Article taken from: http://atsfry.com/1900s/Grhc.htm

From the Clearance Card Quarterly Journal of Southwest Railroad History Vol. 36, No. 4 Autunm, 1999 SOUTHWEST RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY The Ghost Road of Hardin County by Jim King (jgking@swbell.net)

The station agent stared at the engineer, confused by what he'd just heard -- the brakeman was missing from the Saratoga Turn. "Give me a minute to call Silsbee", he finally replied. It was nearly midnight and there was no one else around. "I'll go with you. If he's injured, you'll need help." Within minutes they had negotiated the wye at Bragg and were headed back south through the pounding rain toward Saratoga. "We had stopped to clear debris...he signaled with his lantern", the engineer explained. "I thought he was aboard." It was October, 1932; a tropical storm was crossing the Big Thicket of southeast Texas, breaking trees like toothpicks along the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway's 9-mile Saratoga Branch. As the locomotive chugged slowly south, they kept their eyes focused on the brightly lit rails -- they would need to stop quickly if the brakeman was injured near the tracks. Through the rain, a shape began to appear...in the distance...between the tracks...but...what could it be? As the engine crept closer, the headlight revealed a gruesome sight...too horrible for words...one that would forever haunt... the Ghost Road of Hardin County. The lantern of the headless brakeman shines brightly as he continues his lonely quest along the former Santa Fe right-of-way near Saratoga.

There are no details about when, where and how the photo below (left) were taken.

The photo above (right) accompanied the National Geographic article (October 1974, page 528) with the caption "Ghost light of the Big Thicket captured in a 20-minute exposure changes color, intensity and position; it has been explained as headlights, or swamp gas, or the ghost of a brakeman in search of his head, severed by a train when the road was a track. The time exposure also records a star's course."

There are several problems with the photo and information. As is common for uncritical photographers, no mention is made of the equipment used, the telephoto lens size, or viewing direction along the road. More curiously, this is identified as a 20-minute time exposure with a star trail. My first impression is that the 'star' is moving much too horizontally for it to be diurnal rotation. Also, where are all the other stars? I have yet to see a time exposude of the sky which doesnt show dozens of trails. We don't really know the time of year, or the time of night, of the photo, but given the orientation of the road ( roughly NNW to SSE) it should be possible to use a planetarium program to see which bright objects might have been involved astronomically.