The LNER Encyclopedia

Micky wrote:

52D wrote:Connington appears to be one of the places on the ECML that has had a few accidents in the same location, we hace discussed this before so you should get to the bottom of it in a couple of days.

CONNINGTON also had a 'haunted level crossing' right outside CONNINGTON NORTH s/box

Known locally as 'The crossing of death' (possibly after Connington north s/box was closed?)

Apparently the crossing was the scene of a number of fatalities in the past

Theres a story of a signalman hearing a car pull up outside the box and voices calling up to the signalman, on looking out of the s/box window there was 'no car or nobody' outside the box just the empty road?. Apparently there was a 'nasty incident' on the level crossing involving several people during WWII who arrived at the crossing in a car and got out of the car walked out on to the crossing and were killed by a passing train (Connington north box stood in open flat fenland for miles around)

Also seen was the widow dressed all in black and wearing a black veil standing at the crossing in the early hours of a misty morning at 5:00am and the 'headless' farm hand waiting to cross at the gates and then disappearing??

*** If you type in CONNINGTON NORTH s/box theres a great site with new pictures of s/boxes on the SANDY to ESSENDINE section of the G.N.R.

hq1hitchin wrote:A load of cobblers, Micky and Barry - I heard all those tales as well - ghost cars, sound of footsteps coming towards the box during falling snow, only for no footprints to be visible when the signalman summoned up the courage to go towards the door have a look see, the church clock at Connington chiming 13 etc . An elaborate hoax by the regular blokes to keep the relief men away, at least those of a more nervous disposition

Location: Conington (Cambridgeshire) - Railway junction (8m NE Peterborough)
Type: Haunting Manifestation
Date / Time: 16 October, 4pm (Reoccurring)
Further Comments: 1948 saw the tragic death of Colonel Mellows, when he drove his car over the tracks only to be hit by a speeding train. Another explanation of the ghosts here says that a lorry of German POWs was hit during World War Two, and that one of these soldiers now haunts the area.

As the London-bound express trains thunder at ever increasing speeds past the Cambridgeshire village of Connington, they race over a tiny crossing, which a series of tragic accidents have endowed with such a sinister reputation, that it has been branded “the crossing of death”. In the 1940’s six German prisoners-of-war, were killed here when a light engine ploughed into the lorry in which they were travelling, early one foggy Monday morning. On 16th October 1948 Colonel A.H. Mellows was driving his black Chrysler car towards the crossing at around 5.30pm. His passenger, Mr A.F. Percival, got out of the car to open the gates. The colonel edged his car forward and drove straight into the path of a London-bound express. The train ploughed into his car, killing both he and his dog instantly. Colonel Mellows was buried with full Civic honours and his dog was subsequently laid to rest alongside the stretch of line where the accident had occurred.

Needless to say with such a dreadful reputation the crossing had soon acquired a reputation for being haunted. Signalmen, who were assigned the box at Connington, would often hear the sound of locked gates apparently being opened and closed. Sometimes they would catch ephemeral glimpses of a large black car approaching the crossing, which would have disappeared by the time they arrived to open the gates. The aptly named Mr Norman Jinks, who was in charge of the signal box throughout the 1960’s, frequently heard the distinctive sound of ghostly tyres crunching across the gravel although no car was ever visible. The signal box was removed in the 1970’s, ostensibly for technical rather than supernatural reasons. But people still avoid the “crossing of death” when nighttimes lengthening shadows stretch across the remote and windswept fens.