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{{trope}}
[[File:train2.jpg|link=Spirited Away|frame]]
{{quote|''"Watch out, brother, for that long, black train."''|'''Josh Turner'''}}
|'''Josh Turner'''}}
 
A recurring element in [[Oral Tradition]] and fiction. A sinister (or at least mysterious) phantom train beholden to no earthly schedule, often times in charge of transporting souls to the afterlife. A vehicular version of [[The Grim Reaper]], then, minus the reaping (though that's not to say that the train that runs over people wouldn't be hilarious). [[Psychopomp|Its conductor]] -- if—if not the train itself -- probablyitself—probably [[Chess Withwith Death|plays chess]], too. Interesting in that trains are a relatively young technology, regarding mythology,<ref>Although it may be related to the Greek mythological concept of a ferryman (to be specific, Charon) of souls to the afterlife.</ref>, but they've acclimated extremely well. The spooky train whistle also helps.
 
May not actually be a ''train'', but you get the idea. Video games love these things. If it IS''is'' a train, it may qualify as a [[Cool Train]]. Sometimes overlaps with [[Ghost Ship]]. Has nothing to do with [[Soul Train]], though it is often referred to as ''a'' soul train.
 
{{deathtrope}}
 
{{examples}}
 
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Digimon (Franchise)|Digimon]]'' example: In ''[[Digimon Frontier (Anime)|Frontier]]'' (Season 4), Takuya found himself confronted by Dark Trailmon, a train Digimon, after getting annihilated in a battle. Dark Trailmon offers him a chance to avoid going to the Digital World, and takes him back in time to when his journey started. But the catch? He's running around the human world as Flamemon. (His wearing a [[Sleep Mode Size|"rookie level"]] version of his Digimon form is a way around the problem of [[Never the Selves Shall Meet|two Takuyas existing at once.) He eventually decides to allow his journey to take place]], and [[He's Back|returns to the Digital World]]. (And the bad guy they were fighting has ''long walked away'' to sort out his lost memories by the time he got back. Oh, well. Next time.)
* ''[[Aria (Manga)|Aria]]'' has the appearance of aA ghostly train that appears to transport cats to some sort of afterlife appears in ''[[Aria (manga)|Aria the Natural]]'' . This is a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[Night Onon the Galactic Railroad]]'', even though Akari ends the encounter by quoting from ''[[Galaxy Express 999]]''.
* ''[[Spirited Away]]'': The train Chihiro rides to get to Zeniba's home is intended for use by the dead moving on to the next life, driven by a [[The Faceless|faceless]] conductor and holding silent soul passengers (who are [[Uncanny Valley|creepily]] represented as semi-featureless shadows). Kamaji comments that it "used to run both ways, but these days it's a one-way ride".
* Sister Rosette Christopher in ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' finds herself riding on one of these after she dies. Thanks to some words of encouragement from another passenger, she leaps off the moving train before it reaches its destination, causing her to revive in the real world.
* Arguably the "ghost" train in ''[[Final Fantasy Unlimited]]'' falls under this trope.
* The entirety of ''[[Night Onon the Galactic Railroad]]'', in which the main character, Giovanni, finds himself and his friend Campanella on a magical train journey across the night sky. At the end of the film it is revealed that Campanella had died saving another boy from drowning, and he has to journey on while Giovanni returns alone. The train scene from ''[[Spirited Away]]'' (mentioned above) seems to be a visual reference to this film.
* One season of ''[[The Gregory Horror Show]]'' had a bit of this. One passenger Gregory encountered was the ghost of a man continually re-living his daily commute to work. And while he wasn't dead ''yet,'' a giant chicken was unknowingly traveling to a slaughterhouse for his new "job." The kicker? Said man is the first protagonist.
* The catbus in ''[[My Neighbor Totoro]]''.
* ''[[Shaman King]]'' has Matamune, the split-tailed cat spirit, appearing in the afterlife and boarding a train. The image is a homage to Kenji Miyazawa's ''Night on the Galactic Railroad''.
** At the conclusion of the series, {{spoiler|all of Yoh's friends and family arrive on a train connected by their souls to save him and the other four Elemental Warriors from being overpowered by Hao}}.
* One chapter in ''[[Princess Resurrection]]'' had Hime and the gang having to board one of these while fighting one of her siblings.
* ''[[Hakaba Kitaro]]'' has the titular character put two other characters on a soul train as part of a hallucination.
* ''[[Ghost Sweeper Mikami (Anime)|Ghost Sweeper Mikami]]'' has a ghost train episode.
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'': When he's absorbed into the Dirac Sea, Shinji's mind ([[Wild Mass Guessing|we think]]) conjurs up a phantasmal train that is already in motion when he appears on it, and never, in turn, arrives at a destination. While aboard, he speaks to a second, unseen presence who [[Mind Screw|claims to be himself]]. Whether this other him [[Shinji and Warhammer 40 K (Fanfic)Warhammer40K|is in fact the God-Emperor of Mankind]] remains a subject of debate.<br /><br />Rei and Asuka both end up in the [[Fan Nickname|Hell Train]]. The real mindscrew is when, later, Touji visits the Hell Train...and sees Shinji and Rei in a similar train alongside him. His only comment is wondering what they are talking about.
** Rei and Asuka both end up in the [[Fan Nickname|Hell Train]]. The real mindscrew is when, later, Touji visits the Hell Train...and sees Shinji and Rei in a similar train alongside him. His only comment is wondering what they are talking about.
* ''[[Galaxy Express 999]]'' has an encounter with a train full of ghosts in the vicinity of Filament, a planet that had been suddenly destroyed some time ago leaving the souls of its inhabitants to live on in that area.
* At the beginning of ''[[Grave of the Fireflies]]'' Seita dies in a train station. When the tin containing his sister Setsuko's remains is thrown away, her spirit is released and the spirits of Seita and Setsuko reunite. They then board a lonely train, and watch falling bombs, which segues into the story of [[How We Got Here|how they died]] with the bombings of Kobe.
 
