Night in the Railway Museum
I remain a benevolent sceptic where ghosts and other forteana are concerned – not that you would guess it from the number of books and articles I have written on the subject. Despite my scepticism, I am fascinated by the subject of ghosts and would love to be proved wrong. Hence my occasional ghost-hunts, related in my blog Spooky Vocation, which includes ‘Vigil on a Friday Night’ (originally published in FT151:46) about my disappointing ghost hunt at Lancashire’s Chingle Hall in 2001.
I did, however, have two very odd experiences at the National Railway Museum in York in February 2010. Despite there being 10 other investigators on the vigil, I was alone during both experiences, so I don’t have any witnesses to back me up.
While the other investigators were doing the glass-pushing experiment, which I don’t find convincing, I wandered off on my own towards the gift shop part of the museum, reached down a corridor past the customer lavatories, where the ghost of a man in a top hat had been seen.
I walked around there for a while looking at the books and other products on sale. Books stacked on shelving spanned
