THE STORY
Reported Haunting
The abandoned Point Rock railroad tunnel north of Columbia is said to be haunted by a bearded old man carrying a staff and glowing red lantern. An 1875 railroad worker reportedly encountered the figure on three nights before watching it raise a hand and vanish into the darkness.
Point Rock Tunnel is a 180-foot passage blasted through solid rock along the Susquehanna River north of Columbia. Constructed between 1850 and 1851 for the original Pennsylvania Railroad Columbia Branch, the tunnel was eventually bypassed as the railroad alignment changed and today forms part of the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail. Its best-known ghost story concerns an elderly bearded man carrying a walking staff and a glowing red lantern. Local tradition claims the man had been struck and killed by a train and afterward began appearing in the tunnel between midnight and 1 a.m. One account dates to 1875, when a railroad employee reportedly saw the mysterious figure on three separate nights. During the final encounter, the apparition supposedly raised a hand as if acknowledging the worker and then disappeared. Other stories describe unidentified figures along the former canal and railroad corridor surrounding Point Rock. The identity and death of the lantern-bearing man have not been independently established, but the tale has remained part of Chickies Rock and Columbia-area ghost lore for generations.