The Headless Brakeman and the Ghost Lights of Maco Station

The Headless Brakeman and the Ghost Lights of Maco Station

On a dark rainy night in 1867, a tragic train accident happened along a swampy stretch of railroad outside of Maco Station which killed a brakeman named Joe Baldwin. 

Being a brakeman was one of the most dangerous jobs you could have back then. Before the invention of through-brakes which the conductor could operate from the engine, a man, or several men, would have to run along the roof of a moving train and apply the brakes to each car to slow and stop a train. Think about it, all that kinetic energy of hundreds of tons rolling behind the engine could make it extremely difficult to stop a train or to keep it from running off the tracks.

Brakemen would often die by falling off the roof of a moving train, sometimes even falling between the cars and being crushed to death or mangled in wheels.

Old Joe was in the caboose at the end of the train. It was better to start applying the brakes there and then work your way from car to car toward the engine. 

At some point, he must have realized that the caboose had come loose from the rest of the train. He could sense it slowing down and the sound of the rest of the train moving away. He must have grabbed a lantern and ran to the front of the caboose to try to signal the rest of the train that there was a problem. He must have watched in frustration at the sight of the train fading into the dark inky night. Its sound blending more and more with the rain. 

But then he could hear it again. Definitely the sound of a train, except this time, it was coming from behind. Raw terror must have poured through him as he realized the next train was speeding along behind him. He must have dashed to the back of the caboose to try to signal the other train because the last thing the conductor of that train saw before the collision was a light swinging in the darkness.

sImagine the force of a train slamming into to a caboose at full speed. The sound of the impact, the screech of twisting metal could be heard for miles. Dozens came out in the pouring rain to see the wreckage: the enormous mangled engine lying on its side, the remnants of the caboose smeared along the damaged tracks.

Among the twisted metal and smoldering wood, they saw a glow. After removing some debris, they found the body of a man, still holding a lantern, but his head had been ripped clean off his shoulders.

It took months to clean up the wreck and repair the tracks. But during all that time, no one ever found Joe’s head. They had to bury him without it.

Sometime later, locals began seeing a mysterious, unearthly light where the accident had happened. Soon the legend began to grow that on dark rainy nights: Joe would come back with his lantern and search for his head.

It’s even said that President Grover Cleveland saw the light while on a whistle-stop tour through the area in 1889. When he told local dignitaries what he saw, they told him the story of Old Joe Baldwin.

Reports of the light persisted into the twentieth century. Some say it’s just the glow that comes off the phosphorescent gas that comes out of the swamp. Others insist that it’s Old Joe looking for his head. There have been plenty of stories and even songs written about it over the years. 

They finally removed the old abandoned section of track where the accident occurred in 1977. But people to this day still claim they see the ghost light of Maco Station haunting the place where Joe lost his head.

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