Night of the Train

Six years ago my sons and I lived in Lancaster, California. After a nasty divorce I had moved my two young sons into an apartment in a not so nice part of town. The apartment was clean and I could afford it. We were lucky enough to have moved into a neighborhood trying to resurrect itself. Home owners were taking back the tenements and there were some very nice people living on our block.

We made friends with a woman Sharon and her two young daughters, we had a great relationship and would visit often and many times exchange favors. We had lived there two years and then moved to Santa Barbara California. We missed our old neighborhood and would visit often staying at a near by motel, but many times staying with Sharon and her daughters.

One night while we were there after everyone had gone to bed and been asleep for quite some time, two to three hours,which put us at 12-12:30am, my oldest son who at the time was 7 woke me crying out "Make it stop mommy, make it stop, Its so loud". I awoke with a start, we had been sleeping on the floor in the living room with his brother on the sofa.

I turned to my son who was sitting up next to me with his hands over his ears looking at a far east facing wall in the apartment. I said to him "What honey? What is it?" Dale replied "The train mommy its so loud! How did it get in here?" I asked what train and he cried back at me, "That one!" and pointed. I looked at the blank wall, not hearing a sound and asked what he saw. He said "The train, its old and white smoke is coming out of the top..It's black and there are people on it". I asked him to describe the people, he described women and men dressed in boaters and traveling hats. Women with small cherry faced children waving at him, he began to wave back. Next he said "Look mom, look at the black man with the black uniform and hat he has a Light thing".
" A lantern?" I asked.
"Yes!" shouted Dale "a lantern!, oh look mom he's waving at us, wave back mom, wave back" and I did. For I knew my son had seen something I was not privy to, he had shared in a group of travelers trip..and I felt a tremendous sense of gratitude for them sharing it with him.

To this day (he is 13) he asks once in awhile " Wonder where that train was going? All those people sure looked happy" then he turns to me and says " Mom you belive me don't you? This happened I remember." I tell him "yes son I certainly do remember." I was there and saw his face. He wasn't lying or dreaming he saw a ghost train.

After my sons vision I took him to the Lancaster library. Dale picked out a photo of a steam engine and train from 1906. He told me that was what he saw and pointed to the people saying they were dressed like this. We found out in the library that day that our old neighborhood sat on an old train depot torn down sometime in the 1950's. This was a great experience for myself and my son. We are always conscious of the spirits around us.