"The Gladsville Whistler"

**"The Gladsville Whistler"** is a mysterious paranormal event that occurs on Halloween nights, normally featuring the whistle of a long lost steam locomotive. It is believed to be connected to an old story about a locomotive plunging of the dockyard shortly after the line was opened.

## Origins (1899 Gladsville Dockyard Runaway)

Only one month after the line to Gladsville Dockyards was opened to only goods trains in 1899, a small steam locomotive built to a design that was eight-years-old was delivered for usage as the dockyard's own locomotive. The engine was that of the London & South Western Railway (LSWR) 330 0-6-0ST designed for shunting around Southampton Docks, which made the design right as the dockyard's own engine. This locomotive was famed for its loud whistle that was heard over a mile away, a ship's tripe chime steam whistle. Unfortunately, this engine didn't have a long life.

Just two months after entering service, the tank engine was shunting a train of coke wagons towards one of the vessels when it couldn't control the train. It derailed off the harbour and sank into the water. The locomotive was salvaged but it had drowned and both its crew were dead. This marked the first deaths on the line since opening three months before.

## Whistles in the night

Following the above accident, the docks came under the control of the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) and destroyed the records of the dockyard's first locomotive, the docks bought another locomotive, a Dubs & Company 0-4-0 crane tank from Scotland. One year after the fatal accident, the noise of a ship's triple chime steam whistle could be heard, even when there is no ship in sight. The whistles heard were in short blasts and could be heard from a mile away.

Investigations into the cause of whistling came clear from a local boy who saw the engine plunge off the docks and drowned. This started the rise of a ghost train steaming around Gladsville dockyard, blasting its ghostly whistle into the night in the October air. Because of the load whistling and no physical ghost sighting, the case of an unfamiliar whistle from a ghostly steam locomotive became known as "The Gladsville Whistler".

## Physical sightings

Around the time the new Gladsville Motive Power Depot (MPD) was under construction, sightings of a black tank locomotive with white lining and no number was seen around the dockyard, blasting a loud chime whistle before steaming into the fog. Following the opening of the shed, the ghost sightings continued and Hughes, who was a believer in the story (since he never heard the whistle himself) started believing it after an encounter with a "faceless black tank locomotive with a large whistle, possibly a chime."

In 2000, Jenny encountered the ghost for the first time when she saw it staring out to sea.

## Trivia

The whisting sounds are done via a Powell 3-chime whistle. This whistle's diameter measures in at 3 inches, making it an unusual whistle for a UK locomotive. This whistle has really high-pitched sound, almost like a steamship's whistle.

In physical appearances, "The Gladsville Whistler" is a LSWR 330 class 0-6-0ST "saddleback".

* Originally, it was going to be a Dapol LSWR B4 0-4-0T.