'White House' Poltergeist
Story told by a railway sfaff member who wishes to stay anonymous.
Possibly as long ago as the early 1980’s the ‘white house’,a large building opposite the station entrance that was constructed
in the early 1950’s, initially as a hostel for visiting train crew but also used as a mess room, B.O. point and general office accommodation
under British Rail, had a reputation amongst older staff of being haunted and certain drivers and guards will not enter the building after dark.
Work at Westbury Network Rail commenced on the demolition of the whole ‘white house’ complex, leaving only
the rail staff club at the front ( a smaller, separate building ).
It was told by one of the Westbury railway drivers that in the days of British Rail, when all train crew and staff were based In
the ‘white house’, they used to book on and off there, if they had to wait for their next job, then they would go to the mess room
which was a large room on the ground floor with double swing doors at
each end. One night a driver was sat in this room, quite late and there was nobody else around. He heard a noise,
the swing doors from the B.O. point opened and immediately closed, a few seconds later the doors at the other end
opened and closed. It was exactly as if somebody had entered the mess room, walked though and gone immediately
out the other doors. Approximately 2.20am on the 2nd February 2008. A solid jet black apparition, with a tranparent edge
and no features was seen for a few seconds in the area of the white house before vanishing. On the 16th February 2008 a
white flash in the same position was witnessed at 2.20am.Back around twenty to thirty years ago there was an older driver sat
in the mess room waiting
for his booked train to arrive. When he did not go to join it, somebody was send to find out where he was.
He was found to have died in the chair, either from a stroke or heart attack and was just sat there lifeless. Westbury station
was rebuilt to its present form in 1899, just before the ’new’ line from Patney and Chirton was opened in 1900.
It remains basically as built although the signal boxes, south(closed 1978) middle(closed 1968) and north(closed 1984)
have all been demolished. There are substantial iron-ore workings in the area around the station, the ironworks was
located where the car auctions are now. The lakes close by are former mineholes and some of the land to the north
of the railway has been reclaimed and lies unused. The station master house, ‘Ingleside’ is now used for staff training
and administration. The large freight yards are operated by EWS, mainly for stabling stone traffic from the Somerset quarries
but also for engineering and infrastructure trains. Do you know this story? If this story has missed something then
please email me.
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