Ghost Story of the Haunted Railroad Bridge

The Haunted Railroad Bridge

Urban legends are all around us. In a sense, they dictate where we can and cannot go on certain nights and what we can and cannot do in certain situations. There’s always a certain house one’s not supposed to visit at night, an academic building not to trespass between the hours of 3 and 6 am, a bridge not to cross between dusk and dawn, and a name not to utter three times, or else. Urban legends give a community its local color, a college campus a certain uniqueness, and a person their legacy.

The urban legend that I have collected was told to me by an 18-year-old sophomore at college. She was born in Ohio, but was raised in Maryland, for the majority of her life. She is pre-med, with a concentration in physics. The telling of the story occurred one morning during breakfast at the Campus Dining Hall. She claims to have heard the story from her friend’s friend, who is a resident of the city where the story takes place.

I’m not really sure where, but apparently there is this bridge somewhere in Ellicott City that’s haunted by a woman and her baby. This one night a woman was walking with her baby and they were walking over the train bridge when the train started coming. So the woman wrapped her baby up in her sheets and threw her baby over the edge of the bridge, into the water, hoping that somehow, the baby would survive. But it was crushed on the rocks and eventually died. The woman couldn’t make it to the other side of the bridge, and was hit by the train, and killed. Rumor has it that now they say that if you walk along that bridge at night, you can hear a woman crying and the train coming. Or maybe you’re only supposed to hear the woman crying. I’m not really sure.

When I f...

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..., Indiana) maintain a pessimistic outlook regarding the part parents play in the success and future of their children; however, the legend hailing from Ellicott City retains a positive one, putting forth that mothers, and parents for that matter, strive to see their children thrive in life. Perhaps this significant dichotomy is due to the fact that the residents from these three towns preserve very different “…hopes, fears, and anxieties... (2),” concerning parents’ roles in the lives of their children.

Works Cited

Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. New York: W.W. Norton, 1981.

“Crybaby Overpass.” Haunted Roads and Bridges. 31 March 2005. http://www.forgottenoh.com/Counties/Champaign/overpass.html.

“Haunted Places in Indiana.” 31 March 2005. http://theshadowlands.net/places/indiana.htm