The Signal-Man
Encyclopedia
The Signal-Man is a short story by Charles Dickens
, first published as part of the "Mugby Junction
" collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round
.
The railway signal-man
of the title tells the narrator of a ghost
that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. The signalman's work is at a signalbox in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance on a lonely stretch of the railway line, and he controls the movements of passing trains. When there is danger, his fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is followed by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident.
The first accident involves a terrible collision between two trains in the tunnel. It is likely that Dickens based this incident on the Clayton Tunnel crash
that occurred in 1861, five years before he wrote the story. Readers in 1866 would have been familiar with this major disaster. The second warning involves the mysterious death of a young woman on a passing train.
The final warning is a premonition of the signalman's own death.
The railway cutting is a cold, gloomy and lonely place. The signalman seems still to be in fear of the narrator, who tries to put him at ease. The signalman feels that he has seen the narrator before, but the narrator assures him that this is impossible. Reassured, the signalman welcomes the newcomer into his little cabin and the two men speak of the signalman's work. His labour consists of a dull, monotonous routine, but the signalman feels he deserves nothing better, as he wasted his academic opportunities when he was young. The narrator describes that the signalman seems like a dutiful employee at all times except when he twice looks at his signal bell when it is not ringing.
The next day, as directed by the signalman, the narrator returns and does not call. The signalman tells him that he will reveal his troubles, that he is haunted by a recurring apparition: he has seen a spectre at the entrance to the tunnel on separate occasions and that each appearance was followed by a tragedy. In the first instance, the signalman heard the shouted words that the narrator spoke and saw a figure with its arm across its face, waving the other in desperate warning. He questioned it but it vanished. He then ran into the tunnel but did not find anybody. A few hours later there was a terrible train crash with many casualties. During its second appearance, the figure was silent, with both hands before the face in an attitude of mourning. Then a beautiful young woman died in a train passing through. Finally the signalman admits that he has seen the spectre several times during the past week.
It seems to the narrator that the signalman is suffering from hallucinations, as the narrator is a rational man and does not believe in the supernatural. During the conversation the signalman sees the ghost, and hears his bell toll out a phantom ring, but the narrator sees and hears nothing of these events. The signalman is sure that these supernatural incidents are presaging a third tragic event waiting to happen, and is sick with fear and frustration: he does not understand why he should be burdened with knowledge of an incipient tragedy when he, a minor railway functionary, has neither the authority nor the ability to prevent it. The sceptical narrator believes that his new friend's imagination has been overtaxed and suggests taking him to see a doctor.
The next day the narrator visits the railway cutting for the last time, and sees a figure at the mouth of the tunnel. This figure is not a ghost, however. It is a man, one of a group of officials investigating an incident on the line. The narrator discovers his friend the signalman is dead, having been struck by an oncoming train. He had been standing on the line, looking intently at something, and failed to get out of the way. The driver of the train explains that he attempted to warn the signalman of his danger: as the train bore down on the signalman the driver called out to him “Below there! Look out!” Moreover, the driver waved his arm in warning even as he covered his face to avoid seeing the train strike the hapless signalman. The narrator notes the significance of the similarity between the driver's actions and the actions of the spectre as the signalman had earlier described them, but leaves the nature of that significance to the reader.
The theme of the story may have been influenced by Dickens's own involvement in the Staplehurst rail crash
on 9 June 1865. While passing over a viaduct in Kent, the train in which he was travelling jumped a gap in the line where the rails had been removed for maintenance, and the cast iron
viaduct fractured, causing most of the carriages to fall into the river below. Dickens was in the first carriage that derailed sideways but did not fall completely – it was suspended at a precarious angle by the coupling of the coach in front and held up by the remains of the viaduct masonry. Dickens helped with the rescue of the other passengers, and was commended for his actions, but the experience had a profound effect on his subsequent life.
The theme can also be related to the struggle between rational and supernatural, the Signalman's convictions that he is haunted, and the narrator's belief that these premonitions are merely coincidences, and that there is no spectre, only the wind. In the end, there is the "final coincidence", that the signalman was killed by a moving train, where the driver was imitating the same motions as the spectre that was allegedly haunting the signalman.
as the BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas
for 1976, with Denholm Elliott
as the principal character. This BBC production was filmed on the Severn Valley Railway
, a fake signal box was erected in the cutting on the Kidderminster side of Bewdley Tunnel, and the interior signal-box pictures were filmed in Highley signalbox.
In the United States, the story was adapted for radio for the Columbia Workshop
(23 January 1937), The Weird Circle (as "The Thing in the Tunnel", 1945), Lights Out
(24 August 1946), Hall of Fantasy (10 July 1950), and Suspense
(4 November 1956) radio shows.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
also adapted the story for their CBC Radio
drama programme Nightfall
(17 December 1982).
episode "The Unquiet Dead
", in which the Doctor
meets Charles Dickens, he mentions a particular fondness for "that one with the ghosts", later clarifying that he means The Signalman.
