The Victorian Ghost Lady on The Railroad Tracks
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It was 1994 and it was a strange summer. I had just graduated high school and was bored. This was before I had a computer, Internet, etc. I was headed off to college in August but in the meantime, a long summer loomed before me.
One day, my friend Tim and I were hanging out. Tim knew all the cool places to hang out and explore. Then he told me of haunted railroad tracks, that pass through the town of Green Island.
I was intrigued. The Green Island/Watervliet is a very old area and started as a Shaker settlement in 1776.
I had only lived there a year, as my family moved around a lot after my parent’s divorce. I was bored and it sounded fun.
The abandoned line originally ran from Schenectady to Green Island, NY. This abandoned railway line ran from Schenectady behind the Alco Plant Site and generally followed the Mohawk River. It went through Aqueduct, Niskayuna, Crescent, Cohoes and then crossed the Hudson River to hit the NYC line on the east side of the river at Green Island. The line was abandoned in the 1970s and early 1980s. Much of it has been converted into a trail.
We decided to walk to the abandoned railroad tracks, including crossing an abandoned railroad bridge that went over the river. I think I must have been my most adventurous back then because I would have never done that now!
As dusk began to fall, we got to the point of the bridge that overlooked Route 7. As streams of cars flew past below our feet, we were talking and joking and then started to see a light in the distance.
We weren’t really concerned about other kids showing up there, it was a very lonely and isolated place. Tim smoke a cigarette and watched closely as a bright bobbing light seemed to grow closer.
We really thought it was a person. But then Tim shone his flashlight through the bobbing light and it disappeared. At that point, we booked it down the…
