Urban Legend Of Urban Mythology

Urban legends have long been included in our culture as traditional stories that often provide a moral conclusion cultivated and spread either orally or written on paper. Many of these tales are often misunderstood as a false story, however these tales are derived from real life events, and are exaggerated and modified as time passes. Urban legends commonly reflect the fears of a society and often include warnings that prevent a certain action or else something unfortunate will happen to the person. One familiar urban legend that has propagated through people’s minds for decades is the tale of a group of school children having been slaughtered in a devastating accident on a railroad. Although this legend dates back to the mid-1900s, the tale
The tragedy dates back to the 1930s-1960s when a school bus full of children was stuck on a railroad. The red lights signaled the oncoming arrival of the train, yet the bus kept on stalling, regardless of how hard the frantic bus driver tried to step on the brakes, the bus would not budge. A split second later, the rapidly approaching train collided with the bus, utterly destroying the bus and all the people in it. Although the city of San Antonio had widely claimed this legend as their own, evidence proved otherwise. In fact, “No similar accident took place in San Antonio, but in 1938 that city was subjected to about ten days' worth of gruesomely detailed coverage in its local newspaper of the Salt Lake City crash, memory of which afterwards served to convince later generations the tragedy had taken place
Likewise, in the legend of the school bus children haunting the railroad seems to teach us not to drive over train tracks. The lesson also proves to have a larger perspective. Although, the children were definitely not paying around when the bus had collided with the train, the lesson that one should not be playing near train tracks also comes up unconsciously. For example, two girls had been killed 3 years ago in Missouri in a dangerous railroad game. Both teenagers jokingly “waited” for the “ghost train” to come when instead, they foolishly collided with a real train. Similarly, a group of ghost hunters was allegedly reported searching for a “phantom ghost train”, however, instead was met by an ill fated “real train”. Although the majority managed to escape, one man had died. Besides the lessons that come from frightening urban legends, urban legends can also be very thrilling, when recreated correctly. Urban legends can show a reflection of our society’s fears and one way of coping with the fears is to recreate a story with a punchline that excites people, makes them doubtful, and more aware of the dangers of our society. Besides the ill-fated death of these children, many people still visit the tracks, littering the ground with roses, beads, candy, and children’s toys in reverence to the dead