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I still remember the first time I came upon the place. It was February ’96, an unusually warm day, and I was out for a bike ride. I ended up on the abandoned tracks in Byram, N.J. When I first saw it, I had to actually get off my bike to admire it. I felt like I had found a suburb of Shangri-La, and I seem to admire Alanis Morissette’s Ironic playing in my head. I made my way through the tunnel. Just about the whole ground was covered in ice, and there were huge pillars of ice coming from the ceiling to the ground. It wasn’t until years later that I heard stories about it.
It’s said that the tunnel is supposed to change shape, and a mist will appear. Workmen building the tunnel claimed to have seen the mist, and other workers disappeared into the mist. There is also another story saying that someone working for the rail line was hit and killed by a train, and a light will appear where he was killed. I have yet to see any of these things, but I did hear something once.
One spring day, after I was told that there is a plaque dedicated to the killed rail worker at one end of the tunnel, I went to go find it. I walked the length of the tunnel, not finding anything. I was just about out of the tunnel when I heard growling. I looked around to see if it was from a wild animal, but the growling was actually coming from above me. I didn’t run. I stood my ground, and the growling stopped. I looked for the plaque, and there was none to be found. However, when I turned around to go home, I heard a bell ringing at the end of the tunnel I came in through. No one was there, and the bell sounded like the bells that were used on the trains from when the tunnel was first built.
Fellow Reprimand staffer, Leo, and I went there to investigate, and we found nothing there, but we did get some pics.