January 31, 2024 • 42 mins
The iconic Buffalo Central Terminal is said to be one of the most haunted buildings in Western New York. In addition to shadow figures, apparitions and voices - there have also been reports of a ghost dog and a ghost cat.
Special Guest: Tim Shaw
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Minky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I know many of you out there are hungry for
more paranormal content these days. What if I told you
there is about to be a community just for fans
of ghosts and hauntings like us. For months, I've been
working on something incredible and I am so thrilled to
be releasing it into the wild. I'd like to be
(00:32):
the first to welcome you to the Paranormal Circle. Imagine
a place where you can access weekly live chats and
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
(00:56):
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access to an archive of evidence from these investigations, and
you can upload your own evidence for all of us
to weigh in on. Even more, you will be on
the list for private in person meetups plus dedicated Paranormal
Circle meetups at your favorite paranormal conventions. Strange escapes, retreats,
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events and your favorite paranormal retailers to offer Paranormal Circle
only discounts. All of this, plus dedicated merchandise and swag giveaways,
amounts to one really cool space for all of us
to enjoy together. If this sounds right up your dark alley,
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the founding members of the Circle, head to Amybrunie dot
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up membership this spring, and those on the waiting list
get first access. Again, all of this is only accessible
to Paranormal Circle members, so head to Amy Bruney dot
(02:02):
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
(02:23):
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
(02:45):
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
(03:07):
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,
(03:29):
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
(03:50):
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.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I'm Amy Bruney, and welcome to Haunted Road in.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Buffalo, New York. Nestled between Lake Erie and Niagara Falls,
not too far from the Canadian border, stands a seventeen
story tower with a massive round clock mounted on its front.
Once the tower was regularly lit by floodlights, and it
was said to be visible from fifteen miles away. It's
one of the many features of Buffalo Central Terminal, a
(04:40):
nearly century old railway station. Although the brick walls are
worn with age, you can see its old grandeur in
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.
(05:00):
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
(05:21):
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
(05:41):
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
(06:05):
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.
(06:25):
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
(06:49):
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
(07:11):
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,
(07:31):
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
(07:53):
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
(08:15):
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
(08:36):
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
(08:58):
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
(09:20):
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
(09:42):
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
(10:05):
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
(10:25):
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
(10:49):
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
(11:09):
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
(11:31):
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,
(11:53):
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
(12:15):
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
(12:37):
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
(12:59):
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
(13:19):
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
(13:41):
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
(14:02):
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
(14:23):
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
(14:44):
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
(15:06):
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,
(15:28):
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
(15:49):
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
(16:10):
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
(16:34):
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,
(16:57):
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
(17:19):
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
(17:41):
investigated Buffalo Central Terminal a number of times. That is
coming up after the break. So I am now joined
(18:02):
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,
(18:27):
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
(18:48):
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?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Well, I was a volunteer there and friends of mine
actually started the public ghost hunts when they were raising
money for the terminal, and I started getting involved when
we started cleaning the place up in order to go
and make it I won't say inhabitable, but I'll say
that it would make it more safe for the public
(19:28):
to walk through. You got it, you know. I mean,
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
(19:48):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, and it's it is stunning. It is something to behold,
you know, you really do. You feel like you're stepping
back in time, which you truly are, because really not
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
(20:24):
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
(20:46):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Much more. And you know, and here's the thing, they
because it was abandoned for so many years, there are
so many ways to get into that location, or there
were so many I'll clarify that the new the new
restoration Corporation that has administered to it, has really sealed
(21:14):
it up tight. Plus there's cameras and all sorts of
alarms and all sorts of things now with that building.
But I believe when you guys came in, it was
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
(21:35):
there that we've kind of contacted was a spirit of
a homeless man who actually froze to death in one
of the tunnels.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, that was something I covered in the history how
that happened. Unfortunately often in the winters. I mean, Buffalo
has a very harsh winter, as many of us know,
so kind of getting into the paranormal activity there, like,
obviously you were able to identify as spirit, But what
what do you think that people encounter there most often? Like,
what is the most prevalent type of activity?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
You know, I believe a lot of it's a lot
of residual I'll say about eighty probably eighty five percent
of what people are experiencing as residual because there's so
many triggers in that place. People walk in there and
first of all, they're wild by the architecture and how
they're actually rebuilding it. But I believe that when we
(22:24):
start talking about the history of the location vibrationally. The
spiritualist community that I belong to believes that thoughts are
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
(22:44):
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
(23:07):
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
(23:29):
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
(23:52):
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
(24:15):
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.
