One of our frequently visited sites is the Blue Ghost Tunnel. The Thorold Railway Tunnel (Blue Ghost Tunnel) is located in St. Catharines near the flight locks by the current Welland Canal. It is said that the Tunnel and surrounding area is haunted. It took some serious research to find out what really happened there and the reason this tunnel is supposedly haunted.

On April 22nd., 1875, official representatives from the Government and from the Great Western Railway met and signed the documents for the construction of the Tunnel. The purpose of the Tunnel was to replace a bridge which carried the Great Western Railway over the Second Welland Canal. The plan was to reroute the existing rail track in a circular route to the south and taken under the Third Canal by this tunnel. The Great Western Railway began construction on the Tunnel shortly after April 22nd., 1875.

The Tunnel was built by hundreds of men using picks and shovels and horses. Its location is midway between lock 18 and 19 passing under the third Welland Canal. The tunnel was built using the best class of dressed masonry of Queenston Limestone which was transported to the location by railway flat car and/or by wagon from the Queenston Quarries, and was laid in hydraulic cement mortar. Ironically there was a stone quarry next to the site. The tunnel entrance is dignified with magnificent stonework that might be compared with the quality workmanship of the Second and Third Canal locks.

The Tunnel is 16 feet wide at its base and is 18 feet in height in the center over what was the rail level. It is 665 feet in length. However it actually is 713 feet in length due to the large stone wing structures on each end of the tunnel. The tunnel has a 1.443 radius curve. The inclination West of the west tunnel entrance was 21 feet rise to every mile of railway track. It was nearly level through the tunnel. To the east of the east tunnel entrance the inclination was 42 feet of rise to every mile of track.

In April of 1881, the first train passed through the tunnel which officially marked the tunnel as being in service. The tunnel was in use less than 20 years until the mid 1890's. At that time they found that the single track could no longer handle the rail traffic and that there were several collisions on that stretch of track due to the steep incline on the east end of the tunnel. Once again the railway tracks were re-routed and a steam operated double track swing-bridge going over the Third Welland Canal took its place.

Before we get into details with this information, please understand that we are not paranormal investigators. We do not have the equipment, knowledge or technology to be paranormal investigators. We have no idea if the Tunnel is really haunted or by what or who is haunting the tunnel. In our research we have found articles that state that the Tunnel is haunted. We are only providing this information based on our own research. We have included some links to a few paranormal research web sites that have written articles regarding the haunting of this Tunnel.

We have made several visits to the Tunnel location however our first visit was in the middle of September 2003. Finding the location was a little difficult and did require some serious hill climbing. We did not have much for directions to go on but we did manage to follow a path to get down to the tunnel. On a subsequent visit we had found a shorter route to the Tunnel.

In our research we have found a couple of possible scenarios to explain the haunting of this tunnel. The first being an article in the Thorold Post Newspaper dated Friday January 2nd., 1903 which details an accident that happened near the west entrance to the tunnel. We have included a link to a copy of this article if you wish to read it in its entirety. We found this article in the film archives of the Thorold Post at the Niagara Falls Public Library.

The article states that the accident occurred near the west entrance to the Tunnel, inside the town of Thorold. The collision was between a light engine, on its way from Niagara Falls to Hamilton, and the morning express from the west. The engineer of the light engine was under the impression that the express was forty minutes late, thus they would pass at Merriton. In reality it was only 20 minutes late. He should have waited at St. Davids but because he didn't the trains collided at the sharp curve where neither could see each other. Visibility was only a few yards. The London dispatcher, John Auld is said to be at fault. The name of the fireman of the Express Engine 681 was Abraham Desault and was killed instantly. Fireman F. Warning of the Light Engine 985 was so seriously injured that he died shortly after being taken to the hospital.

Because of this accident one could assume that the Tunnel may be haunted or partially haunted by the ghosts of the dead from this train wreck. We are not going to judge the validity of this information simply because we are not ghost hunters or paranormal investigators. We would rather leave that up to the professionals. However, we did take the time to shoot some pictures in the tunnel and found a particular picture rather interesting. A picture that we had taken seems to resemble the image of a train engineer or fireman in the support rafters of the tunnel. At least that's the way it looks to us. The picture was taken with no flash and is blurry because of that reason.

Click on the picture to look at an enlarged image and look in the rafters just to the right of the center of the second set of rafters back. There seems to be a figure there that resembles the upper body of a human being. It seems to be sporting a cap of some sort on its head and a blazer type jacket.

There are a number of sites on the internet dedicated to paranormal research and Adventures Niagara is not one of them. However Niagara Amateur Ghost Seekers has an abundance of informative material on the BGT and many other paranormal investigations in the Niagara region. We encourage you to visit their web site at www.nagscanada.com or to view their article on the BGT visit www.nagscanada.com/bgt.html. A special thanks to Kevin and the gang at Niagara Amateur Ghost Seekers for their in depth investigations and information.