 
== Comicbooks ==
* In the ''[[BPRD (Comic Book)|BPRD]]'' story "Night Train", there's a spectral train full of ghost soldiers. Back in WWII, the train had transported soldiers, until a Nazi saboteur destroyed a bridge, wrecking the train and killing everyone on board. In the modern day, the train and its soldiers hunt that Nazi to drag him off to the afterlife for judgement.▼
 
== Comic Books ==
▲* In the ''[[BPRD (Comic Book)|BPRD]]'' story "Night Train", there's a spectral train full of ghost soldiers. Back in WWII, the train had transported soldiers, until a Nazi saboteur destroyed a bridge, wrecking the train and killing everyone on board. In the modern day, the train and its soldiers hunt that Nazi to drag him off to the afterlife for judgement.
 
== Film ==
* ''[[Ghostbusters]] 2''
{{quote| '''Egon:''' Did you catch the number on the locomotive?<br />
'''Winston:''' Sorry, I missed it. }}
* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'''s iteration of the [[Flying Dutchman]] is the nautical equivalent. In the Caribbean. Captained by Scottish Cthulhu with a Welsh name.
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** Not by ''boarding'' the train, though...
* ''[[The Frighteners]]'' has an afterlife express, but it only goes to hell (those who go to heaven just sort of appear there). In a way, it looks more like a gigantic worm that swallows whoever it's transporting and then sticks pieces of its own skin into them to make sure they stay in place/torture them.
* ''[[The Mummy (Filmfilm)|The Mummy]]'' (1999) has a phantom chariot that comes for Imhotep's soul.
 
== Interactive Fiction ==
* ''[[Anchorhead]]'' has a book of local legends that mentions ghost trains, including the sort that take people to the afterlife. The author states that this is a variation of Charon the ferryman in Greek mythology, and also notes that ghost train folklore in general is a relatively recent addition to ghost story lore, as clearly stories involving ghost trains could not have predated the existence of trains.
* ''Ghost Train'', a lesser known work of Interactive Fiction, begins with the protagonist being stranded on a railway after a horrific railway accident. Said railway becomes more surreal as the game progresses, resulting in the protagonist traveling on a few ghost trains to get to other areas. In the endgame, the protagonist has to redirect a ghost train filled with the spirits of the passengers who died in the railway accident so that the ghost train goes to Heaven and not Hell.
 