(24:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, and I agree, because I thought about that a lot,
you know, like you were saying, obviously it's a very
kind of transient place for many years, but also particularly
that World War Two era, the emotions running high in
that spot, Like I can't imagine the anxiousness, the wondering
what's going to happen. You know, many times, you know,
they were saying that they would sell engagement rings in
(25:11):
the terminal because these gis would propose at the last
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
(25:34):
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.
(25:57):
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
(26:19):
him in particular?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
I believe so because in several EVPs that I've heard
and I believe I captured when it's been a couple
of years since I've actually pulled up the evidence from
the central terminal, we did get the first name Tony,
and I've heard it repeated in other EVPs also when
we were using scanner boxes back in the let's face it,
(26:41):
back in the old days, you know, the old radio
shack cat.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Jack cats, that's what I think. I follow.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Oh my god, yes, that's pretty much. That's pretty much what.
I still use a lot of the original stuff and
we would get real time interaction up there, and to me,
that was really great because we would get a day,
sometimes we would get a year. Sometimes we would get
what sounded like a party going on, because Tony was
a pretty big party guy. I hear right, and you know,
(27:09):
you would hear several voices and you would hear laughing,
and I've actually heard what sounded like glasses clinking. That's
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
(27:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, is there any Have you seen any evidence of
a ghost dog like I heard? I don't remember it
was Tony's dog, but I think it was Tony's talk.
Have you seen any ask to shepherds?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I've heard. Now I have a Labrador,
so I mean I'm used to hearing her feet running around,
you know, and we've actually heard what we thought was
the sound of a dog like kind of walking quickly
and I mean audibly. We actually heard it, and we
went out looking to investigate. We found nothing. I mean,
(28:14):
it would have made sense that a dog could have
a stray dog could have got in there, but we
would have you know, unless that dog really went and
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.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah, people ask me about ghost animals all the time,
and I'm like, you'd be surprised how often we run
into them. So obviously that seemed kind of intelligent, you know,
the interaction happening up there. Is there anyone that you've
encountered there, any spirits you've encountered there that seem like
they're unhappy in any way or or come off as
(28:51):
I don't want to say negative, like a negative entity.
Image is like something you know, maybe just you know,
a little more mischievous or darker.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Well, I won't say darker. I'll say that as someone
who has worked within the spirituals community as a medium myself,
I will say there's some really net there's a there's
a couple of grumpy sobs in the place, and you know,
they'll they'll go. And I believe that they like to
mess with some investigators. Not so much myself because I
(29:24):
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
(29:45):
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,
(30:07):
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
(30:32):
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
(30:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
The barometric pressure started to drop and and everybody got that,
you know, the exorcist call it the gift of discernment,
where you get that queasy feeling and your you know,
in your solar plexus. And we all got it. I
think there was like five or six of us that
you know that we're there at the time. We're all
standing there, we all saw it, we all kind of
felt the exact same thing. And I said, let's just
let it have it space. You know, there's no you know,
(31:32):
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
(31:52):
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
(32:13):
pass win somewhere. It's a demon, you know it.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It's very true you know.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
You know, that's the only way I could describe it properly.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Right, you know, I think that's that's really good advice, actually,
what you're saying. So, you know, I always I use
the term grumpy ghosts a lot, you know, And I
always try to tell people, you know, just some just
because someone dies doesn't mean they stop being a jerk.
Kind of along those sides. Even when I was on
when I was on Kindred Spirits, when we were filming Kindred,
they were they used to get mad at me worth
(32:45):
using the term grumpy ghost too much. I'm like, what
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
(33:07):
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.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
So but so many people think like that, you know,
I don't know where it comes from. But I mean
I've been doing this. I mean I was introduced into
the lily Dale Spiritualist Assembly here in Western New York
in like nineteen seventy two, and I've had the religion
of spiritual and has been in my father's side of
the family since the eighteen eighties. So I was introduced
(33:40):
to this stuff early. And for me, I look at
the point that there's no difference psychologically and emotionally between
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,
(34:01):
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
(34:22):
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
(34:43):
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
(35:07):
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
(35:29):
you right off and you're going to go home and say, well,
that was a waste of money.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Well that's just it too. Like when you go to
Buffalo Central, which I don't know that they're having investigations
at the moment, but like when you go there, you
you don't know who it is you're interacting with. You know,
you could be interacting with someone who you know was
a former owner and lived there, or you could be
interacting with someone who tragically passed away, you know in
(35:54):
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
(36:16):
perfect example of that because there are so many different
facets to.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
It and the amount of people that have passed through
there is mind blowing. And it was such an integral
part of the community, that whole east Side, the Old
east Side, that was the hub of that community. The
you know, the industry built up around there. Workers bought
(36:42):
homes in that area. So it has a lot of
loving memories. I know, even my late father in law
used to he would come and tell me whenever when
we used to have the cons there. We used 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
(37:04):
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
(37:24):
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.
