The Signalman.

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The Signalman.

By Ryan Curtis

The signalman is a supernatural story set in the 19th century. It is written by Charles Dickens.

The story stars off with the narrator walking through fields, he then hears a train and so he walks towards where the sound is coming from. The narrator comes to a viaduct where he shouts, “halloa down there”, waving his arm in front of his face at a man standing below. The narrator finds a path down into the viaduct and goes over to the signalman. The signalman asks the narrator if he has ever stood in the mouth of the tunnel because he saw a figure there sometime before waving his hands in front of his face just as the narrator had done.

The two men get to know each other really well and the signalman tells the narrator of the two accidents that have happened on the railway line. Firstly there was a crash in the tunnel involving a head on collision and the second incident was a woman who fell off a train. The signalman also tells the narrator that every time there has been an accident he has seen a ghostly figure standing by the warning lantern that is situated at the mouth of the tunnel, telling him that there was going to be an accident. The man did not know how to stop any of these tragic happenings and he did not know when they were going to happen. The day before the narrator had come to viaduct the signalman had seen the figure waving its hand, again just like the narrator had done. The figure was warning the signalman of an accident by repeating “below there, look out! Look out! For God’s sake, clear the way”. Unfortunately he had miss read the signs and it’s his own life that is at stake. The signalman gets killed when he sees the figure, as he walks across the track and stops in the middle where a train knocks him over.

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After the incident the narrator asks the train driver what he had said. The narrator realises that what the signalman has told him is true.

Throughout the story the narrator has doubts about the signalman seeing a ghost on each day before the accidents occur. The signalman told the narrator told the narrator that the electric bell went off each time the ghost appeared in the mouth of the tunnel. When both men were in the signal box the bell went off but the narrator did not hear any sound or see any movement from the bell. The ...

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