It's Said Numerous People Froze to Death There

roundtable discussions about all things supernatural. Watch twenty four to seven webcams positioned inside some of your favorite haunted locations. In addition to that, you'll be able to watch and assist during live streaming investigations with me and some of my friends who you may recognize. You'll also be granted access to an archive of evidence from these investigations, and you can upload your own evidence for all of us

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com and join the waiting list today. What is it about trains? If you followed my career for a while, you know I've had a few paranormal run ins very much having to do with trains. Perhaps most memorable is the time I investigated the exact spot on train tracks where decades earlier, a car carrying four women had been t boned by a train, killing three of them instantly. My investigation there was captured on the Kindred Spirits episode

fittingly titled Ghost Train. As I sat in the darkness, listening back to my recorder hoping for an answer, I got a lot more than I bargained for. Out of the blue, the railroad crossing lights and bells came on out of nowhere, a shocking occurrence in the still of the night. There was no train. The tracks ran one train in the summer, and that was it. This was

the middle of the night, in the winter. And when we investigated further by calling the folks who supposedly serviced that train crossing, they claimed it wasn't even functional at that time. But even beyond that, there is something you don't know about that investigation, something that didn't make air. You see that night as I ran, yes, I literally ran, well,

maybe we can say hustled in order to save my dignity. Anyway, As I made my way back to the car, I saw standing in the forest by the side of the road a very tall, dark figure watching us just from the tree line. My producer saw it, too, loudly saying did you see that? As we got in the car, so as you can imagine the idea of ghosts and trains together both fascinate and terrify me. On that note, why don't you climb aboard and join me as we

venture to the Buffalo Central Terminal. Maybe I'll even let you ride in the kaboots. Sorry I had to.

the tall arched ceilings. In the main concourse, there's six stories high, with five story windows on the walls. Tiles and metal grills feature geometric patterns in flor de les. Its airy in sunlit at least outside of the tower, which has boards over its windows. The station features numerous Art Deco flourishes which were popular when construction on the station began on March twenty ninth, nineteen twenty six. At

the time, railroads were particularly important to Buffalo's economy. Once the western terminus of the Erie Canal, the city was a thoroughfare for travelers. In a United States Department of Interior report, Claire L. Ross wrote, one historian has noted that no American city during the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries owes more to railroads than did Buffalo. Buffalo had a railway as early as eighteen forty eight, and it was considered the second biggest train hub in the United States after Chicago, as reported by John Hag, Thomas Fidelli, and Michael Fidelli in Photographic History of Buffalo Central Terminal, But there was no central meeting place for all the various lines. In eighteen seventy nine, Buffalo residents began calling for just that, and a little under fifty years later,

the Buffalo Central Terminal broke ground. It had seven platforms under the concourse with fourteen sets of tracks, and it hosted offices for fifteen hundred employees, a separate mall building, and per Claire Ross's report, an underground tunnel for baggage. The depot was constructed roughly two and a half miles from Buffalo's downtown district, which might sound odd for a transportation hub, but the city had been going through an

explosive period of growth. Planners fully expected that the downtown neighborhood would also spread, eventually stretching right up to the Buffalo Central Terminal's front doors. After all, this was a period of expansion and transformation, and it seemed wise to account for that when building. When the terminal opened its doors to the public, the Mayor of Buffalo declared the day a civic holiday, and in addition to giving a speech at the opening ceremony, he donated a large stuffed

buffalo head to the train station. The event was also marked with a stylish party, and more than two thousand guests gathered to watch the station's first ever departure at two ten pm, as reported by Dwayne Claude and Cassidy

O'Connor in Haunted Buffalo Ghosts in the Queen City. Early visitors also had the opportunity to peruse the station's other offerings, like restaurants, newsstands, barbershops, and stores selling toys and jewelry, But unfortunately, the lavish opening celebrations happened on June twenty second, nineteen twenty nine, just four months before Black Thursday, the day some historians point to as the start of the Great Depression. As people lost their jobs and homes, they

weren't traveling as much as before. Between nineteen twenty nine, the year Buffalo Central Terminal open, and in nineteen thirty three, the New York Central Railroad lost money consistently. This included more than eighty percent of its net revenue from passengers. It didn't help matters that the federal government rolled back certain subsidies for railway systems, meaning maintenance and repair costs

started falling on private owners. Naturally, as expenses went up when profits went down, the Buffalo Central Terminal became a financial burden and its former potential transformed into a liability. By the mid nineteen thirties, when the depot was only about a decade old, portions of the building were shut