, first published as part of the "Mugby Junction
" collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round
.
The railway signal-man
of the title tells the narrator of a ghost
that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. The signalman's work is at a signalbox in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance on a lonely stretch of the railway line, and he controls the movements of passing trains. When there is danger, his fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is followed by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident.
The first accident involves a terrible collision between two trains in the tunnel. It is likely that Dickens based this incident on the Clayton Tunnel crash
that occurred in 1861, five years before he wrote the story. Readers in 1866 would have been familiar with this major disaster. The second warning involves the mysterious death of a young woman on a passing train.
The final warning is a premonition of the signalman's own death.
The railway cutting is a cold, gloomy and lonely place. The signalman seems still to be in fear of the narrator, who tries to put him at ease. The signalman feels that he has seen the narrator before, but the narrator assures him that this is impossible. Reassured, the signalman welcomes the newcomer into his little cabin and the two men speak of the signalman's work. His labour consists of a dull, monotonous routine, but the signalman feels he deserves nothing better, as he wasted his academic opportunities when he was young. The narrator describes that the signalman seems like a dutiful employee at all times except when he twice looks at his signal bell when it is not ringing.
The next day, as directed by the signalman, the narrator returns and does not call. The signalman tells him that he will reveal his troubles, that he is haunted by a recurring apparition: he has seen a spectre at the entrance to the tunnel on separate occasions and that each appearance was followed by a tragedy. In the first instance, the signalman heard the shouted words that the narrator spoke and saw a figure with its arm across its face, waving the other in desperate warning. He questioned it but it vanished. He then ran into the tunnel but did not find anybody. A few hours later there was a terrible train crash with many casualties. During its second appearance, the figure was silent, with both hands before the face in an attitude of mourning. Then a beautiful young woman died in a train passing through. Finally the signalman admits that he has seen the spectre several times during the past week.
It seems to the narrator that the signalman is suffering from hallucinations, as the narrator is a rational man and does not believe in the supernatural. During the conversation the signalman sees the ghost, and hears his bell toll out a phantom ring, but the narrator sees and hears nothing of these events. The signalman is sure that these supernatural incidents are presaging a third tragic event waiting to happen, and is sick with fear and frustration: he does not understand why he should be burdened with knowledge of an incipient tragedy when he, a minor railway functionary, has neither the authority nor the ability to prevent it. The sceptical narrator believes that his new friend's imagination has been overtaxed and suggests taking him to see a doctor.
The next day the narrator visits the railway cutting for the last time, and sees a figure at the mouth of the tunnel. This figure is not a ghost, however. It is a man, one of a group of officials investigating an incident on the line. The narrator discovers his friend the signalman is dead, having been struck by an oncoming train. He had been standing on the line, looking intently at something, and failed to get out of the way. The driver of the train explains that he attempted to warn the signalman of his danger: as the train bore down on the signalman the driver called out to him “Below there! Look out!” Moreover, the driver waved his arm in warning even as he covered his face to avoid seeing the train strike the hapless signalman. The narrator notes the significance of the similarity between the driver's actions and the actions of the spectre as the signalman had earlier described them, but leaves the nature of that significance to the reader.
The theme of the story may have been influenced by Dickens's own involvement in the Staplehurst rail crash
on 9 June 1865. While passing over a viaduct in Kent, the train in which he was travelling jumped a gap in the line where the rails had been removed for maintenance, and the cast iron
viaduct fractured, causing most of the carriages to fall into the river below. Dickens was in the first carriage that derailed sideways but did not fall completely – it was suspended at a precarious angle by the coupling of the coach in front and held up by the remains of the viaduct masonry. Dickens helped with the rescue of the other passengers, and was commended for his actions, but the experience had a profound effect on his subsequent life.
The theme can also be related to the struggle between rational and supernatural, the Signalman's convictions that he is haunted, and the narrator's belief that these premonitions are merely coincidences, and that there is no spectre, only the wind. In the end, there is the "final coincidence", that the signalman was killed by a moving train, where the driver was imitating the same motions as the spectre that was allegedly haunting the signalman.
as the BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas
for 1976, with Denholm Elliott
as the principal character. This BBC production was filmed on the Severn Valley Railway
, a fake signal box was erected in the cutting on the Kidderminster side of Bewdley Tunnel, and the interior signal-box pictures were filmed in Highley signalbox.
