spooky halloween train story wanted for cubs

[kidsrus]

On Friday night we are taking a group of 8-10yr old cubs on a night hike.
We would like to tell them a spooky story in the middle of a disused train tunnel.
The line used to carry strawberries from the fields to the city.
Does anyone have any ideas or links we could use?
I would like to use the senses to make it a bit scarrier for them.
Is there any writers out there that could help us please
Many thanks in advance.

[nightcat]

the most famous I know is a play by Arnold Ridley, quite a classic, maybe you can adapt it? Set in Cornwall..

Ghost train

[kidsrus]

thanks night cat that was based in the station i think.
I was looking for something in a tunnel maybe with a witch carrying a lantern.
Have just discovered a train traveling on the track was the loco 41248(GWR).
Also might use the year 1909.
There is also a cavern nearby.
Im just not a very good story writer and might just bore them all to tears instead of scareing them.

[kidsrus]

Perhaps all you writers out there could help me write one that isn't boring.

here goes.

100 years ago tonight the loco 41248 was ?(chuffing,chugging,rattling,) down the track heading for the city.
It was laden with the last crop of strawberries and the 1st cub group in the area.
It passed the cavern of the evil witch. Who they say walks the tunnel every night carrying a lantern.
This paticular night the train suddenly came to a screeching halt.
All the cubs were petrified as they had all heard the story of the faceless man who stops the train from time to time and then vanishes into thin air!
.................

[JackBauWooohooohoowaaer]

You want something more like

About 150 years ago come children were playing on the tracks when a train came through the tunnel and hit them, they say since then a mysterious flashing light is seen in the tunnel to warn of people on the track, it was seen where there was an early car stuck on the track and again when there was a horse who had fallen and in both times the train stopped in time, and then have someone flash a light or something.

althoguh I am crap.
But best scary stories are when something that happened to someone and then they ahve been seen a few times and then amke out they are appearing again and freak them out.

We had a teacher do this when we were out on a nightwalk along a canal saying there was a haunted boat that warned of danger. She described a boat she had seen earlier and she had asked the man living on it to flash his light as we went past and then jump out on u.
I nearly wet myself

[kidsrus]

I was thinking of dressing as the witch with the lantern, my Dh dressing as the faceless man who jumps out of the shadows dressed in black.

The story teller to hold a torch upto his face whilst telling the story.

Maybe find a way to make the sound of the ttrain and the smell of strawberries.

Even thinking about giving them a strawberry snack mid tunnel.
How am I doing?
Will it scare them?

[kidsrus]

Forgot to say I picked on 100 years as we have just celebrated 100years in scouting locally.
Also the track was opened in 1869 and Isambard Kingdom Brunel built one of the stations so could also put him into the story.
What do you reckon?

[JackBauWooohooohoowaaer]

I reckon that is way out of my league
but this could be quite scary if you tweaked it...

[HarrietSchulenberg]

If it adds to the spookiness, 41248 met a nasty end at Barry Scrapyard at some point between 1965 and 1980. Sorry, steam engine nerd in me coming out.

[kidsrus]

ooooooooooooooo how did you find that out?

Nasty end like how?

Was it gorry?

[HarrietSchulenberg]

Ha! No, not gory but let's just say it would have involved a blow torch and some serious metal cutters. 41248 probably got used as cat food tins through the 80s.

If you're a Thomas the Tank Engine fan it's enough to make you shudder.

It's on the list of engines scrapped at Woodham Bros. scrapyard at Barry here. My lovely dad, who is a true trainspotter, took me for a day out there when I was 4, to say goodbye to some of his old metal friends. Needless to say, I sobbed through most of it. Truly horrific .