The Ghost Train

As Chef Jean-Francois Dube discovered in 1999, North Vancouver’s Pacific Starlight Dinner train was haunted

In 1997, I was the Vancouver Correspondent for Marketing Magazine and one of a few dozen media invited along to launch BC Rail’s Pacific Starlight Dinner Train. It was a fantastic night, beginning with a musical send-off from the old North Vancouver station, great food, a stop at Porteau Cove and free booze all the way up and back.

Stardust:

One Tuesday morning in June 1999, Jean-Francois Dube started his 9 am shift as the Sous-chef. He received and put away the food orders for the day and had started prepping food for the evening’s run. A yard worker told him that they were going to split up the train for some maintenance work and he would be without power for at least an hour. JF worked in Stardust, an early 1950s dome car from Milwaukee Road with seating on the upper level and a full kitchen on the bottom.

Stardust was left in the middle of the railyard with just JF and Terry, one of the cleaners onboard. “We were chatting about nothing very important when all of a sudden we heard a couple of kids running and laughing upstairs where the dining tables are. The only way in or out are the doors at each end which were closed, made noise when they were opened and weighed about 250 to 300 pounds each.”

• Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus, coming April 2025. Preorder through Arsenal Pulp Press, or your favourite indie bookstore

Ghost train:

The men ran upstairs and searched the train carriage. “There was no one.” says JF who says he could find no logical explanation for the sounds.

The dinner train was made up of nine mostly 1940s vintage cars purchased from the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train. It was made up of cars from railways all over the US, including the deep south. These cars carried a lot of history, so it’s not surprising a few ghosts might want to tag along.

Indigo:

One afternoon a young black female server told JF that she hated working in Indigo, the dining car at the end of the train, that it made her feel unwelcome. “She said: ‘I feel like I’m not allowed to go in there’.” She was scheduled to work in the cars at the front of the train and there were no more problems.

Other employees reported seeing ghostly figures walking up and down in the Continental and  Savoy cars.

JF wasn’t a true believer until about 10 years ago. He was alone and cleaning up after his shift at VIA Rail. “In my left ear I hear ‘Hi JF.’” He recognized the voice but couldn’t place it. When he disembarked in Winnipeg he noticed a post on the bulletin board advising that a good friend and long time co-worker had died. When JF did some digging he found that the man had committed suicide at the exact time that JF had heard his voice.

• Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck by Eve Lazarus, coming April 2025. Preorder through Arsenal Pulp Press, or your favourite indie bookstore

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For more ghostly stories check out these podcast episodes:

S1 E9 Three Ghost Stories and a Murder

S2 E24 Halloween Special 2021

Victoria’s Ghost