 
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* In Maire Philips' ''Gods Behaving Badly'' Angel Islington Underground station is a gate to the Underworld of Greek mythology, with the dead taking Tube trains to the afterlife.
* One of the ''[[Choose Your Own Adventure]]'' books centered around this.
* In the conclusion of "Changes", [[The Dresden Files (Literature)|Harry Dresden]] is about to die when he hears the sound of an oncoming train. In the very beginning of "Ghost Story", we learn that there ''is'' a train coming for him, and he has to be dragged out of the way to stop it from hitting him. This is described as a "southbound train", one that presumably leads to Hell. The [[Big Bad]] of "Ghost Story" is finally brought down by a rush of spirits so direct and forceful that it is itself described as an oncoming train, and when said Big Bad screams in terror, Dresden says that her scream was drowned out by [[Dragged Off to Hell|the "sound of a southbound train".]]
* In [[Graham McNeill]]'s ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]] [[Ultramarines (Literaturenovel)|Ultramarines]]'' novel ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', Uriel and Pasanius are dragged off a spaceship onto a Chaos-warped train that runs on the "blood-tracks" and carries them into [[Mordor|a Chaos Space Marine capital world in the Eye of Terror]].
* In the third [[Marla Mason]] book, ''Dead Reign'', by T.A. Pratt, Marla journeys to the Underworld via a train made of the thighbone of a leviathan. She takes this train from a subway station in San Fransisco.
* One of [[Manly Wade Wellman]]'s Silver John stories, "The Little Black Train", has the local [[Rich Bitch]] trying to escape a curse that the train will come for her (by removing all the local tracks). "A black train runs some nights at midnight, they say, and when it runs a sinner dies." It comes anyway, but she repents and the train retreats.
* ''[[Fire and Hemlock]]'' by [[Diana Wynne Jones]] has one of these.
* ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Deathly Hallows (novel)|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows]]'': The place that Harry visits in his [[Near-Death Experience]] turns out to be King's Cross Station. It isn't made clear whether this is what everyone sees, or whether it's just Harry. And Dumbledore gives him the choice between going back and going on -- byon—by boarding a train.
* In the ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'' novel ''[[I, Q]]'', Q, Picard and Data ride a miles-long train of livestock cars filled with listless people. In this surreal story, what is actually going on is slightly unclear, but they know it will carry them to their doom.
* In ''[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Literature)|The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]'', it's a ship, not a train, but Death and Life-in-Death play dice for the crew's souls.
* ''[[The Polar Express]]'' is a more benign form of the mysterious supernatural train.
* Played with in ''[[Neverwhere]]''. An Underground train of this sort appears to Richard during the ordeal of the Black Friars; however, the catch is that getting on the train, rather than committing suicide on the tracks, is what allows him to LIVE.
* Christopher Fowler's novel ''Hell Train'' has some living people tricked onto boarding a demon train that takes damned souls to Hell.
 
== Live -Action TV ==▼
 
* ''[[Tales From the Darkside (TV)|Tales Fromfrom the Darkside]]'': The second season episode "The Last Car" had five souls trapped for all eternity on an [[Aferlife Express]] with nothing but a box of sandwiches and eternal boredom to keep them busy. Whenever they go into a tunnel, they turn into skeletons and black out.▼
▲== Live Action TV ==
▲* ''[[Tales From the Darkside (TV)|Tales From the Darkside]]'': The second season episode "The Last Car" had five souls trapped for all eternity on an [[Aferlife Express]] with nothing but a box of sandwiches and eternal boredom to keep them busy. Whenever they go into a tunnel, they turn into skeletons and black out.
* In an episode of ''[[Seriously Weird]]'', Harris and all of the customers of the diner find themselves trapped on a ghost train (the diner originally having been a car from this train) with a ghost conductor determined to drive them to their deaths and down to Hell.
* The third <s>[[Cash Cow Franchise|and final]]</s> ''[[Kamen Rider Den-O]]'' movie features a ghost train, hijacked by an evil Rider for his own purposes. The other trains in the series perform much the same function as Soul Trains except for time-lost individuals instead of dead ones.
* ''[[Star Trek Voyager (TV)|Star Trek: Voyager]]'' introduces the Barge of the Dead, from the episode of the same name, where the dishonored souls of Klingons are sent to Gre'thor, or hell.
* The first episode of Spielberg's ''[[Amazing Stories (TV series)|Amazing Stories]]'' TV series featured an old man wracked by guilt over killing everyone on a train in his youth. At the end of the episode, the train he'd derailed -- fullderailed—full of the ghosts of the people that had died -- pullsdied—pulls into the station, and the ghostly conductor leads the old man on board.
* One episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone (TV)|The Twilight Zone]]'' remake had a woman being stalked by a creepy-looking bus driver and his bus full of souls after she narrowly avoid being hit by a car. The [[Karmic Twist Ending]] here is that not only did the car ''actually hit her,'' but the bus driver isn't Death. He's Life, and he goes to people on the brink of death when it isn't their time yet and shuttles them off to the world of the living again. Sadly, she doesn't realize this until too late and vanishes in a wisp of smoke.
* ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'': ''The Tale of Station 109.1'' revolves around an off-the-dial radio station that calls lost souls to the other side. The protagonist, who discovers the station on a hearse's radio, ends up being mistaken for a dead person and accidentally gets sent through the gate.
* ''[[Teen Angel]]'': The afterlife express on this one is an elevator to bring the souls into either heaven or hell, which includes a StarBucks.
 
