One of the wonders and frustrations of history is that you often find what you needed after you don't need it anymore. In early October I got an unusual request from a bank team member asking if we had any ghost stories 
in Wells Fargo's history. Searching my brain and my files, I couldn't come up with any haunted history.
Then sure enough, on the first work day after Halloween , I came across a story from an 1882 issue of the Express Gazette, a trade magazine of the express business. It repeated an item in the Reno, Nevada newspaper entitled "Ghosts on the Rail" that told the tale of Wells Fargo & Co's Express car No. 5, said to be haunted.
The Express railcar had been involved in an accident west of Truckee, California, which killed the train's conductor and an express messenger. Since then, strange happenings had been reported on board.
In one macabre incident, a corpse in transit rose in ghostly form from its casket, looked around the car, called the messenger by name, then vanished. In another haunting shortly afterward, a messenger heard strange noises on the roof, but looked out and saw no one atop the moving train. Returning to his station and his dinner, the messenger observed several boxes of freight rearranged.
When Car No. 5 went into the shop for an overhaul, the company's express messengers familiar with the car hoped the mysterious happenings on-board No. 5 would end. But on the first run out from San Francisco, the messenger swore that he was visited by an unseen ghost who rearranged boxes of freight, tolled bells, made mournful music, and called the messenger by name.
"The Express boys say Car No. 5 is known to all the company's employees, and they all tell the same story for the truth," reported the paper.
For all I know, the ghost of express car No. 5 may still be riding the rails.
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