down due to lack of use. Likewise, the town of Buffalo's period of expansion stalled to a stop, and the downtown neighborhood never grew to reach the depot the way the original builders had hoped it would since it first opened nearly a cent ago. The Buffalo Central Terminal only operated at full capacity during one time period, World War Two. Understandably, as members of the military moved across the country, they needed to use railways more frequently, but civilian rail usage

increased as well. Gas rations made it impractical for people to drive as much as they might otherwise. Enlistes and anyone else traveling through the Buffalo Central Terminal would stop by a large stuffed bison in the concourse and pat its head, as reported by Ponite Pharma on Alcatron's Buffalo Central Terminal web page. Soldiers's girlfriends would also kiss them goodbye well before they boarded, as they weren't allowed onto

the platform. According to the Buffalo Courier Express and Journal, Benedict Brooke wrote that the top selling item for jewelers at the station were ten dollars engagement rings, presumably so servicemen could make last minute proposals before shipping off to their deployments. At one point, a reporter from the Buffalo Courier Express described how one train loaded with about five hundred servicemen and volunteers pulled away from the station on

Christmas Day. Sadly, Buffalo locals who were killed in action would often return to the terminal as well, when the government shipped their remains back home. Even POWs passed through the Buffalo Train depot. In some cases, captured German soldiers were put to work at the station. But this period of high usage and regular traffic couldn't last forever. After the war ended, the Buffalo Central Terminal fell back into disuse.

In the nineteen fifties, only a handful of trains departed from its platforms, local lines, plus one that made five daily trips to Niagara Falls. By nineteen fifty nine, even the waterfall trips were suspended due to lack of interest. Two years after that, the terminal only boasted one single departure per day, a train that ran to New York City. By December third, nineteen sixty seven, that too, was discontinued.

For about a decade afterward, various railways tried to find ways to utilize the Grand Train station, but none of these ventures were successful. Portions of the facility had to be demolished. The property tax alone was too expensive to justify keeping them standing. In nineteen seventy nine, the winter heating bill at the terminal was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the equivalent of roughly six hundred thirty thousand

dollars today. Ironically, the hefty expense was part of what kept the Buffalo Central Terminal standing even after it stopped operating as a train depot. Demolishing a whole building is expensive, and it was cheaper for the owners to just abandon it and let it fall into disuse. In nineteen seventy nine, a man named Anthony Fidele stepped forward to save the

Buffalo Central Terminal. That year, when the two the train station went up for auction, Anthony was the only prospective buyer to place a bid, so he purchased the old depot for seventy five thousand dollars adjusted for inflation, that's three hundred and fifty thousand dollars today. He planned to renovate it into a massive complex that would draw tourists, complete with lodging shops in an event space that could host

concerts or sporting events. If Buffalo's downtown area had expanded and grown around the train station like the builders originally intended, that plan might have worked, but it still hadn't, so those ambitions never came to fruition. Even when Anthony managed to set up a few events at the Central Terminal, like a festival for the local Polish community and a

couple of boxing tournaments, they weren't exactly successful. The authorities shut the events down due to a lack of proper licensing and perhaps more importantly, because the fire department deemed the Buffalo Central Terminal was unsafe. While the train station crumbled around him, Anthony didn't give up on his vision. He lived on site in an apartment in either the third or fourth floor of the Central Tower because he had concerns about intruders breaking into the terminal. Anthony lived

with a protective German shepherd named Moose. All the while he was falling further behind on the property taxes he owed on the depot, and even setting up a repayment plan wasn't enough to get him out of debt. In nineteen eighty six, he had no choice but to auction off the building. The new owner didn't do much of anything to restore or even maintain the facility, which fell

further into disrepair until nineteen ninety seven. Then finally the Buffalo Central Terminal was bought by the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation, a nonprofit group that began a multi decade renovation effort. In the Buffalo News, reporter Rick Stofer said they bought the depot for just one dollar, but their expenses were greater than that, as they also agreed to pay half the five figure back tax bill for the station, and of course, they also took on the hefty expenses of

maintaining and restoring the facility. Their repairs are still underway and the station is in need of significant work before it can regain its former glory. Some parts of the depot are open for tours, though in the years before its long slow recovery, unsubstantiated stories spread about deaths and tragedies at the Buffalo Central Terminal. According to rumors, before the nonprofit bought the facility, homeless would take shelter in

