The Train That Waits

My great-aunt Marta used to tell me about the summer of 1927, when she was seventeen and her family moved into a crumbling old stationmaster’s house beside the abandoned Fairhaven Junction. Her father, a railway inspector, had taken a post overseeing the disused line, and they lived in the echoing, drafty building with its peeling wallpaper and windows that rattled in the wind. At night, Marta would lie in her narrow bed, listening to the creaks and groans of the old house. But the worst sound came from the hallway outside her door: a slow, heavy shuffle, like someone dragging a chain, followed by the click of a key turning in a lock that had no keyhole. Every morning, they would find the kitchen table overturned, and the china teacups arranged in a perfect circle on the floor, each one filled with dust.

One evening, Marta’s father brought home an old railway timetable he’d found in the attic. It was dated 1919, and it listed a night train that stopped at Fairhaven Junction at 3:33 AM. He laughed and said, ‘No train has stopped here since the accident.’ Marta asked what accident, but her father’s face went pale and he wouldn’t speak of it. Later, her mother whispered that years ago, a train had derailed at the junction, killing the driver and several passengers. The driver’s body was never found, and they say he still walks the tracks, trying to flag down a train that will never come.

On the night of the full moon, Marta woke to the sound of a steam whistle. She crept to the window and saw a ghostly locomotive idling on the tracks below, its headlight a sickly yellow. A man in a conductor’s uniform stood on the platform, holding a lantern. He seemed to be waiting. Marta felt an irresistible pull, as if he were calling her name. She rushed downstairs and out into the cold night air, her bare feet on the gravel. The conductor turned to her and spoke in a voice like grating stone: ‘You’re late.’ She saw the train’s carriages were full of passengers, but their faces were wrong—they were all turned towards her, unmoving, with hollow eyes. The conductor reached out a hand, and Marta’s own hand lifted to meet it.

Suddenly, her father’s voice cut through the night: ‘Marta! Get back!’ He ran towards her, holding a lantern of his own, its flame burning blue. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her away as the ghost train began to fade, its whistle a mocking shriek. He dragged her into the house and slammed the door. His hands were shaking as he told her, ‘I saw it happen. The driver was my brother. He tried to save the passengers, but they burned in the wreck. Now he haunts the tracks, trying to find those who died. But if he takes a living soul, they’ll be trapped on that train forever.’ Marta looked out the window and saw the conductor standing on the platform, still waiting, his lantern flickering. She knew then that the house wasn’t haunted—the tracks were, and the house was just the gateway.

They left Fairhaven Junction the next week, but Marta never forgot. Years later, when she was an old woman, she received a letter postmarked from the junction, with no return address. Inside was a single photograph: the ghost train, its windows full of passengers, and in the front seat, the conductor—his face was her father’s. She burned the photograph, but that night, she heard the whistle again, and a knock at her door. A voice whispered through the keyhole: ‘You’re late.’ She refused to answer, but the knocking continued until dawn. And at breakfast, she found her teacups arranged in a circle on the floor, each one filled with dust. She never spoke of it again, but I know that on certain nights, when the moon is full, she looks out her window, and waits. She says she’s not afraid. She says she’s just waiting for the train that will take her to see her father again. But I’ve seen the fear in her eyes, and I know the truth: the train never stops, and the conductor is always patient.