In the United States, the story was adapted for radio for the Columbia Workshop
(23 January 1937), The Weird Circle (as "The Thing in the Tunnel", 1945), Lights Out
(24 August 1946), Hall of Fantasy (10 July 1950), and Suspense
(4 November 1956) radio shows.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
also adapted the story for their CBC Radio
drama programme Nightfall
(17 December 1982).
episode "The Unquiet Dead
", in which the Doctor
meets Charles Dickens, he mentions a particular fondness for "that one with the ghosts", later clarifying that he means The Signalman.
, first published as part of the "Mugby Junction
" collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round
.
The railway signal-man
of the title tells the narrator of a ghost
that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. The signalman's work is at a signalbox in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance on a lonely stretch of the railway line, and he controls the movements of passing trains. When there is danger, his fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is followed by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident.
The first accident involves a terrible collision between two trains in the tunnel. It is likely that Dickens based this incident on the Clayton Tunnel crash
that occurred in 1861, five years before he wrote the story. Readers in 1866 would have been familiar with this major disaster. The second warning involves the mysterious death of a young woman on a passing train.
The final warning is a premonition of the signalman's own death.
The railway cutting is a cold, gloomy and lonely place. The signalman seems still to be in fear of the narrator, who tries to put him at ease. The signalman feels that he has seen the narrator before, but the narrator assures him that this is impossible. Reassured, the signalman welcomes the newcomer into his little cabin and the two men speak of the signalman's work. His labour consists of a dull, monotonous routine, but the signalman feels he deserves nothing better, as he wasted his academic opportunities when he was young. The narrator describes that the signalman seems like a dutiful employee at all times except when he twice looks at his signal bell when it is not ringing.
The next day, as directed by the signalman, the narrator returns and does not call. The signalman tells him that he will reveal his troubles, that he is haunted by a recurring apparition: he has seen a spectre at the entrance to the tunnel on separate occasions and that each appearance was followed by a tragedy. In the first instance, the signalman heard the shouted words that the narrator spoke and saw a figure with its arm across its face, waving the other in desperate warning. He questioned it but it vanished. He then ran into the tunnel but did not find anybody. A few hours later there was a terrible train crash with many casualties. During its second appearance, the figure was silent, with both hands before the face in an attitude of mourning. Then a beautiful young woman died in a train passing through. Finally the signalman admits that he has seen the spectre several times during the past week.
It seems to the narrator that the signalman is suffering from hallucinations, as the narrator is a rational man and does not believe in the supernatural. During the conversation the signalman sees the ghost, and hears his bell toll out a phantom ring, but the narrator sees and hears nothing of these events. The signalman is sure that these supernatural incidents are presaging a third tragic event waiting to happen, and is sick with fear and frustration: he does not understand why he should be burdened with knowledge of an incipient tragedy when he, a minor railway functionary, has neither the authority nor the ability to prevent it. The sceptical narrator believes that his new friend's imagination has been overtaxed and suggests taking him to see a doctor.
The next day the narrator visits the railway cutting for the last time, and sees a figure at the mouth of the tunnel. This figure is not a ghost, however. It is a man, one of a group of officials investigating an incident on the line. The narrator discovers his friend the signalman is dead, having been struck by an oncoming train. He had been standing on the line, looking intently at something, and failed to get out of the way. The driver of the train explains that he attempted to warn the signalman of his danger: as the train bore down on the signalman the driver called out to him “Below there! Look out!” Moreover, the driver waved his arm in warning even as he covered his face to avoid seeing the train strike the hapless signalman. The narrator notes the significance of the similarity between the driver's actions and the actions of the spectre as the signalman had earlier described them, but leaves the nature of that significance to the reader.
The theme of the story may have been influenced by Dickens's own involvement in the Staplehurst rail crash
on 9 June 1865. While passing over a viaduct in Kent, the train in which he was travelling jumped a gap in the line where the rails had been removed for maintenance, and the cast iron
viaduct fractured, causing most of the carriages to fall into the river below. Dickens was in the first carriage that derailed sideways but did not fall completely – it was suspended at a precarious angle by the coupling of the coach in front and held up by the remains of the viaduct masonry. Dickens helped with the rescue of the other passengers, and was commended for his actions, but the experience had a profound effect on his subsequent life.
The theme can also be related to the struggle between rational and supernatural, the Signalman's convictions that he is haunted, and the narrator's belief that these premonitions are merely coincidences, and that there is no spectre, only the wind. In the end, there is the "final coincidence", that the signalman was killed by a moving train, where the driver was imitating the same motions as the spectre that was allegedly haunting the signalman.
as the BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas
for 1976, with Denholm Elliott
as the principal character. This BBC production was filmed on the Severn Valley Railway
, a fake signal box was erected in the cutting on the Kidderminster side of Bewdley Tunnel, and the interior signal-box pictures were filmed in Highley signalbox.
