The Tale of The Phantom Train

Bob Twohey was the engineer and Gus Day the fireman on an engine from Medicine Hat to Dunmore about 11:00 o’clock one June night in 1908. At Dunmore, they were to couple up with Spokane Flyer, which did not enter Medicine Hat, and take it to Lethbridge and into the Crowsnest Pass. When they were two miles out of Medicine Hat, there appeared before them on the single track another train. As Gus Day was to recall years later, the headlight was the size of a wagon wheel. The reflection ahead was a though the firebox were open on the locomotive of the oncoming train.

Day shouted to Twohey and made ready to jump. Twohey reached for the brake valve, but his hand stopped in midair. The approaching train whistled a warning signal for the curve around which Twohey’s train had just come. Both men watched as a string of phantom coaches sped past. The coach windows were lighted and the crew members waved from the place where they should have been in a regular train.

Then the phantom train disappeared. Both men said nothing, fearing what each might say had he expressed his feelings. They continued their hook-up with the Spokane Flyer and went on their way.

Two weeks later, they met each other on the street in Medicine Hat. They then found the courage to ask each other about what they had seen that surprising night. Each man was thankful to learn that the other had seen and witnessed the same thing and had felt the same spooky feeling. It still worried Twohey, who had been to a fortune teller and had been told he would be dead in a month.

“I’m going to lay off the job for a couple of months” said Twohey. But Gus Day stayed on the job.

A few nights later, Day was on the same engine going about the same duties. The engineer was J. Nicholson, who was replacing Twohey. At exactly the same spot the phantom train appeared again, headed toward them with the whistle blowing and the headlights burning as before. It again disappeared into the night with the passengers waving greetings.

On July 8, Gus Day reported for work and found that he had been assigned yard duty. H. Thompson was to be the fireman on the engine that was to make the morning trip to pick up the Spokane Flyer and take it east to Swift Current. The engineer was J.Nicholson.

Nicholson and Thompson left Medicine Hat and headed for the hills. About 100 yards from the spot where the phantom train had appeared on two other occasions, another train appeared around the curve, headed straight for them. This time it was daylight and it was for real. It was No.514, the passenger train from Lethbridge. The engineer was Bob Twohey, who had overcome his fears and gone back to work.

The result was a terrible crash. Both engineers who had seen the phantom train at almost the same spot were killed. The fireman, Grey, and the conductor, Mallett, were also killed, along with seven of the passengers. Thompson, who had taken Day’s place, escaped death by jumping from the engine.

Some years later, a weekly locomotive newspaper published a story about a phantom train in Colorado. Gus Day had by this time retired and was working as a stationary engineer for a club in Victoria, B.C. He, of course, read the newspaper.

The story about the Colorado phantom train brought back many memories of the Medicine Hat incident. He decided to tell his story to Mr. F. Moriarty, who worked for a Vancouver paper. When Day came to the part about the collision that followed the two sightings, Moriarty wrote with personal knowledge. He had been the Canadian Pacific telegrapher at Calgary at the time of the crash and had handled the story.

There is no doubt that the two phantom incidents that were witnessed by the railroad men belong in the realm of the unexplainable, but the real accident that killed some of the crew and passengers was explainable.

Nicholson, one of the engineers, had some problems on his mind the day of the accident and had forgotten about the passenger train coming into Medicine Hat. This was the only train that had not arrived at the station when the little train departed.

Another contributing factor was the failure of the Medicine Hat station operator to list the late arriving train in a clearance report. History has it that the operator fled the country and was never seen again