September 27, 1879, Press, Riverside, California – Then there was narrated a weird story that I had heard once before. It was about an apparition of a phantom train on the Hudson river railroad. It was told with an effort at sincerity that did not deceive the listener, but I am told that there are many trackmen and laborers along the line of the Hudson river railroad who pretend to have seen the spectacle. The tale was about a mystic 
counterpart of the funeral train that bore Abraham Lincoln’s remains from this city to the west. The actual and substantial train passed over the road on a certain day in April, 1865.
The car that contained the president’s remains, was heavily draped, I believe. It is said that on that night every year all the train men who are on the road during a certain hour (that varies in different subdivisions of the road) hear and see and feel the specter train rush by them. It sounds hollow and awful. The lights are yellow, pale and funereal. Its train hands and passengers are sepulchral figures. It looks like the outline of a train, yet every detail is perfect. Those who have seen it say though they felt it was only a vision, that a man could walk through it if he dared, or throw a stone through it; yet it seemed perfect in everything but substantialness. It even carries with it a whirl of wind as fast trains do, but it is a cold, clammy, grave like atmosphere, all its own. As it passes another train the shriek of the whistle and clang of its bell strike terror to the hearts of those that hear them.