In the United States, the story was adapted for radio for the Columbia Workshop
(23 January 1937), The Weird Circle (as "The Thing in the Tunnel", 1945), Lights Out
(24 August 1946), Hall of Fantasy (10 July 1950), and Suspense
(4 November 1956) radio shows.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
also adapted the story for their CBC Radio
drama programme Nightfall
(17 December 1982).
episode "The Unquiet Dead
", in which the Doctor
meets Charles Dickens, he mentions a particular fondness for "that one with the ghosts", later clarifying that he means The Signalman.
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, first published as part of the "Mugby Junction
Mugby Junction
Mugby Junction was a set of short stories by Charles Dickens written in 1866. It was first published in a Christmas edition of the magazine All The Year Round....
" collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round
All the Year Round
All the Year Round was a Victorian periodical, being a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published between 1859 and 1895 throughout the United Kingdom. Edited by Dickens, it was the direct successor to his previous publication Household Words, abandoned due to...
.
Signalman (rail)
A signalman or signaller is an employee of a railway transport network who operates the points and signals from a signal box in order to control the movement of trains.- History :...
of the title tells the narrator of a ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. The signalman's work is at a signalbox in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance on a lonely stretch of the railway line, and he controls the movements of passing trains. When there is danger, his fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is followed by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident.
The first accident involves a terrible collision between two trains in the tunnel. It is likely that Dickens based this incident on the Clayton Tunnel crash
Clayton Tunnel rail crash
The Clayton Tunnel rail crash, which took place on Sunday 25 August 1861, five miles from Brighton on the south coast of England, was the worst accident of the British railway system to that time...
that occurred in 1861, five years before he wrote the story. Readers in 1866 would have been familiar with this major disaster. The second warning involves the mysterious death of a young woman on a passing train.
The final warning is a premonition of the signalman's own death.
Plot summary
The story begins with the narrator calling "Halloa! Below there!" into a railway cutting. The signalman standing on the railway below does not look up, as the narrator expects, but rather turns about and stares into the railway tunnel it is his responsibility to monitor. The narrator calls down again and asks permission to descend. The signalman seems reluctant.The railway cutting is a cold, gloomy and lonely place. The signalman seems still to be in fear of the narrator, who tries to put him at ease. The signalman feels that he has seen the narrator before, but the narrator assures him that this is impossible. Reassured, the signalman welcomes the newcomer into his little cabin and the two men speak of the signalman's work. His labour consists of a dull, monotonous routine, but the signalman feels he deserves nothing better, as he wasted his academic opportunities when he was young. The narrator describes that the signalman seems like a dutiful employee at all times except when he twice looks at his signal bell when it is not ringing.
The next day, as directed by the signalman, the narrator returns and does not call. The signalman tells him that he will reveal his troubles, that he is haunted by a recurring apparition: he has seen a spectre at the entrance to the tunnel on separate occasions and that each appearance was followed by a tragedy. In the first instance, the signalman heard the shouted words that the narrator spoke and saw a figure with its arm across its face, waving the other in desperate warning. He questioned it but it vanished. He then ran into the tunnel but did not find anybody. A few hours later there was a terrible train crash with many casualties. During its second appearance, the figure was silent, with both hands before the face in an attitude of mourning. Then a beautiful young woman died in a train passing through. Finally the signalman admits that he has seen the spectre several times during the past week.
It seems to the narrator that the signalman is suffering from hallucinations, as the narrator is a rational man and does not believe in the supernatural. During the conversation the signalman sees the ghost, and hears his bell toll out a phantom ring, but the narrator sees and hears nothing of these events. The signalman is sure that these supernatural incidents are presaging a third tragic event waiting to happen, and is sick with fear and frustration: he does not understand why he should be burdened with knowledge of an incipient tragedy when he, a minor railway functionary, has neither the authority nor the ability to prevent it. The sceptical narrator believes that his new friend's imagination has been overtaxed and suggests taking him to see a doctor.
The next day the narrator visits the railway cutting for the last time, and sees a figure at the mouth of the tunnel. This figure is not a ghost, however. It is a man, one of a group of officials investigating an incident on the line. The narrator discovers his friend the signalman is dead, having been struck by an oncoming train. He had been standing on the line, looking intently at something, and failed to get out of the way. The driver of the train explains that he attempted to warn the signalman of his danger: as the train bore down on the signalman the driver called out to him “Below there! Look out!” Moreover, the driver waved his arm in warning even as he covered his face to avoid seeing the train strike the hapless signalman. The narrator notes the significance of the similarity between the driver's actions and the actions of the spectre as the signalman had earlier described them, but leaves the nature of that significance to the reader.