* Played with in ''[[The Good Place]]'', which has the characters enter the afterlife without taking a train there first - they just wake up there. However, trains are used to travel from one afterlife neighborhood to another. In the first season, a train is used to travel from Michael's neighborhood to Mindy St. Clair's Medium Place neighborhood. At various points early on, the characters are faced with the threat of a train from the Bad Place coming to take them there. In the second season, a train is used to travel from Michael's neighborhood to the Bad Place Museum.
 
== Music ==
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* The Hank Snow song "Ghost Trains" is about a normal person watching two of these racing each other. The drivers seem fairly happy for eternal railroad ghosts, though.
* The [[Vernian Process]] song "The Last Express" centers around this trope:
{{quote| ''Will it go on forever?''<br />
'' No one will ever see.''<br />
''As it rolls along in silence'' <br />
''For all eternity!'' }}
* [[Iron Maiden (Music)|Iron Maiden]] has, besides "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (a [[Filk Song]] based on the poem mentioned above), "Ghost of the Navigator", where a sailor meets [[Retirony|during his final journey]] a ship filled with ghosts (though [[Word of God]] [http://www.ironmaidencommentary.com/?url=album12_bnw/commentary12_bnw〈=eng&link=albums states] that they're "ghosts of his subconscious").
* Not sure if this should go under Music or Western Animation, but the "Blues" song from the [[Defictionalized]] band Dethklok from the show ''[[Metalocalypse]]'' has a song "Murdertrain a Comin' (Why is this song the Blues? Because it's about a train, of course!). A sample of the lyrics:
{{quote| ''Here comes the soul collecting train of murder a-comin' ''<br />
''It longs to take your putrid blackened soul away from you''<br />
''Your face will leave your rotting head, in the early morning''<br />
''Your guts will leave your corpse, your spine will break and crack in two'' }}
* The bluegrass song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHdDjdTpN3c Little Black Train] and the more recent [[wikipedia:Long Black Train chr(28)songchr(29song)|Long Black Train]] are both about this.
* "Penn Station" by The Felice Brothers has a newly dead protagonist waiting to see which of two rival Soul Trains, from [[Heaven]] and... [[Hell|the... other place]] will get to him first.
* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfxoM6trtZE City of New Orleans]" puts a spin on this. In this song, it's the trains themselves that are headed to the proverbial afterlife, not their passengers. Steve Goodman wrote the nostalgic song about air travel [[Truth in Television|driving passenger rail service out of business:]]
{{quote| ''All the towns and people seem<br />
''To fade into a bad dream<br />
''And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.<br />
''The conductor sings his song again,<br />
''The passengers will please refrain<br />
''This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.'' }}
** Amtrak actually still operates a passenger train called the "City of New Orleans", but the rest of the song's predictions are spot on. Effective rail service has almost completely disappeared from the USA.
* [[Johnny Cash]]'s "Redemption Day":
{{quote|''There's a train that's heading straight to heaven's gate, to heaven's gate''<br />
''And on the way, child, man, and woman wait, watch and wait, for Redemption Day.''}}
 
 
== Newspaper Comics ==
* Lemont Brown of ''[[Candorville]]'' sometimes dreams that he boards a train from Earth to outer space, where he converses with recently deceased celebrities. For instance, he spoke with [[Apple Macintosh|Steve Jobs]] in 2011 and shooting victim Trayvon Martin in April of 2012.
 
