Mugby Junction

Charles Dickens' Mugby Junction is a compilation of short stories whose events happen mostly round a Victorian railway station. The work was written in 1866 and originally published in its entirety in the All The Year Round magazine. The most famous short story included in the volume is "The Signalman." The latter is the story of a railway signalman who works in a somehow isolated cutting and who is regularly visited by the narrator of the story. On more than one occasion, the couple sit and chat when the signalman eventually decides to reveal his secret and speak to his visitor about his job's hardships and mainly about a strange apparition that keeps on haunting the area. Following every visit by the ghost, he explains that there must happen a catastrophe in the region. The narrator, who does not seem to believe in such supernatural apparitions and who suspects the signalman of some psychological troubles, comes to go through the same experience himself. Other short stories in the compilation also follow events happening round train stations. They include "Barbox Brothers," "Barbox Brothers and Co," and "The Boy at Mugby."