Major themes
Staplehurst rail crash
The Staplehurst rail crash was a railway accident at Staplehurst, Kent, England, which occurred on 9 June 1865 and in which ten passengers were killed and 40 injured...
on 9 June 1865. While passing over a viaduct in Kent, the train in which he was travelling jumped a gap in the line where the rails had been removed for maintenance, and the cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
viaduct fractured, causing most of the carriages to fall into the river below. Dickens was in the first carriage that derailed sideways but did not fall completely – it was suspended at a precarious angle by the coupling of the coach in front and held up by the remains of the viaduct masonry. Dickens helped with the rescue of the other passengers, and was commended for his actions, but the experience had a profound effect on his subsequent life.
The theme can also be related to the struggle between rational and supernatural, the Signalman's convictions that he is haunted, and the narrator's belief that these premonitions are merely coincidences, and that there is no spectre, only the wind. In the end, there is the "final coincidence", that the signalman was killed by a moving train, where the driver was imitating the same motions as the spectre that was allegedly haunting the signalman.
Film, TV, Radio or theatrical adaptations
The Signal-Man was adapted by Andrew DaviesAndrew Davies (writer)
Andrew Wynford Davies is a British author and screenwriter. He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 2002.-Education and early career:...
as the BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas
A Ghost Story for Christmas
A Ghost Story for Christmas is a strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One from 1971 to 1978, and later revived in 2005 on BBC Four. With one exception, the original instalments are directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and the films are all shot on 16 mm...
for 1976, with Denholm Elliott
Denholm Elliott
Denholm Mitchell Elliott, CBE was an English film, television and theatre actor with over 120 film and television credits...
as the principal character. This BBC production was filmed on the Severn Valley Railway
Severn Valley Railway
The Severn Valley Railway is a heritage railway in Shropshire and Worcestershire, England. The line runs along the Severn Valley from Bridgnorth to Kidderminster, following the course of the River Severn for much of its route...
, a fake signal box was erected in the cutting on the Kidderminster side of Bewdley Tunnel, and the interior signal-box pictures were filmed in Highley signalbox.
In the United States, the story was adapted for radio for the Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop was a radio series that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946-47.-Irving Reis:...
(23 January 1937), The Weird Circle (as "The Thing in the Tunnel", 1945), Lights Out
Lights Out (radio show)
Lights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
(24 August 1946), Hall of Fantasy (10 July 1950), and Suspense
Suspense (radio program)
-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
(4 November 1956) radio shows.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
also adapted the story for their CBC Radio
CBC Radio
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...
drama programme Nightfall
Nightfall (CBC)
Nightfall is the title of a radio drama series produced and aired by CBC Radio from July 1980 to June 1983. While primarily a supernatural/horror series, Nightfall featured some episodes in other genres, such as science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and human drama. One episode was even adapted from...
(17 December 1982).
Cultural references
In the 2005 Doctor WhoDoctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
episode "The Unquiet Dead
The Unquiet Dead
"The Unquiet Dead" is an episode in the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who that was first broadcast on 9 April 2005 and is the first episode of the revival to be set in the past. In Victorian Cardiff, the dead are walking, and creatures made of gas are on the loose...
", in which the Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
meets Charles Dickens, he mentions a particular fondness for "that one with the ghosts", later clarifying that he means The Signalman.
External links
The Signal-Man is a short story by Charles DickensCharles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, first published as part of the "Mugby Junction
Mugby Junction
Mugby Junction was a set of short stories by Charles Dickens written in 1866. It was first published in a Christmas edition of the magazine All The Year Round....
" collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round
All the Year Round
All the Year Round was a Victorian periodical, being a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published between 1859 and 1895 throughout the United Kingdom. Edited by Dickens, it was the direct successor to his previous publication Household Words, abandoned due to...
.
Signalman (rail)
A signalman or signaller is an employee of a railway transport network who operates the points and signals from a signal box in order to control the movement of trains.- History :...
of the title tells the narrator of a ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. The signalman's work is at a signalbox in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance on a lonely stretch of the railway line, and he controls the movements of passing trains. When there is danger, his fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is followed by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident.
The first accident involves a terrible collision between two trains in the tunnel. It is likely that Dickens based this incident on the Clayton Tunnel crash
Clayton Tunnel rail crash
The Clayton Tunnel rail crash, which took place on Sunday 25 August 1861, five miles from Brighton on the south coast of England, was the worst accident of the British railway system to that time...
that occurred in 1861, five years before he wrote the story. Readers in 1866 would have been familiar with this major disaster. The second warning involves the mysterious death of a young woman on a passing train.
The final warning is a premonition of the signalman's own death.
