Who doesn’t like a good ghost story. How about 50 stories? Haunted Rails covers 50 chilling true stories of haunted trains and workers from back when there were steam locomotives to today.

I really enjoyed reading all of these stories. A must-read!

I'm always a sticker for a good ghost story, and I've always loved trains, so this was a nice read for me. Some stories I hadn't heard before. Makes me want to go on a ghost hunt for of some of the locations.

There will always be skeptics who are not believers in the paranormal.
I found the book to be a quick read keeping my attention firmly planted throughout the book as I read it.
The described hauntings take place on tracks,trains,railroad buildings,museums, etc.
The hauntings include not only sightings of apparitions but old time music and other sounds as well.
I have had paranormal experiences since I was a child so I was thrilled to be able to have a chance to read and review this book.
The hauntings described take place in a variety of places including Pennsylvania where I live that has the famous Horseshoe Curve in Altoona, PA which is said to be very haunted.
I found the descriptions to be informative detail wise and I may be doing some research on the sites I've read about on my own now.
The book was well written and the accounts from actual witnesses was right up my alley to read.

Published September 8th 2019 by Llewellyn Publications.
I was given a complimentary copy of this book. Thank you.
All opinions expressed are my own.

As a fan of a sitting by a campfire and listening to ghost stories I love spending time hearing stories that whilst old are brand new to me. This book takes you on the rails of america to hear a whole host of stories from ghostly signalmen to haunted cabooses. From female apparitions to eerie rail stations. Its a title full of short stories, that brings them to the fore, well written, to the point and with research from those who have investigated the claims themselves where possible.

All round a fun read and one that I was more than happy to spend time with, especially when you add good storytelling blended with research to help back up the story. Great fun.

Review goes live on 9th November

Princess Fuzzypants here: Anyone who has heard the lonesome wail of a train whistle must admit there is something spooky about it. It makes perfect sense that railways all over the world might harbour a spirit or two. There are hundreds of thousands of humans who have ridden the rails and whenever there has been any kind of accident or incident, it is often something big and horrible.
This is a great book for Halloween as it looks at a number of reported hauntings. It divides them into specific areas and attempts to separate the ones with witnesses or some sort of proof from the ones that are likely folklore. Either way, they are cracking good stories of high emotion and drama. It’s the kind of book you may not want to read late at night, all alone, in a darken house. And then again, it might be just the book to read then.
Four purrs and two paws up.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley!

My apologies on the delay in the review.

I love these types of books. And this book hit everything I liked! I’ll definitely be reading more by this author.

Matthew L. Swayne’s Haunted Rails is an interesting book filled with fascinating stories of haunted railroads and ghostly spirits. I like this well-researched read but I wish there were much more pictures and that the writing was livelier.

I hadn’t read much about haunted trains before and I had no idea there was such a fascinating and spooky world out there! This book features many interesting stories about haunted railroads, trains, railroad museums, and ghostly train workers and spirits. Most of the stories come from the U.S. but there are a handful of tales from Canada and Europe. I really would have liked more stories from around the world but I do like that this book doesn’t only focus on North America.

The ghost stories are brief and easy-to-read. I loved reading about Abraham Lincoln’s ghost train in Illinois, Scotland’s spooky demon train, and Sweden’s disappearing Silver Bullet train. I especially like that the book includes stories about haunted railroad museums because this is a phenomenon I didn’t know actually existed! I also especially love the history that I learned about all the places featured in the book.

Swayne does not attempt to prove nor debunk these ghost stories. Instead, there is a nice balance between the sceptics and believers. Swayne includes information about people’s attempts at debunking these ghost tales as well as eyewitness reports of the paranormal events and lots of fascinating ghostlore. I really appreciate that there is a notes and sources section so you can read up on the particular ghost tale that you just can’t stop thinking about!

However, the book definitely needs more pictures to nicely enhance the stories. It is a little boring to continuously read blocks of tales which is only broken up with a handful of small and not very memorable photos. Moreover, while Swayne’s writing is easily understandable, it is a little dry and this makes the book drag at times.

Haunted Rails is a great and interesting read for paranormal and railroad enthusiasts. Although I wish there were more pictures and more interesting writing to liven up the tales, I enjoyed this book. I look forward to more of Swayne’s work!


🚂 🚂 🚂 ½ steam locomotives out of 5!

I have always loved trains. I live very close to a track and a few people in my small town have been killed by trains. I enjoyed these stories. I thought there was a good variety of places included. This was a fun read.

Haunted Rails was a fun read, especially if one is interested in rails and/or ghosts. The author has done a nice job in regards of various stories and themes, which made the book more fun. There's also the nice that he included both views of both skeptics and believers in regards of some elements to some of the stories.