(37:46):
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
(38:09):
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,
(38:33):
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,
(38:59):
mind blowing and amazing.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, I love that. I mean, I see I like too.
Sometimes when they cut off the investigations, I always wonder
if the spirits get a little upset because they get
so used to being communicated with regularly and then suddenly
that goes away. So I think it'd be nice to
get back in there for sure. But tell me now
that how do people find you? What are you up to?
What projects are you working on? Let's give a little
(39:22):
shout out, Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
You can find out more about me at www dot
Timothytshaw dot com. That's my website, and find me on Facebook.
And right now I'm doing what I consider locally the
Cabin Fever lecture series, which I'm doing one class or
talk per month at Dragonfly Art and Soul in Williamsville,
(39:45):
New York. And my very first one, I believe, is
on January eighteenth, and I will be talking about Victorian
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
(40:07):
that we were separated at birth. Luckily all the although
we are stuck in the same airports a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
But I've been in the room with you too before,
so I get it.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of it's kind of strange,
but we're gonna be I'm gonna be doing that, and
then I'll be in Toledo, uh in April, Mansfield and May,
I'll be doing something in Virginia and June, and of
course i'll be up at the Michigan Parra Con in August.
You know, so this is it's always gonna be fun.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, yeah, Well, it was lovely having you. I really
appreciate you taking the time, and hopefully we will meet
up again before August, but otherwise I will.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
See you then, we will see you, and thank you
for inviting me on the show.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Railroad stations are almost by definition, liminal spaces, regions you
pass through on your way somewhere else. So it's for
ghosts to linger in rail terminals, staying put for decades
or more rather than move on. But if there is
a train depot that seems appropriate for a haunting, it's
the Buffalo Central Terminal, which spent more of its existence
(41:15):
sitting in empty stillness and decline than it ever did
as a bustling transportation hub, while it barely ever served
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
(41:55):
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
(42:17):
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.
Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
and Mild from Aaron Minky.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I know many of you out there are hungry for
more paranormal content these days. What if I told you
there is about to be a community just for fans
of ghosts and hauntings like us. For months, I've been
working on something incredible and I am so thrilled to
be releasing it into the wild. I'd like to be
(00:32):
the first to welcome you to the Paranormal Circle. Imagine
a place where you can access weekly live chats and
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
(00:56):
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
to weigh in on. Even more, you will be on
the list for private in person meetups plus dedicated Paranormal
Circle meetups at your favorite paranormal conventions. Strange escapes, retreats,
(01:18):
and comic cons. We've also worked with many of these
events and your favorite paranormal retailers to offer Paranormal Circle
only discounts. All of this, plus dedicated merchandise and swag giveaways,
amounts to one really cool space for all of us
to enjoy together. If this sounds right up your dark alley,
then I'd like to personally invite you to be one
(01:39):
of the first to join the Paranormal Circle. If you'd
like to join the waiting list to be one of
the founding members of the Circle, head to Amybrunie dot
com and get on the list asap. We'll be opening
up membership this spring, and those on the waiting list
get first access. Again, all of this is only accessible
to Paranormal Circle members, so head to Amy Bruney dot
(02:02):
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
(02:23):
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
(02:45):
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
(03:07):
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,
(03:29):
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
(03:50):
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.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I'm Amy Bruney, and welcome to Haunted Road in.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Buffalo, New York. Nestled between Lake Erie and Niagara Falls,
not too far from the Canadian border, stands a seventeen
story tower with a massive round clock mounted on its front.
Once the tower was regularly lit by floodlights, and it
was said to be visible from fifteen miles away. It's
one of the many features of Buffalo Central Terminal, a
(04:40):
nearly century old railway station. Although the brick walls are
worn with age, you can see its old grandeur in
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.
(05:00):
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
(05:21):
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
(05:41):
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
(06:05):
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.