Plot summary
The story begins with the narrator calling "Halloa! Below there!" into a railway cutting. The signalman standing on the railway below does not look up, as the narrator expects, but rather turns about and stares into the railway tunnel it is his responsibility to monitor. The narrator calls down again and asks permission to descend. The signalman seems reluctant.The railway cutting is a cold, gloomy and lonely place. The signalman seems still to be in fear of the narrator, who tries to put him at ease. The signalman feels that he has seen the narrator before, but the narrator assures him that this is impossible. Reassured, the signalman welcomes the newcomer into his little cabin and the two men speak of the signalman's work. His labour consists of a dull, monotonous routine, but the signalman feels he deserves nothing better, as he wasted his academic opportunities when he was young. The narrator describes that the signalman seems like a dutiful employee at all times except when he twice looks at his signal bell when it is not ringing.
The next day, as directed by the signalman, the narrator returns and does not call. The signalman tells him that he will reveal his troubles, that he is haunted by a recurring apparition: he has seen a spectre at the entrance to the tunnel on separate occasions and that each appearance was followed by a tragedy. In the first instance, the signalman heard the shouted words that the narrator spoke and saw a figure with its arm across its face, waving the other in desperate warning. He questioned it but it vanished. He then ran into the tunnel but did not find anybody. A few hours later there was a terrible train crash with many casualties. During its second appearance, the figure was silent, with both hands before the face in an attitude of mourning. Then a beautiful young woman died in a train passing through. Finally the signalman admits that he has seen the spectre several times during the past week.
It seems to the narrator that the signalman is suffering from hallucinations, as the narrator is a rational man and does not believe in the supernatural. During the conversation the signalman sees the ghost, and hears his bell toll out a phantom ring, but the narrator sees and hears nothing of these events. The signalman is sure that these supernatural incidents are presaging a third tragic event waiting to happen, and is sick with fear and frustration: he does not understand why he should be burdened with knowledge of an incipient tragedy when he, a minor railway functionary, has neither the authority nor the ability to prevent it. The sceptical narrator believes that his new friend's imagination has been overtaxed and suggests taking him to see a doctor.
The next day the narrator visits the railway cutting for the last time, and sees a figure at the mouth of the tunnel. This figure is not a ghost, however. It is a man, one of a group of officials investigating an incident on the line. The narrator discovers his friend the signalman is dead, having been struck by an oncoming train. He had been standing on the line, looking intently at something, and failed to get out of the way. The driver of the train explains that he attempted to warn the signalman of his danger: as the train bore down on the signalman the driver called out to him “Below there! Look out!” Moreover, the driver waved his arm in warning even as he covered his face to avoid seeing the train strike the hapless signalman. The narrator notes the significance of the similarity between the driver's actions and the actions of the spectre as the signalman had earlier described them, but leaves the nature of that significance to the reader.
Major themes
Staplehurst rail crash
The Staplehurst rail crash was a railway accident at Staplehurst, Kent, England, which occurred on 9 June 1865 and in which ten passengers were killed and 40 injured...
on 9 June 1865. While passing over a viaduct in Kent, the train in which he was travelling jumped a gap in the line where the rails had been removed for maintenance, and the cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
viaduct fractured, causing most of the carriages to fall into the river below. Dickens was in the first carriage that derailed sideways but did not fall completely – it was suspended at a precarious angle by the coupling of the coach in front and held up by the remains of the viaduct masonry. Dickens helped with the rescue of the other passengers, and was commended for his actions, but the experience had a profound effect on his subsequent life.
The theme can also be related to the struggle between rational and supernatural, the Signalman's convictions that he is haunted, and the narrator's belief that these premonitions are merely coincidences, and that there is no spectre, only the wind. In the end, there is the "final coincidence", that the signalman was killed by a moving train, where the driver was imitating the same motions as the spectre that was allegedly haunting the signalman.
Film, TV, Radio or theatrical adaptations
The Signal-Man was adapted by Andrew DaviesAndrew Davies (writer)
Andrew Wynford Davies is a British author and screenwriter. He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 2002.-Education and early career:...
as the BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas
A Ghost Story for Christmas
A Ghost Story for Christmas is a strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One from 1971 to 1978, and later revived in 2005 on BBC Four. With one exception, the original instalments are directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and the films are all shot on 16 mm...
for 1976, with Denholm Elliott
Denholm Elliott
Denholm Mitchell Elliott, CBE was an English film, television and theatre actor with over 120 film and television credits...
as the principal character. This BBC production was filmed on the Severn Valley Railway
Severn Valley Railway
The Severn Valley Railway is a heritage railway in Shropshire and Worcestershire, England. The line runs along the Severn Valley from Bridgnorth to Kidderminster, following the course of the River Severn for much of its route...
, a fake signal box was erected in the cutting on the Kidderminster side of Bewdley Tunnel, and the interior signal-box pictures were filmed in Highley signalbox.
In the United States, the story was adapted for radio for the Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop was a radio series that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946-47.-Irving Reis:...