Title: Haunted Rails :Tales of Ghost Trains, Phantom Conductors, and Other Railroad Spirits

Author: Matthew L. Swayne

Genre:

Pages:216

Llewellyn Publications

September 8th 2019

Rating:4

50 chilling true stories of haunted trains and ghostly workers from the steam locomotive era to the modern day



Discover dozens of hauntings on railroads in 19 US states as well as in Canada and the UK, including the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Atlantic Coast Line, Nickel Plate Road, Pennsylvania Railroad, and many more. Haunted Rails tells the tale of a possessed caboose on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and a Civil War-era rebel ghost train; museum hauntings at the Georgia State Railroad Museum in Savannah and the Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona, Pennsylvania; apparitions at Vancouver's Canadian Pacific Waterfront Station and Nashville's Union Station; and the haunted presidential trains of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower.



Filled with ghost trains, spectral switchmen, and frightening facts, Haunted Rails is a spine-tingling ride to the other side that you don't want to miss. All aboard!



My thoughts

Would I recommend it? Yes

Would I read anything else by this author? Maybe

Even though I knew some of the stores there was quite a lot of ones I've never read before , and the history that was mixed with the ghost stories also helped being them to life , while they was spooky ,they was as scary as I was hoping for but over all they was still good to read and enjoy . Especially this time of year , with that said I want to thank Netgalley for letting me read and review it exchange for my honest opinion.

This is a good book to read up on hauntings at certain train locations. In the back he gives credit for where he has found his sources for the stories. It covers locations throughout the United States.
If you visit different locations you would want to keep this handle to lookout for ghosts at that station, track or train.

I love reading ghost stories, and these railroad-related ghost stories were great (especially since I hadn't previously read many railroad-type ghost stories). The electronic ARC I reviewed had letters missing from some words, which made it a bit hard to read, but those were probably fixed for the final version.

I love ghost stories, the more chilling the better. This one just missed the mark with me.

Of course stories are a bit of fiction mixed with history. Some of the stories were well researched and debunked or investigated as well as could be. This is just a good little book to read to be entertained and hear stories of others experiences be they true or not.

Haunted Rails is a collection of tales in regards to trains, train stations and the freaky hauntings that plague them. For those who don't have a lot of experience in the ghost world, this is a great look into the haunted world. For serious researchers of haunting, you will likely find interesting tales from fellow researchers, with a special focus on the dangerous world of train crashes and those left behind.

I guess the word for me would be obsessed, definitely obsessed. I love ghost stories and I always have, I think it's something that runs through my family this curiosity. There's never been doubt that they exist, we don't have the skeptics around us, the scoffing of the disbelievers. It's always just the nodding and the question: What did you see? or Who did you see?

So of course I devour ghost stories, fiction and non fiction and my book shelf is packed with ghost encounter novels. I was so happy when I saw this on Netgalley and immediately requested it. I wasn't disappointed at all. Trains have always held interest to me. I live in the suburbs of Philly and whenever I want to go into Philly, I hop on the train which is right around the corner for me. Sadly, I heard a lot of news about the deaths regarding the railway and with sudden deaths come ghosts and with ghosts comes hauntings. Swayne does a great job in exploring the ghosts of the rails in all sorts of ways. The engineers, passengers, workers. It's a fascinating novel and it's up to you to believe or disbelieve.

Thank you very much to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

Well researched book.
Collection of ghost stores.
Informative.
Read a story a day and you shall enjoy them even more.
Some super spooky too!
I liked it!

Haunted Rails is a collection of (supposed) real life hauntings associated with trains, railways, and railroad museums. It's a book of quick hitters, with the majority of the reports clocking in at a few pages which makes it easy for compulsive, pick up and play reading. As with a lot of purported hauntings, the evidence is often light and based on hearsay for these stories, but the majority of them are entertaining to read about nonetheless, especially honest Abe's haunted funeral train which is said to still roam the tracks.

The author makes a good point when he says that ghost stories are often good history even if they are hard to believe. These stories are work best when taken as examples of cultural folklore, with tales blossoming along rail lines as they were erected and became the dominant mode of transportation. They are snapshots of an evolving history, from the Civil War to the Tube in London.

**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd..**

This book covers many of the more famous ghost related stories involving trains ( The Lincoln Funeral train as an example). I had read about many of these before in other railroad books, but this is the first one that I have read that was totally devoted to the subject. It is a quick read due to the content and length of the book.

I recommend this book for those who are interested in ghosts and/or trains.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook  page.

This is a very well researched collection of regional legends about ghost trains; actual full-sized trains that appear on abandoned tracks, usually in places where a major accident happened sometime in history.

The stories are presented as locals might tell them and it's left to the reader to decide how much to believe. I thought it was very well done, leaving room for the academic to study where these tales come from without the burden of belief (or not) to interfere with what is basically local folklore.

Well-presented and a fascinating read.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd, Llewellyn Publications and the author Matthew L Swayne, for the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of Haunted Rails in exchange for an honest and unbiased opinion.
I find ghosts and the paranormal to be an interesting subject, which is one of the reasons I jumped at the chance to review this book. I was hooked from start.
The book was well written and the accounts from actual witnesses were chilling.
Well worth a read.