the basement, which could get bitterly cold at night. It said numerous people froze to death there, and in a story that hits a bit closer to home for me, a ghost hunter was injured in July of twenty twenty one. She was standing on a roof above a substation that collapsed and she felt something like fifteen to twenty feet. She had to be rushed to a hospital, where she would diagnosed with a broken sh blade, four broken ribs,

and a punctured lung. But it's done surprising that she and other paranormal investigators are drawn to Buffalo Central Terminal. There have been reports of spirits there, including the ghost of former owner Anthony Fidelli. He died in nineteen ninety five before many of the major renovations could begin, but it's said he still lingers in the tower where he

once lived. Some visitors say he's answered questions for them, while others sends him beside or behind them while they go to the tower's third floor, where his apartment might have been. Sometimes he's joined by the specter of his German shepherd Moose. The Haunted House's web page on the Buffalo Central Terminal notes that Anthony can be a bit skittish around visitors. He seems to be worried that he'll be forced to abandon the depot again, just like how he had no choice but to sell it in life.

Others have spotted what appear to be World War II era enlistes and their families. Some are believed to be soldiers who died in battle whose remains were transported back through the train station. Visitors have also seen what appear to be families waiting in futility for their deceased loved ones to return from war. Some guests have even reported

they've heard the voice of a German pow. Writers for the Haunted House's website speculated he's still diligently at work today, unaware that he's passed away or that the war is long over. Additionally, a woman named Rose is said to linger near the baggage claim area. She exclusively interacts with female investigators and visitors and is said to dislike men, and a young girl and a boy who's been dubbed Zachary sometimes play in the tower where Anthony Fidelli's apartment

used to be. Beyond that, the Buffalo Central Terminal has many of the features that are common in haunted locations, like cold spots, footsteps, and laughter that doesn't have an apparent source. Figures appear in Vanish, and a seemingly spectral black cat has been spotted multiple times. On one occasion, a representative of the nonprofit that owns the station claimed to see two men approach a drinking fountain and sip from it. Then before the witness's eyes, the men and

the fountain all disappeared. Ironically, while Buffalo Central Terminal barely achieved its potential as a massive railway depot, it has become a hub of a different sort, a hotspot for hauntings. Up next, we're going to talk to good friend Tim Shaw. He is a local investigator and paranormal researcher who has investigated Buffalo Central Terminal a number of times. That is

coming up after the break. So I am now joined by someone who may be familiar to many of you, who's definitely familiar to me, mister Tim Shaw, who is an author, a speaker of regular on the events circuit. I see him all the time at para CON's, and this guy has the best radio voice. It's as though he used to be in radio. Tim, you think, well, it's really nice to have you on the program. I

know you're very familiar with Buffalo Central Terminal. This is a location that I actually have investigated, but it was under very unusual circumstances. I investigated it on Ghost Hunters Live, and so that always kind of has a different set of challenges. But in that process, you know, we spent multiple days there, even off camera, just kind of getting ready for everything, and we had experiences that no one got to see, like it is really a very active place.

So just kind of along those lines. How did you get started with Buffalo Central Tournal? What was your role there?

I'm sure you covered before that. It was abandoned for a number of years and vandals got in there and just really destroyed it after the salvage operations stripped it, you know. So that's when I first got involved with it, and it's an amazing place. I'm a history nerd from way back, and I absolutely loved the architecture, the whole idea of how intricately important it was to my area, what this building represented. So that's when I really fell in love with the building.

much has happened to it since the sixties. I know there have been a number of attempts over the years to kind of salvage it in some way, but kind of like what you were saying, when the first time Ghost Hunters went there the show I used to be on years ago, the first time they went there, during the tour, the man giving the tour actually had to go down in one of the tunnels or something because they thought there might be someone down there, and he

got attacked by someone with a crowbar who broke his hand. Like you know, it's one of those things. I always try to warn investigators that some of these locations you don't know who you're going to run into, the living or can be much more scary than the dead. And this is kind of a good example of that.

still there were still some openings. A lot of it was just you know, sealed with plywood so they could push it down or kick it in. And yeah, I mean there were a lot of homeless that actually lived there. And as a matter of fact, one of the spirits there that we've kind of contacted was a spirit of a homeless man who actually froze to death in one of the tunnels.

things and everything is vibrational in nature. So the actual even thought of what happened there, what was going on there, can trigger a reaction. So I believe a lot of what they're what people are are are feeling, has already happened. Now that being said, you know, there are locations in that place that definitely had an interaction, an intelligent interaction. Tony Fideli's apartment, one of the interim owners of the location.