(23 January 1937), The Weird Circle (as "The Thing in the Tunnel", 1945), Lights Out
Lights Out (radio show)
Lights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
(24 August 1946), Hall of Fantasy (10 July 1950), and Suspense
Suspense (radio program)
-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
(4 November 1956) radio shows.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
also adapted the story for their CBC Radio
CBC Radio
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...
drama programme Nightfall
Nightfall (CBC)
Nightfall is the title of a radio drama series produced and aired by CBC Radio from July 1980 to June 1983. While primarily a supernatural/horror series, Nightfall featured some episodes in other genres, such as science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and human drama. One episode was even adapted from...
(17 December 1982).
Cultural references
In the 2005 Doctor WhoDoctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
episode "The Unquiet Dead
The Unquiet Dead
"The Unquiet Dead" is an episode in the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who that was first broadcast on 9 April 2005 and is the first episode of the revival to be set in the past. In Victorian Cardiff, the dead are walking, and creatures made of gas are on the loose...
", in which the Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
meets Charles Dickens, he mentions a particular fondness for "that one with the ghosts", later clarifying that he means The Signalman.
External links
The Signal-Man is a short story by Charles DickensCharles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, first published as part of the "Mugby Junction
Mugby Junction
Mugby Junction was a set of short stories by Charles Dickens written in 1866. It was first published in a Christmas edition of the magazine All The Year Round....
" collection in the 1866 Christmas edition of All the Year Round
All the Year Round
All the Year Round was a Victorian periodical, being a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published between 1859 and 1895 throughout the United Kingdom. Edited by Dickens, it was the direct successor to his previous publication Household Words, abandoned due to...
.
Signalman (rail)
A signalman or signaller is an employee of a railway transport network who operates the points and signals from a signal box in order to control the movement of trains.- History :...
of the title tells the narrator of a ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
that has been haunting him. Each spectral appearance precedes a tragic event on the railway on which the signalman works. The signalman's work is at a signalbox in a deep cutting near a tunnel entrance on a lonely stretch of the railway line, and he controls the movements of passing trains. When there is danger, his fellow signalmen alert him by telegraph and alarms. Three times, he receives phantom warnings of danger when his bell rings in a fashion that only he can hear. Each warning is followed by the appearance of the spectre, and then by a terrible accident.
The first accident involves a terrible collision between two trains in the tunnel. It is likely that Dickens based this incident on the Clayton Tunnel crash
Clayton Tunnel rail crash
The Clayton Tunnel rail crash, which took place on Sunday 25 August 1861, five miles from Brighton on the south coast of England, was the worst accident of the British railway system to that time...
that occurred in 1861, five years before he wrote the story. Readers in 1866 would have been familiar with this major disaster. The second warning involves the mysterious death of a young woman on a passing train.
The final warning is a premonition of the signalman's own death.
Plot summary
The story begins with the narrator calling "Halloa! Below there!" into a railway cutting. The signalman standing on the railway below does not look up, as the narrator expects, but rather turns about and stares into the railway tunnel it is his responsibility to monitor. The narrator calls down again and asks permission to descend. The signalman seems reluctant.The railway cutting is a cold, gloomy and lonely place. The signalman seems still to be in fear of the narrator, who tries to put him at ease. The signalman feels that he has seen the narrator before, but the narrator assures him that this is impossible. Reassured, the signalman welcomes the newcomer into his little cabin and the two men speak of the signalman's work. His labour consists of a dull, monotonous routine, but the signalman feels he deserves nothing better, as he wasted his academic opportunities when he was young. The narrator describes that the signalman seems like a dutiful employee at all times except when he twice looks at his signal bell when it is not ringing.
The next day, as directed by the signalman, the narrator returns and does not call. The signalman tells him that he will reveal his troubles, that he is haunted by a recurring apparition: he has seen a spectre at the entrance to the tunnel on separate occasions and that each appearance was followed by a tragedy. In the first instance, the signalman heard the shouted words that the narrator spoke and saw a figure with its arm across its face, waving the other in desperate warning. He questioned it but it vanished. He then ran into the tunnel but did not find anybody. A few hours later there was a terrible train crash with many casualties. During its second appearance, the figure was silent, with both hands before the face in an attitude of mourning. Then a beautiful young woman died in a train passing through. Finally the signalman admits that he has seen the spectre several times during the past week.
It seems to the narrator that the signalman is suffering from hallucinations, as the narrator is a rational man and does not believe in the supernatural. During the conversation the signalman sees the ghost, and hears his bell toll out a phantom ring, but the narrator sees and hears nothing of these events. The signalman is sure that these supernatural incidents are presaging a third tragic event waiting to happen, and is sick with fear and frustration: he does not understand why he should be burdened with knowledge of an incipient tragedy when he, a minor railway functionary, has neither the authority nor the ability to prevent it. The sceptical narrator believes that his new friend's imagination has been overtaxed and suggests taking him to see a doctor.
