Ghost Train

Meet David (bottom-left). David is doomed , because David made the mistake of walking down the abandoned PRR tracks - which runs through his town - on Halloween night. Why is this a mistake?

A long time ago, Pennsylvania Railroad trains used to travel those tracks. Traffic ran smoothly, until 1953.
On a cool, foggy Halloween night in '53, an express train, pulled by Pennsy 4-4-4-4 T1 #113 was travelling along the tracks. At around midnight, the train was passing through what is now David's home town (the town of Moosic, PA). Suddenly, and without warning, the locomotive's boiler exploded, obliterating the engine and a few of the lead cars. Approximately 18 people were killed by the blast alone, 21 others died from severe injuries.
Shortly after that, trains travelling on the line reported mysterious headlights traveling on the tracks behind them. The police attempted to investigate these "mysterious" lights, but found nothing. Then, on a foggy Halloween night in 1955, engineer Robert Flickenger noticed the same pair of lights he had seen on earlier runs. But, to his horror, instead of the lights being behind him, they were infront of him. There was something in the fog, something he later discribed as a "phantom train". The police found no evidence of a "phantom train", but Robert kept claiming that he HAD seen a phantom train, but no one believed him. However, it wasn't until the line was abandoned in 1968 that the people of Moosic began to realize that Robert and all of the other engineers on the line might have been right after all.
Every halloween, the whistle of #113 can be heard in the distance. Mysterious disappearences followed shortly afterwards. Several people, including Robert Flickenger, disappeared without a trace. The last time anyone saw Robert, he was walking walking home along the abandoned line on Halloween in 1975. Every year, more and more people disappear.
...are there really such things as ghosts?
The people of Moosic think so....



As for David..........nice knowing you, buddy.
============================================

Show of hands; who here thinks David is toast? *raises hand*

For some reason, I started thinking about ghosts last night. I don't know if it was all of the recent deaths going on in the world, or if it was just the caffeine. Anyways, I decided to draw this ghost train after spending some time typing random things in Google. This morning, I happened to run across H. R. Giger's web site and discovered a few things I never knew about. Some of them I found interesting, including the ghost train from the movie "Species".
Those who have watched the movie might recall that one of Sil's nightmares involved a ghost train. The train was the masterpiece of H. R. Giger [link] . Anyways, after spending some time reading about Giger, I began to think about maybe drawing my own ghost train (since the ghost train sequence is the only thing I can remember from "Species"). Giger's train was really nice, but a little odd. The locomotive is devided into sections, each with it's own head (In the real world, the loco would be classified as a 0-6-6-6-6-0). I have to admit, Giger's ideas for the ghost train sequence was really nice. It's too bad that his version didn't make it into the movie. Instead we got stuck with a short and simple 8-second sequence. (click on the link above to find out more)

So, this ghost train of mine was inspired by H.R. Giger's ghost train. My version is obviously different. For one thing, the loco is not devided into sections.
I went through quite a few different designs for the train, but the final design was an engine with no eyes, the boiler resemble's the aliens' head from the movie "Aliens", and the locomotive itself is based on the Pennsy 4-4-4-4 T1 loco [link] . There are still some things about the design I might want to change. Plus, I think I'll make a 3-D drawing of it (this is more of a 2-D side view).


Now that I think about it, Halloween is not that far away. I think I'll go take a trip to Moosic, PA......

.....I like the locomotive's mischievous smile.....