Eventually he reaches the edge of open country and comes upon a gate. This leads to the local graveyard which he feels driven to enter. It's overgrown with weeds although one rather newer headstone attracts his attention. Scraping it clear with his stick he reads his own name.
Some while later he finds he has to change trains at Corstophine for real. I won't ruin the tale by telling more, suffice to say the very ending has a neat twist.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 17, 2013 12:54:59 GMT
Peter Haining recycled much of Mysterious Railway Stories in another psuedonymously edited anthology which he fleshed out with a number of 'true' stories. ‘Richard Peyton’ [Peter Haining] (ed.) – The Ghost Now Standing on Platform One (Souvenir Press, 1990: Futura, 1991) [Published in USA as Journey Into Fear and Other Great Stories of Horror on the Railways (Wings,1991)] Richard Peyton – Introduction
Richard Peyton – The Tay Bridge Ghost Train Arnold Ridley – Journey into Fear Richard Peyton – The President’s Funeral Ride Rod Serling – The Ghost Train ...
Arnold Ridley... now, I know that's 'Godfrey' from Dad's Army, and that he wrote the play The Ghost Train, so is the info above correct? Is Journey Into Fear a short story by Arnold Ridley? Or a prose version of his play, with the name changed for some reason? Or are the contents mixed up?
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jul 17, 2013 16:40:35 GMT
Arnold Ridley... now, I know that's 'Godfrey' from Dad's Army, and that he wrote the play The Ghost Train, so is the info above correct? Is Journey Into Fear a short story by Arnold Ridley? Or a prose version of his play, with the name changed for some reason? Or are the contents mixed up? There are certainly overlaps. "Journey into Fear" is one of Ridley's and it isn't really a prose version of his play "The Ghost Train", though there are a few similarities. Both have folk stranded for the night in a station miles from anywhere, but in "Journey into Fear" it's a solitary chap who's missed his connection; a lawyer journeying to a distant client, if memory serves (shades of "The Woman in Black"). In "The Ghost Train" a whole party of ill-assorted passengers are stranded together. In both tales the stationmaster lets them stay for the night (as is to be expected, the weather outside is vile) and in both he gives them a warning before leaving them to it. In the play he warns the group that death awaits anyone who sees the ghost train, whereas in the short story his warning is that sight of the ghost train predicts a railway accident. The protagonist in "Journey into Fear" sees the train and, even though he's waited all night, decides not to get on the first train of the morning, the newspaper train. He thus avoids his own death as the previous night's torrential rain has swept away a bridge and the newspaper train plunges into the river. Ridley read "Journey into Fear" on BBC Radio after he wrote it (in the 1950s - his play was from 30 years earlier) and said at the time that he got the idea from the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879.
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 18, 2013 10:56:32 GMT
Thanks for that Shrink Proof. Does anyone know if Ridley wrote any other ghost stories?
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Post by ramseycampbell on Jul 24, 2013 14:31:44 GMT
Andrew Caldecott - Branch Line to Benceston Ramsey Campbell - Concussion Stefan Grabinski - the Motion Demon (or just about any other tale from the collection of that name) IIRC David Rowlands has a number of tales about model railways but I can't bring the title of the one I'm thinking of to mind, maybe I have the wrong author. The tale involves an extensive model railway and a house fire. And as I haven't posted here in a while, hello everyone :-) - Chris Forgive me for picking you up on this after so long, Chris! It's kind of you to list it, but "Concussion" is actually a long-distance bus tale. I have written railway tales, but not that one.
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Post by paulfinch on Jul 25, 2013 12:50:04 GMT
Sorry for not checking the thread in detail, but has anyone mentioned Bryn Fortey's Shrewhampton North-East?
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Post by ripper on Feb 25, 2015 12:03:28 GMT
I think that the David Rowlands story mentioned by Chris some time ago may be "A Graven Image."
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Post by dem bones on Feb 26, 2015 21:54:03 GMT
I think that the David Rowlands story mentioned by Chris some time ago may be "A Graven Image." You're spot on with the David G. Rowlands story, Rip. Been revisiting a few Haunted Library booklets recently and the typically brilliant A Graven Image indeed involves a model railway and a house fire. A tiny clay engine-driver and his real life counterpart feature prominently.
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Post by ripper on Feb 27, 2015 10:10:36 GMT
A Graven Image is a cracking little story. David G. Rowlands also wrote another Father o'Connor story in which a train featured...something about a haunted station and another burned apparition, though the title escapes me...possibly The Previous Train but that may be a third train story.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Feb 27, 2015 17:11:58 GMT
"The Previous Train" is indeed another Father O'Connor railway ghost story. A phantom train as a premonition of a disaster a year later to the day. A bit like Dickens' "Signalman" but not as creepy.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 28, 2015 7:26:40 GMT
And then there's: ‘Wyntours’ – David G. Rowlands. It's model railway ghost story time! I have to admit I've not come across a Jamesian style ghost story before where the 'ghost' in question is a giant crayfish. It felt a bit ordinary after the last story but it's still worth a look by those of an Aztec God Curses Plunderers of His Tomb To Be Haunted By Great Big Wriggly Thing disposition. And model railway enthusiasts. And those keen to see how the two might be combined.
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Post by ripper on Feb 28, 2015 10:02:41 GMT
Many thanks for reminding me of the plot of 'The Previous Train,' Shrinkproof.
Dem, how could I possibly have forgotten 'Wyntours?' By the way, the title of the story in which a burned--scalded actually--apparition haunts a deserted railway station is 'Traveller's Fare.'
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