(06:25):
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
(06:49):
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
(07:11):
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,
(07:31):
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
(07:53):
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
(08:15):
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
(08:36):
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
(08:58):
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
(09:20):
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
(09:42):
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
(10:05):
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
(10:25):
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
(10:49):
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
(11:09):
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
(11:31):
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,
(11:53):
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
(12:15):
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
(12:37):
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
(12:59):
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
(13:19):
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
(13:41):
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
(14:02):
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
(14:23):
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
(14:44):
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
(15:06):
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,
(15:28):
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
(15:49):
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
(16:10):
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
(16:34):
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,
(16:57):
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
(17:19):
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
(17:41):
investigated Buffalo Central Terminal a number of times. That is
coming up after the break. So I am now joined
(18:02):
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,
(18:27):
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
(18:48):
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?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Well, I was a volunteer there and friends of mine
actually started the public ghost hunts when they were raising
money for the terminal, and I started getting involved when
we started cleaning the place up in order to go
and make it I won't say inhabitable, but I'll say
that it would make it more safe for the public
(19:28):
to walk through. You got it, you know. I mean,
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
(19:48):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, and it's it is stunning. It is something to behold,
you know, you really do. You feel like you're stepping
back in time, which you truly are, because really not
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
(20:24):
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
(20:46):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Much more. And you know, and here's the thing, they
because it was abandoned for so many years, there are
so many ways to get into that location, or there
were so many I'll clarify that the new the new
restoration Corporation that has administered to it, has really sealed
(21:14):
it up tight. Plus there's cameras and all sorts of
alarms and all sorts of things now with that building.
But I believe when you guys came in, it was
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
(21:35):
there that we've kind of contacted was a spirit of
a homeless man who actually froze to death in one
of the tunnels.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Yeah, that was something I covered in the history how
that happened. Unfortunately often in the winters. I mean, Buffalo
has a very harsh winter, as many of us know,
so kind of getting into the paranormal activity there, like,
obviously you were able to identify as spirit, But what
what do you think that people encounter there most often? Like,
what is the most prevalent type of activity?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
You know, I believe a lot of it's a lot
of residual I'll say about eighty probably eighty five percent
of what people are experiencing as residual because there's so
many triggers in that place. People walk in there and
first of all, they're wild by the architecture and how
they're actually rebuilding it. But I believe that when we
(22:24):
start talking about the history of the location vibrationally. The
spiritualist community that I belong to believes that thoughts are
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
(22:44):
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
(23:07):
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
(23:29):
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
(23:52):
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
(24:15):
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.
(24:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, and I agree, because I thought about that a lot,
you know, like you were saying, obviously it's a very
kind of transient place for many years, but also particularly
that World War Two era, the emotions running high in
that spot, Like I can't imagine the anxiousness, the wondering
what's going to happen. You know, many times, you know,
they were saying that they would sell engagement rings in
(25:11):
the terminal because these gis would propose at the last
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
(25:34):
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.
(25:57):
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
(26:19):
him in particular?
Speaker 3 (26:20):
I believe so because in several EVPs that I've heard
and I believe I captured when it's been a couple
of years since I've actually pulled up the evidence from
the central terminal, we did get the first name Tony,
and I've heard it repeated in other EVPs also when
we were using scanner boxes back in the let's face it,
(26:41):
back in the old days, you know, the old radio
shack cat.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Jack cats, that's what I think. I follow.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Oh my god, yes, that's pretty much. That's pretty much what.
I still use a lot of the original stuff and
we would get real time interaction up there, and to me,
that was really great because we would get a day,
sometimes we would get a year. Sometimes we would get
what sounded like a party going on, because Tony was
a pretty big party guy. I hear right, and you know,
(27:09):
you would hear several voices and you would hear laughing,
and I've actually heard what sounded like glasses clinking. That's
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
(27:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, is there any Have you seen any evidence of
a ghost dog like I heard? I don't remember it
was Tony's dog, but I think it was Tony's talk.
Have you seen any ask to shepherds?
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I've heard. Now I have a Labrador,
so I mean I'm used to hearing her feet running around,
you know, and we've actually heard what we thought was
the sound of a dog like kind of walking quickly
and I mean audibly. We actually heard it, and we
went out looking to investigate. We found nothing. I mean,
(28:14):
it would have made sense that a dog could have
a stray dog could have got in there, but we
would have you know, unless that dog really went and
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.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah, people ask me about ghost animals all the time,
and I'm like, you'd be surprised how often we run
into them. So obviously that seemed kind of intelligent, you know,
the interaction happening up there. Is there anyone that you've
encountered there, any spirits you've encountered there that seem like
they're unhappy in any way or or come off as
(28:51):
I don't want to say negative, like a negative entity.
