The Haunted Railroad TracksThe Haunted Railroad Tracks
J Hirtle The Last Storyteller
Jim Hirtle shares the famous haunted railroad tracks legend from San Antonio, mixing his own 1974 experience with the story’s roots in a 1938 Utah tragedy. The episode reflects on how urban legends are shaped by memory, fear and community storytelling.
20:55•2 Oct 2026
Ghosts, Gravity and Memory: Jim Hirtle on Texas’ Most Famous Urban Legend
Episode Overview
- Jim introduces season 10’s focus on fables, legends and urban stories passed down outside traditional books.
- He recounts a vivid 1974 visit to the haunted railroad tracks that blended genuine fear with a harmless misunderstanding.
- The famous San Antonio ghost-bus story is retold, including variations involving a nun or a farmer driving children across the tracks.
- Jim connects the legend to a real 1938 school bus tragedy in Salt Lake City and explains how repeated news coverage helped reshape the story’s location and details.
- He reveals a simple physical explanation for the “ghost pushes” on cars and reflects on how knowing the mechanics can reduce, but also deepen, the sense of story magic.
“"San Antonians won't give this story up, and that's okay. It's an urban legend. It's a story meant to be told over and over and over."”
What makes a recovery storyteller spend a whole episode on a ghost story? In this season 10 opener of *Addicted to Faith – The Last Storyteller*, poet and author Jim Hirtle shows how urban legends say a lot about what communities remember, fear, and keep retelling. You'll hear Jim set aside author interviews for a while and shift into campfire-mode storytelling, focusing on the famous “haunted railroad tracks” on the south side of San Antonio, Texas.
He shares his own 1974 late-night trip to the tracks with friends and dates, complete with a mysterious noise, a stuck truck door, and a heart-pounding moment that turned out to be nothing more than a misplaced handbag – the perfect mix of fear and laughter that makes these stories stick.
From there, he walks through the legend itself: a school bus, a nun (or sometimes a farmer), sleeping children, a stalled engine on the tracks, and a headlight‑less train roaring out of the dark. Jim then contrasts the tale with the documented 1938 bus–train collision in Salt Lake City, where 26 young people died, and explains how repeated newspaper coverage helped that real tragedy slowly morph into a San Antonio ghost story.
Throughout, the tone stays warm, reflective and slightly mischievous, as Jim admits he loves the “magic trick” side of urban legends and almost hates to reveal the mundane explanations—like gravity on a deceptive slope—that sit behind the “ghostly” pushes on stalled cars. This episode suits anyone who enjoys stories that mix nostalgia, faith-tinged reflection, and a hint of horror, especially those who appreciate how tales of loss and fear travel across generations just like recovery stories do.
It might leave you thinking: which legends from your own hometown say something about what your community can’t quite let go of?
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