 
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* The United States has many Ghost Trains but the most famous is the one that has been carrying Lincoln's coffin back to Illinois for a hundred and fifty odd years now.
 
== Radio ==
 
* One episode of the radio anthology series ''The Mysterious Traveler'' was titled 'The Locomotive Ghost'. It involved Joe and Tom, two would-be train derailers who prepare to wreck a mine train to steal its loot. At the bridge where the mine train is going to pass, they encounter a railroad riding old man named Old Boomer, who is a legendary expert on trains. He claims that those who die on or near the tracks get taken by the Heavenly Express, a train that carries the souls of railroad people from this world to the next, and always passes by when a wreck is about to happen. However, those who wreck trains on purpose (because, he says, wrecking a train is like committing a murder), will face the Judgment Special, a special ghost train which appears wherever there are tracks, to take the offender off to the afterlife to face judgement. Undeterred, the two of them wreck the mine train anyway. Three hours later, their getaway car stalls on a railway track and Joe is killed. Tom spends the rest of the story in fear of the Judgement Special, as he has dreams where Old Boomer has become the conductor of the Judgment Special and is intent on taking him to the afterlife to face judgment. In the waking world, he tries in vain to avoid venturing anywhere near tracks, but fate seems to find ways of getting him to go near tracks anyway.
 
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Wraith: The Oblivion|Wraith: the Oblivion]]'' features the Midnight Express, a train traveling through the Shadowlands that serves as neutral ground for all the rival factions of the afterlife -- includingafterlife—including those serving [[Eldritch Abomination|Oblivion]].
* ''[[Exalted]]'': The Midnight Express also shows as a mysterious soulsteel and moonsilver train that travels through the Labyrinth, conveying passengers to and from the Mouth of the Void. The Deathlords are interested in taking control of it; to date, they haven't succeeded.
* "The Train That Ever Was" in the ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' supplement ''Fearful Passages'', in the adventure "Iron Ghost". It carries its victims to a terrible fate: to be devoured by Azathoth.
* The Black Engine in ''[[Deathwatch (Tabletop Gamegame)|Deathwatch]]'' campaign ''The Emperor Protects''. It's a daemonic entity in the form of a train, which follows rails designed to allow it to become incorporeal and exist outside real-space. In exchange for it's services, transporting psychic individuals so their souls can be drained, it's fed human slaves on every round-trip.
* The [httphttps://yugioh.wikiayugipedia.com/wiki/Tour_Bus_From_the_Underworld Tour Bus From the Underworld] from the [[YugiohYu-Gi-Oh! (Tabletop Game)|Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Game]]. It even has a [[Cute Monster Girl]] [https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Tour_Guide_From_the_Underworld guide for tourists]! They later parodied the concept with [https://yugipedia.com/wiki/Tour_Bus_To_Forbidden_Realms Tour Bus to the Forbidden Realm], [[Self-Deprecation|which contains infamously-problematic cards on their way to the banlist]].
 
 
== Theatre ==
* In ''[[Guys and Dolls]]'', the song "Sit Down, You're Rocking The Boat" is about a dream the singer had about sailing away on the boat to Heaven.
 