He lived at the location. Uh, that is really a place that we've gotten a lot of interaction with, and uniquely down in the trolley lobby, we've gotten shadow people and dark masses that have you know, actually traveled towards us in one of the halls and stuff. So there's a lot of there's there's enough U two way communication for it to really be not just a dead zone and picking up just a history of it, but a

lot of it I believe is all trigger. I mean, I really do, because the place is just historically it's been at you know, so active. The other thing is is just the makeup of the building. The stone masonry of that building I believe holds in so much of that history and the vibration of that history. And that was an emotional place. So you've got to remember that not just people coming and going and freight being delivered. You know, we're talking about let'st's say World War two.

You have all these gis leaving, you know, from the Buffalo area and passing through, and then how many times didn't they well they either didn't come home or they came home in boxes, you know, their caskets came home that way through the freight the freight area. So it's an area of high, high, high emotion. And the mezzanine was a USO spot that had a band, and so the emotions were always so high, especially like during that era.

Emotions are vibrations and vibrations imprint. It's just something that as spiritual as we take for granted, and I believe that's what really triggers a lot of the activity there.

minute to their girlfriends before they left. So I just I can't imagine like what that imprint does to a space, and so I do think that definitely has something to

do with it. I know, I remember seeing a lot of shadow figures when I was there, and I remember it's always strange when you're doing a live broadcast because a lot of people maybe don't understand is that when we're doing one of those live shows, it's funny they always have to hire crews from like the NFL and stuff, people who are used to doing live broadcasts, and so you know, you're you're teaching these you know, fifty or

sixty crew members. All of a sudden you know, they're used to trying to catch the action and we're like, no, actually, you just have to be very quiet and just don't move. But in the middle of all that hubbub, I still found myself so many times just by myself in that building because everything they were doing was outside, and I tell you, it felt very alive. It felt there was kind of a hum to it. And I think that's

kind of what you're describing now. As far as Tony's apartment, do you think that's who people interact with there as him in particular?

exactly it was. It was amazing because we're all sitting there in a circle kind of just hanging out and relaxing, and we're going, so, what do you think, Tony, is it is? It? Is it cocktail time? And almost immediately we got like several like clink clink, clink, click, like it sounded like the clinking of glasses over the over the scanner. So I kind of figured, then, okay, Tony, you you enjoy hanging out with us, so that you know, so we always got some really good stuff up there.

hid underneath something, some debris or something. We couldn't find it. I mean, we spent probably an hour or so looking for you know, trying to debunk that.

mess with some investigators. Not so much myself because I you know, I've been scratched, pushed, you know, I belong to that club, but they like to mess with people that are you know, rather I'll just say new and they're they don't have that belief system that well, you know, this is this is somebody that is just out there and they try to go and they try to scare you.

It's almost like a parasitical spirit where they're trying to suck off that energy where it's like you know, the heightened anxiety or heightened being scared or you know, something of that nature. Yeah, there's been a couple of people that I mean have come up to me going, I think I got an attachment, and it's like, no, you didn't get an attachment, you know, dude, this is just this is just this is just a grumpy old you know, don't worry, you know, it's nothing to worry about, you know,

And some people have gotten scratched there. I don't know, I wasn't there present in their group when they got scratched, So they could have gotten you know, they could have leaned up against a concrete wall or something and got scratched. But you know, nothing that is I would consider like super negative, like you know, within the realm of the you know, the demonic. I've never run into anything like that.

I have down out just outside that trolley area, there is a long maintenance area and we were in there the one time, and I have to tell you there was a like a like a dark mass that really kind of sucked up all the ambient light and it was slowly coming towards us. I've only experienced it once before at Waverley Tuberculosi's Hospital, and so it was unique to have that in this Buffalo area because I've never

experienced it anywhere else. And there was such a feeling of dread that we all looked at each other and said, you know, maybe discretion is the better part of valor on this one. So we're gonna let this We're gonna just let this thing have it space because it just didn't feel right.

