Haunted railroad tracks in San Antonio

A set of active railroad tracks owned by Union Pacific sits a Villamain Road and Shane Road. According to San Antonio’s urban legends, that twenty-six children who were deceased in a school bus accident will push your vehicle safely off of the tracks.

People say that if you roll your vehicle onto the railroad tracks, put it in neutral and release the brakes that your vehicle would roll off of the tracks to safety. Some people even take it a step further and put baby powder on the rear bumper to see if the hands of the deceased students and bus driver appear.

The reality is that the tracks are at a slight slant which you can’t see with the naked eye in which causes vehicles to roll off in a forward motion. People that say they see hand prints after sprinkling baby powder on the rear could still have oil residue from hands touching the back of the vehicle.

According to an article at the time, In December of 1938, a bus carrying twenty-three high school students and the bus driver in Salt Lake City, Utah lost their lives after stalling on the tracks and being struck by a 80-plus car freight train going about 50 miles per hour.

No local tragedy had taken place in San Antonio at that time and by confusion word had spread around San Antonio about the Utah accident with misconstrued details.

What about the street names of the neighborhood? The names come from the children of the developer in the area.

On March 28, 1920, a similar accident occurred near New Braunfels, TX on Easter Sunday. A family of six were taking a ride in their Model T car to visit family in Seguin. As they were crossing the railroad tracks, a train had hit them at full speed causing the vehicle to flip numerous of times before coming to a stop. All passengers were immediately killed.

Locals are still convinced that the San Antonio tracks are haunted. Today people are putting baby powder on the bumper of their car to see if tiny hand prints would appear. A little warning, during the month of October, the area gets congested with people who want to try to see if they can get the track experience.

In 2018, Union Pacific to modify the elevation of the tracks to eliminate the illusion of being pushed over the tracks.