Image is like something you know, maybe just you know,
a little more mischievous or darker.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Well, I won't say darker. I'll say that as someone
who has worked within the spirituals community as a medium myself,
I will say there's some really net there's a there's
a couple of grumpy sobs in the place, and you know,
they'll they'll go. And I believe that they like to
mess with some investigators. Not so much myself because I
(29:24):
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
(29:45):
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,
(30:07):
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
(30:32):
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
(30:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
The barometric pressure started to drop and and everybody got that,
you know, the exorcist call it the gift of discernment,
where you get that queasy feeling and your you know,
in your solar plexus. And we all got it. I
think there was like five or six of us that
you know that we're there at the time. We're all
standing there, we all saw it, we all kind of
felt the exact same thing. And I said, let's just
let it have it space. You know, there's no you know,
(31:32):
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
(31:52):
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
(32:13):
pass win somewhere. It's a demon, you know it.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It's very true you know.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
You know, that's the only way I could describe it properly.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Right, you know, I think that's that's really good advice, actually,
what you're saying. So, you know, I always I use
the term grumpy ghosts a lot, you know, And I
always try to tell people, you know, just some just
because someone dies doesn't mean they stop being a jerk.
Kind of along those sides. Even when I was on
when I was on Kindred Spirits, when we were filming Kindred,
they were they used to get mad at me worth
(32:45):
using the term grumpy ghost too much. I'm like, what
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
(33:07):
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.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
So but so many people think like that, you know,
I don't know where it comes from. But I mean
I've been doing this. I mean I was introduced into
the lily Dale Spiritualist Assembly here in Western New York
in like nineteen seventy two, and I've had the religion
of spiritual and has been in my father's side of
the family since the eighteen eighties. So I was introduced
(33:40):
to this stuff early. And for me, I look at
the point that there's no difference psychologically and emotionally between
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,
(34:01):
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
(34:22):
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
(34:43):
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
(35:07):
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
(35:29):
you right off and you're going to go home and say, well,
that was a waste of money.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Well that's just it too. Like when you go to
Buffalo Central, which I don't know that they're having investigations
at the moment, but like when you go there, you
you don't know who it is you're interacting with. You know,
you could be interacting with someone who you know was
a former owner and lived there, or you could be
interacting with someone who tragically passed away, you know in
(35:54):
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
(36:16):
perfect example of that because there are so many different
facets to.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
It and the amount of people that have passed through
there is mind blowing. And it was such an integral
part of the community, that whole east Side, the Old
east Side, that was the hub of that community. The
you know, the industry built up around there. Workers bought
(36:42):
homes in that area. So it has a lot of
loving memories. I know, even my late father in law
used to he would come and tell me whenever when
we used to have the cons there. We used 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
(37:04):
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
(37:24):
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.
(37:46):
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
(38:09):
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,
(38:33):
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,
(38:59):
mind blowing and amazing.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, I love that. I mean, I see I like too.
Sometimes when they cut off the investigations, I always wonder
if the spirits get a little upset because they get
so used to being communicated with regularly and then suddenly
that goes away. So I think it'd be nice to
get back in there for sure. But tell me now
that how do people find you? What are you up to?
What projects are you working on? Let's give a little
(39:22):
shout out, Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
You can find out more about me at www dot
Timothytshaw dot com. That's my website, and find me on Facebook.
And right now I'm doing what I consider locally the
Cabin Fever lecture series, which I'm doing one class or
talk per month at Dragonfly Art and Soul in Williamsville,
(39:45):
New York. And my very first one, I believe, is
on January eighteenth, and I will be talking about Victorian
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
(40:07):
that we were separated at birth. Luckily all the although
we are stuck in the same airports a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
But I've been in the room with you too before,
so I get it.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of it's kind of strange,
but we're gonna be I'm gonna be doing that, and
then I'll be in Toledo, uh in April, Mansfield and May,
I'll be doing something in Virginia and June, and of
course i'll be up at the Michigan Parra Con in August.
You know, so this is it's always gonna be fun.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, yeah, Well, it was lovely having you. I really
appreciate you taking the time, and hopefully we will meet
up again before August, but otherwise I will.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
See you then, we will see you, and thank you
for inviting me on the show.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Railroad stations are almost by definition, liminal spaces, regions you
pass through on your way somewhere else. So it's for
ghosts to linger in rail terminals, staying put for decades
or more rather than move on. But if there is
a train depot that seems appropriate for a haunting, it's
the Buffalo Central Terminal, which spent more of its existence
(41:15):
sitting in empty stillness and decline than it ever did
as a bustling transportation hub, while it barely ever served
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
(41:55):
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
(42:17):
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.
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