 
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts II (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts II]]'': One of [[The Seven Mysteries]] of Twilight Town.
** It turns out to be a magic train that carries people to the Mysterious Tower, home of [[Fantasia|Yen Sid]].
* ''Zelda''
** A ghost ship in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: theThe Wind Waker (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'' and ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass]]''. Overlaps with [[Flying Dutchman]].
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|Ocarina of Time]]'': The Shadow Temple ship (that floats on shadowy mist!). It's not like there aren't ample death metaphors elsewhere in that place...
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks]]'': A very weird exception appears: We get the [[Cool Train]] and a [[Our Ghosts Are Different|Ghost]] rides it (along with a living passager), but the ghost in question gleefully giggles, smiles and plays around on the train while it drives around, removing all the creepy from the situation and moving it into [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] terretory instead. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN8Ls77-NNY The commercial] plays it a bit more straight.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VI]]'': After wandering onboard such a train, you have to fight it ([[Everything Trying to Kill You|of course]]) to get off. Since it's undead, a very common [[Revive Kills Zombie|item]] will easily destroy [[Anticlimax Boss|the boss]] for you.
** One creepy detail about the train is that you can look at the schedule book, only to find that they're blank. It happens that the war going on is causing so many deaths that the train is pretty much running nonstop, and has been for some time.
** Of course, you can also [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|have]] [[Badass|Sabin]] [[Good Bad Bugs|suplex it.]]
* The same train also appears as a [[Bonus Boss]] in the GBA remake of ''[[Final Fantasy I (Video Game)|Final Fantasy I]]''. The summon ([[Doomy Dooms of Doom|"Doomtrain"]]) in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VIII]]'' is also a reference.
* In ''[[Sonic Adventure 2 (Video Game)|Sonic Adventure 2]]'', there are a few soul trains in the Pumpkin Hill level that keep circling through walls, though they don't really serve any purpose. Except [[Everything Trying to Kill You|running Knuckles over]] whenever the player isn't paying attention.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', one of the wonders you can discover is a soul train. Likely a direct reference to the aforementioned Phantom Train from ''Final Fantasy VI'', seeing how many of the other wonders in the game happen to be locations and objects from the previous games in the series.
* In ''[[Grim Fandango]]'', the Number Nine express train carries only the most saintly of souls to the Ninth Underworld in four minutes instead of four years like the others who have to travel by different means. Illegally obtaining your ticket, however, has dire consequences, as the entire train quite literally goes to Hell as a result.
* One of the ''[[Darkstalkers (Video Game)|Darkstalkers]]'' games had a stage set on a train with several body parts and a skeletal conductor. For a series based upon horror tropes and everything related to the lore surrounding it, it's rather unsurprising that a Soul Train would be in it.
* There's one in ''[[Skies of Arcadia (Video Game)|Skies of Arcadia]]'' too. Travels at high altitudes between Nasr, the Lands of Ice, and Mid-Ocean in a triangular route.
* ''[[The Adventures of Sam and& Max: Freelance Police (Video Game)|Sam and Max Freelance Police]]'': Sam and Max board one to visit Hell, LLC.
* ''[[Metro 2033]]'' has one in the level "Ghosts". The headlights are visible as it heads down the rails, but the train itself (and if you look in the windows, the passengers) can only be seen as a shadow via your flashlight.
* The Infernal Train in ''[[Alice: Madness Returns]]'' that has replaced the old Looking Glass-line, and is vibrating the Wonderland in pieces as it goes.
* Indie visual novel ''Train Of Afterlife'' is entirely about... well, you can probably guess.
 
 
== Western Animation ==
* The ''[[Tom and Jerry (Animation)|Tom and Jerry]]'' short "Heavenly Puss".
* An urban legend on an episode of ''[[Hey Arnold (Animation)|Hey Arnold!]]''. Arnold, Helga and Gerald get into the train. It turns out to be a train to a metalworking factory. But Brainy watches the real ghost train.
* On the ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants (Animation)|SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' episode "Graveyard Shift", Squidward tells SpongeBob the story of the Hash-Slinging Slasher, who on every - what day is it? - ''Tuesday'' night comes to the Krusty Krab on the ghost of the bus that ran him over. Later that night, a bus arrives in a cloud of fog.
{{quote| '''Spongebob:''' I didn't know the busses ran this late.<br />
'''Squidward:''' They ''don't!'' }}
* Long John Scarechrome's ship in ''[[FilmationsFilmation's Ghostbusters (Animation)|Filmations Ghostbusters]]''.
* In ''[[The Real Ghostbusters (Animation)|The Real Ghostbusters]]'' episode "Knock Knock", the Ghostbusters board a train in New York, only to realise that it has been taken over by demonic forces, it's passengers killed and turned into skeletons. Their solution? blast them all!
* ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'' has both Percy and Peter Sam tell stories about ghost trains. Percy's story (and the accompanying cinematic sequence) is pure horror.
* ''[[The Replacements (Animationanimation)|The Replacements]]'' features ''Splatter Train'', an [[Show Within a Show|in-universe]] [[B-Movie]] about a ghostly train who murders teenagers at [[Make-Out Point]].
* In ''[[Futurama (Animation)|Futurama]]'', Bender ends up on a roller coaster to Hell... Robot Hell... Complete with Singing Robot Satan...
 
 
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[[Category:Afterlife Tropes]]
[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
[[Category:Afterlife Express{{PAGENAME}}]]
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