Bostian Bridge legend drew ghost hunters

One of the joys of Chris Kaiser's life was looking for ghosts, according to a website honoring him following his death last week. His mother said Kaiser and friends would sometimes visit graveyards and other places of paranormal activity.His nickname was Nitemare.
Kaiser was killed early Friday morning when he was struck by a Norfolk Southern train on the Bostian Bridge, while hoping to get a deeper understanding of the Ghost Train legend, which says the train appears on the anniversary of a terrible wreck that occurred there at around 3 a.m. on Aug. 27, 1891.
Now Kaiser, 29, may forever be a part of that legend.The Charlotte man was on the Bostian with his girlfriend as part of a group of about a dozen or so who had gathered to see the ghost of a train that jumped the track, went off the trestle and fell to the ravine below in 119 years ago.

The 'Ghost Train' legend

The disaster has been called the worst ever of its kind in North Carolina; and the wreck, the most famous — or infamous — newsmaker in Statesville's history.
Because of the complete demolition of several of Train No. 9's passenger cars, initial reports were that 25 or even 30 had been killed when the train plunged some 60 into Third Creek and the ground around its banks.
When the dust had settled and the dead and injured had been pulled from the rubble, it was discovered that 22 had died in that wreck. Another 30 were injured, many with wooden splinters covering their bodies.In the days and weeks that followed, speculation was that the rail ties had been tampered with. And though several men were arrested, no one was ever convicted of any crime related to the accident.Among the dead from nearby were: William Houston, of Greensboro; J.B. Austin of Hickory; A. Davis of Statesville; Sam German and Walter Winston of Asheville; Henry Patterson of Salisbury and a mother and daughter, named McCormack and Foust, from Cleveland in Rowan County.
Maybe it was the ghosts of these people that a South Carolina woman claims she saw in August 1941. But when she first told the story, legend has it, she was unaware that those she saw were spirits. The woman believed she had actually witnessed a train wreck and saw folks struggling for survival. She said she even talked to the train's baggage master.
When she returned later with her husband, however, there was no trace of a wreck. Only later did she discover her vision occurred exactly 50 years after the actual accident. And so it was that the legend of the Ghost Train was born or re-born. The baggage master, H. K. Linster, was set retire that very day. He has become known, in some tellings of the tale, as "the man with the gold watch" and his ghost was supposedly seen within a year of the initial accident.
In either case, Bostian Bridge has been a curiosity for a long time.The site attracts ghost hunters and paranormal enthusiasts most years on the anniversary of the great train wreck. Most years, only a handful show up hoping to spy the apparition.But in 1991, the 100th anniversary of the catastrophe, a crowd estimated to be around 500 people showed up.All of them stayed on the ground and field near the Bostian Bridge, the same structure from which the train derailed in 1891.

Dangerous tracks

Kaiser, perhaps hoping to make the event more memorable, actually went out on the trestle bridge, which is only wide enough to accommodate the train.
Some witnesses of what happened in those wee hours said Kaiser and his girlfriend were on the trestle tracks when the freight train came through. They said he told the woman he loved her and then tossed her to relative safety on the ground below and then took the impact of the train himself.
That woman, whose name has still not been released, is said to be convalescing at home.
In any event, it appears the couple violated the number one rule of ghost hunting: do not trespass.
According the the website hauntednc.com, trespassing is the biggest problem related to the pursuit of spector sightings or sounds.Signs near the Bostian clearly indicate that the trestle bridge is "extremely dangerous."
Train track trespasser fatalities are more common than some may think.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration, nearly 2,500 deaths were attributed trespassing on railroad right-of-ways over the first five years of the current decade, an average of about 500 a year.