Case file · Haunting
Moonville Tunnel
A railway tunnel at the ghost town of Moonville in Vinton County. In February 1895 the Chillicothe Gazette reported that 'the ghost' had returned to stop freight trains where an engineer had died.
1895 CE · 39.31, -82.32 · status: legend
The account
The best-known story is of a brakeman with a lantern killed on the line; a brakeman's fatal fall nearby was reported in 1859. Other stories tell of a lady in white and of the smell of lilacs.
The sceptical view
The tunnel stories mix several real railway deaths with retellings; there is no evidence beyond anecdotes.