By Trelle Burdeniuk

St. Louis ghost train still running

Oct 31, 2013 | 6:39 AM

– Editor's Note: The photo depicted on the left is of private property and taken from public land. People must obtain permission from owner before visiting the property.

By Trelle Burdeniuk

paNOW Staff

Edward Lussier looks at the spot where railroad tracks used to run near St. Louis. Now, the trees and grass still part down the middle but the only train that runs is a ghost train.

“We used to pull in here with the car and sit on the tracks. We'd sit here and wait for the light to come out. Scare the heck out of everybody,” Lussier said.

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Lussier was born and raised in St. Louis and calls the town home today. He said everyone in town has a story about the ghost train or the phantom light as it is also called.

“My mother is well into her 70s and she remembers coming here when she was in her early 20s, so it has been around for a long time,” he said.

The legend is a conductor was hit and beheaded at this site, but his body was never found. The light is either his train searching for him or his lantern as he looks for his head.

“People would come and go to cross the track and the train would be coming, so they'd wait and wait and the light would never come out of the bush,” Lussier said.

Lussier first came out here as a teenager and has seen the mysterious light many times describing it as “a single beam white light.”

He said many people have tried to figure out the practical explanation for its existence, including the lights from a nearby highway.

“I've sat here some nights when I was young and we didn't see it. There's traffic on that highway constantly, so if it was the lights from highway vehicles, you'd see it constantly.”

He said his mom told him the army came out in the 1960s to investigate if the light was caused by swamp gas, but that theory was also proven wrong.

Although Lussier doesn't believe a ghost is behind the light, he said so far there isn't a concrete explanation.

“It's something for people to question and figure out for themselves,” he said with a laugh.

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