🚀 go-pugleaf

[A thread here about a month ago dealt with a railroad crossing that is
supposedly haunted by the ghosts of some children killed by a train when
it hit their school bus.  The story goes that they won't  let anyone
park on the tracks -- if you stop your car on the tracks you get pushed
off.  Further, if you spread baby powder or something like it on your
trunk, you'll see tiny handprints of the kids who pushed your car.

Since I was going to be in San Antonio over New Year's, I decided to
check the place out and report to the net.]

When I mentioned the idea of going out to the tracks to the friend I was
staying with, he rolled his eyes and asked where'd I'd heard the story.
He got a kick out of the fact that one of the all-time San Antonio high
school urban legends had hit the big time and got worldwide circulation
on the net.  He did volunteer that he'd been out there before and it was
kind of creepy.  He also mentioned an old graveyard that was supposed to
be your basic devil-worshiper haven was nearby, and most people who went
out there made it sort of a supernatural double-feature.  I passed on
the second bill, wanting to concentrate on the railroad crossing.  We
agreed that we'd make two trips -- one in the day so I could get a good
look at the place and take some pictures and one at night, well, just
because.

As it turned out, one trip was more than enough.

We stopped out there about 4:00 in the afternoon January 2.  There were
a couple other cars out there as well, one from Mexico and one from
Oklahoma.  One look at the place and you have to wonder how the story
even got started.  A side elevation view of the crossing looks like
this:

           Road               Tracks    Slope        Road
________________________/--|--------|-\     
					\
					  \______________________


I was hoping for at least a decent optical illusion, but this was really
bad.  The only thing scary about the whole thing is that the other two
cars kept going back and forth over the tracks *as if they really
couldn't figure out what was causing it*.  The slope above really isn't
that far out of scale -- it's really steep.  If your tires are even the
slightest bit over the second rail, you'll roll forward (or backwards).
It's relatively easy to put your car on the tracks in such a way that
you don't roll.

So, I snapped some pictures for posterity, got a good laugh, and went
back home.

The next day I watched the Oiler's-Bills playoff game.  Now *that* was
terrifying............

Oh well.

--Tom

-- 
Tom Streeter                                |   streeter@cs.unca.edu
Dept. of Mass Communication                 |   704-251-6227
University of North Carolina at Asheville   |   Opinions expressed here are
Asheville, NC 28804                         |   mine alone.