The next day the narrator visits the railway cutting for the last time, and sees a figure at the mouth of the tunnel. This figure is not a ghost, however. It is a man, one of a group of officials investigating an incident on the line. The narrator discovers his friend the signalman is dead, having been struck by an oncoming train. He had been standing on the line, looking intently at something, and failed to get out of the way. The driver of the train explains that he attempted to warn the signalman of his danger: as the train bore down on the signalman the driver called out to him “Below there! Look out!” Moreover, the driver waved his arm in warning even as he covered his face to avoid seeing the train strike the hapless signalman. The narrator notes the significance of the similarity between the driver's actions and the actions of the spectre as the signalman had earlier described them, but leaves the nature of that significance to the reader.
Major themes
Staplehurst rail crash
The Staplehurst rail crash was a railway accident at Staplehurst, Kent, England, which occurred on 9 June 1865 and in which ten passengers were killed and 40 injured...
on 9 June 1865. While passing over a viaduct in Kent, the train in which he was travelling jumped a gap in the line where the rails had been removed for maintenance, and the cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
viaduct fractured, causing most of the carriages to fall into the river below. Dickens was in the first carriage that derailed sideways but did not fall completely – it was suspended at a precarious angle by the coupling of the coach in front and held up by the remains of the viaduct masonry. Dickens helped with the rescue of the other passengers, and was commended for his actions, but the experience had a profound effect on his subsequent life.
The theme can also be related to the struggle between rational and supernatural, the Signalman's convictions that he is haunted, and the narrator's belief that these premonitions are merely coincidences, and that there is no spectre, only the wind. In the end, there is the "final coincidence", that the signalman was killed by a moving train, where the driver was imitating the same motions as the spectre that was allegedly haunting the signalman.
Film, TV, Radio or theatrical adaptations
The Signal-Man was adapted by Andrew DaviesAndrew Davies (writer)
Andrew Wynford Davies is a British author and screenwriter. He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 2002.-Education and early career:...
as the BBC's Ghost Story for Christmas
A Ghost Story for Christmas
A Ghost Story for Christmas is a strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One from 1971 to 1978, and later revived in 2005 on BBC Four. With one exception, the original instalments are directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and the films are all shot on 16 mm...
for 1976, with Denholm Elliott
Denholm Elliott
Denholm Mitchell Elliott, CBE was an English film, television and theatre actor with over 120 film and television credits...
as the principal character. This BBC production was filmed on the Severn Valley Railway
Severn Valley Railway
The Severn Valley Railway is a heritage railway in Shropshire and Worcestershire, England. The line runs along the Severn Valley from Bridgnorth to Kidderminster, following the course of the River Severn for much of its route...
, a fake signal box was erected in the cutting on the Kidderminster side of Bewdley Tunnel, and the interior signal-box pictures were filmed in Highley signalbox.
In the United States, the story was adapted for radio for the Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop
Columbia Workshop was a radio series that aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System from 1936 to 1943, returning in 1946-47.-Irving Reis:...
(23 January 1937), The Weird Circle (as "The Thing in the Tunnel", 1945), Lights Out
Lights Out (radio show)
Lights Out is an extremely popular American old-time radio program, an early example of a network series devoted mostly to horror and the supernatural, predating Suspense and Inner Sanctum...
(24 August 1946), Hall of Fantasy (10 July 1950), and Suspense
Suspense (radio program)
-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
(4 November 1956) radio shows.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
also adapted the story for their CBC Radio
CBC Radio
CBC Radio generally refers to the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which are outlined below.-English:CBC Radio operates three English language...
drama programme Nightfall
Nightfall (CBC)
Nightfall is the title of a radio drama series produced and aired by CBC Radio from July 1980 to June 1983. While primarily a supernatural/horror series, Nightfall featured some episodes in other genres, such as science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and human drama. One episode was even adapted from...
(17 December 1982).
Cultural references
In the 2005 Doctor WhoDoctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
episode "The Unquiet Dead
The Unquiet Dead
"The Unquiet Dead" is an episode in the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who that was first broadcast on 9 April 2005 and is the first episode of the revival to be set in the past. In Victorian Cardiff, the dead are walking, and creatures made of gas are on the loose...
", in which the Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
meets Charles Dickens, he mentions a particular fondness for "that one with the ghosts", later clarifying that he means The Signalman.
External links
- Full text archive of Three Ghost Stories including The Signal-Man
- The Signal-Man, available freely at Gaslight
- The Signal-Man, available freely as an audiobook at LibriVox
- The Signalman TV play at BFI screenonline
- "The Signalman" Free Download http://www.anvil.clara.net/Signal-Man.pdf in PDF from Anvil Publications
- "The Signal-Man" available as part of a 3 Ghost Story book at Fullbooks.com http://www.fullbooks.com/Three-Ghost-Stories.html