I'm not. I'm not you know that I'm not of that of that cult that goes and pokes the pokes the devil. Now, sometimes sometimes it's better to let it have it space, let it see what's going on, and then next time you go down there, maybe if it's intelligent, it will interact with you on a more civil I would say, a more civil level, rather than being on the defensive. So that's that's probably the worst that I've

ever experience there. Although you know, again, I've got a lot of stories from people that are like, oh my god, this happened, then that happened. But for the most part, these are people that overreact. They overreact to someone can pass win somewhere. It's a demon, you know it.

do you want me to call them? I do love that advice, though, Like when you encounter someone or something that seems a little standoffish, like you don't have to go right forward at that moment, like maybe just cautiously tell them who you are and what you're doing and

leave and let them think about it. You know. It's just like a living person who you're trying to befriend or like, you know, you want you don't need to come in and kill them with kindness right away and be like be my friend, interact you know.

the living and the debt. I really don't. And I just to me, they're just like people if we're working to let's say, clear something, that's a whole different story. You know, you only have so much time to work, blah blah blah. You know, you get your you get your job done, and you do whatever you have to do to get the job. You know, complete it. But if you're out there in an investigation and you know you can take your time, you can always you can go back to the location if it's open or even

on a public can go back several times. Don't go and just poke that Dowvill. It's just not worth it because you're not going to get anything then. And then, not to be funny, but somehow there may be a communication between these energetic personalities, and they may become hesitant to even communicate with you because how many times did and you, I mean you know yourself, how many times have you stood there and had somebody next to you

catch an EVP you didn't get it? How many times have you stood next to somebody that they're k two meter or whatever meter they're using is just just blowing up and yours isn't doing anything. Sometimes it's just you know, you have to be able to go and accept the fact that some that some spirits may go and target certain people for that communication, or you may be psychologically or physically made up to you know, to be similar because like one of the natural laws and spiritualism is

like attracts like so perhaps that but that's it. But I believe that if you go in and you're just you know, going gangbusters, you're neck, they're just gonna shut you right off and you're going to go home and say, well, that was a waste of money.

the Buffalo winter colds, you know, beneath the building. Or you could be talking to someone who served in World War Two, or who knows who else, And so it's just you kind of have to go in. Like I always tell people to investigate, like you're walking into a party and you don't know anyone there, and you're trying to make friends, you know, and don't assume who you're talking to. And I think Buffalo Central Termal is the perfect example of that because there are so many different facets to.

have the para cons there. He would come and see me, and he would come and tell me about when he was a boy. He would come into the terminal or when he was going and you know, they would go and visit somebody or pick somebody up. It was amazing the stories he had. He's the one that told me about the military having the USO and the Mezsline mezzanine, and and they used to have a big buffalo. They have a reproduction buffalo there now, but the original buffalo.

All the soldiers as they were leaving, they would go and they would rub the foot of the buffalo for good luck, until it was like there was no hair left on that buffalo. So, I mean, it's it's such an integral part. And the emotions that are left over there and imprinted in that building are astronomical. And as you know, if you're a psychic or a medium and you walk into that place open, you can be overwhelmed.

And that's where a lot of people kind of you know, especially if you're ascensia, well you're clai Assentia, you know, you know what I'm saying. You walk into that place and it's just like Oh my god. You know it's like like you know, you get like you open a freezer, a deep freezer, and you get hit with that cold and it just kind of pushes your back a little bit. That's what that type of feeling is in that place.

So yeah, there's so much residual but the but the intelligence that's that is there, the love that they that they that people have bestowed that in that building is amazing, and you know, the sorrow uh sometimes within that building is amazing. So heightened emotions really have imprinted there and people, you know, they they've seen it over the years here, you know, as as as just this spooky, hulking, hulking,

you know building. And this year last year actually was the first year they're really putting the putting a push into using the building and using you know, having it as an event area. So hopefully they're going to open it up. We hope for limited at least limited paranormal investigations. That would be great because the place is simply beautiful, uh, mind blowing and amazing.

morning rituals and memory more. And I'm going to bring some of my collection because I collect all sorts of as you know, as I'm sure as you've heard, I collect all sorts of crazy stuff. I think Zaffis and I are, like you know, we are Siamese twins, except that we were separated at birth. Luckily all the although we are stuck in the same airports a lot.

as the Railway Corps. It was meant to be, it has instead become something that the world might need just as much, a home to restless spirits. I'm Amy Bruney and this was Haunted Road. Haunted Road is hosted and written by me Amy Bruney, with additional research by Cassandra day Alba. This show is edited and produced by Rima Alkali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. Haunted Road is a production

of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaronmanke. Learn more about this show over at Grimanmild dot com, and for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.