Another article I have read states that there was a school and a church located close to the tunnel. It goes on to say that to the west of the western entrance of the tunnel was a cemetery that was moved to make room for the reservoir that is there today. We believe that this cemetery was the old Lutheran graveyard and contained the plots of George Keefer who was the founder of Thorold, Ontario and his four wives. These plots have been moved to the Old Thorold Cemetery location which is now the old Lakeview Cemetery.

It took us some time to finally get to the old pondage area at the right time to get some photos of the old cemetery. Although there is not much left there, we did find a few old stomes and evidence that the cemetery did exist. We have included our photos in the photo albums which will prove that the old graveyard did exist.

We are sure that there are several other stories of various things that haunt the Tunnel and the surrounding area. It is not our intention or the theme of this web site to provide investigative information on paranormal activities. However we have included some history of the Tunnel proving why this site might be of interest to you.

The Tunnel has been abandoned and it has been suggested that at one time the city of St. Catharines had intentions of filling it in with dirt. It is now overgrown with trees and shrubs and accessibility can be very difficult for the average person. The west entrance of the Tunnel is not as difficult to get to as the east entrance. The west entrance has a well packed trail which requires a descent down a fairly steep hill. The east entrance requires some walking up the Bruce Trail path from the road and navigating through some thick shrubs and trees. It is not as simple as walking from the west entrance through the Tunnel to the east end and exiting there. Several feet from the exit of the Tunnel is mud and water deep enough to prevent one from exiting the Tunnel. Even with knee high rubber boots one still sinks deep in the mud to prevent passage. We have included a picture of the east end entrance to the Tunnel which was taken when we had successfully made the journey there. The photo was taken in the fall of 2003

The remains of the Third Welland Canal still exists with some magnificent stone work and is worth the time to walk the banks of the canal to take in the sights and sounds.

We have taken several pictures of the Blue Ghost Tunnel and the surrounding areas. There are several pictures below that show various segments of the tunnel. Click on any one of the images to get a larger picture. Below these pictures is a list of the various sources we have found to obtain the information included on the web page. If you want even more pictures, we have included several more pictures in our photo album section.

We have included the following link on Railway Accidents If you are interested in some history regarding accidents on the railway systems around the region. We understand that this has very little to do with the theme of the web site however it does provide some insight on how dangerous railway transport was in days gone by.

The Grand Trunk Railway Tunnel circa 1887	Only a few feet inside the Tunnel	Showing the supports that have been added	A closer look at the supports in the Tunnel
Close up look at the Tunnel Supports	East end of the Tunnel	Inside the tunnel under the supports looking towards the east end exit of the tunnel	Water at the east end of the Tunnel
Outside the east end entrance to the Tunnel	Rail bed outside the east end of the tunnel	The propeller ST. MAGNUS upbound in Lock 19 of the Third Welland Canal	Old lock on the third welland canal made from hand cut stone
Standing in the middle of the third canal looking at water overflow control valve	Standing on top of the overflow control lookind down the third canal	Crashed car in the canal by the water overflow control station	Top of the overflow looking at car in canal
Lock by the swing bridge	Swing Bridge that replaced the single track going under the Canal	Standing on top of the swing bridge looking down the tracks

1) The first picture at the top of the page depicts the building of the Tunnel built under the third welland canal in 1875. This picture was obtained from a newspaper article we found at the Niagara Falls Public Library [Welland Canal - 1970 (Vertical File)]. The article was published by Francis J. Petrie.

2) The second picture at the top of the page was taken by us in the fall of 2003. It is a picture of the west end entrance of the tunnel.

3) The third picture shows visitors at the west end entrance of the tunnel. Not sure of the date. We found this picture in a book called "The Welland Canal - A Comprehensive Guide" on page 64 and is copyright by its respective owner.

4) The fourth picture was taken by us in the fall of 2003 and shows the east end entrance of the tunnel standing in the track bed looking at the tunnel.

5) The fifth picture was taken by us in the summer of 2003 inside the tunnel looking at the supports showing the shadow of what we think is the ghost of one of the conductors killed in the collision.

6) The sixth picture came from a book called "The Welland Canal - A Comprehensive Guide" on page 64 and is copyright by it's respective owner.

7) The rest of the pictures of the tunnel have been taken by us either in the summer or the fall of 2003. With the exception of the ship in lock 19. The ship in lock 19 is the propeller ST. MAGNUS upbound in Lock 19 of the Third Welland Canal. This information was obtained from the Hamilton Harbour web site - chapter 13 - 1880