User:Opulentj/sandbox

Urban legends have played a role in helping inform others of the culture that surrounds a group of people. Despite some legends being seen as farfetched from the truth, one can note that even then these stories have to adequately make some sort of cultural sense in order to be accepted. Without it fitting into a society, the legends would have fizzled out and therefore those that stand today have a lot to say about a region.

Many Hispanic households continue to share dichos and consejos with their family members in order to continue passing knowledge to future generations. In doing so, this has helped create identities for many as it exemplifies a community’s shared values, narratives, resilience and empowerment. Many in Mexican households choose to use the tool of storytelling rather than reading actual stories to their kids, regardless of the community they come from or socioeconomic status. At least once a month, 63% of households share horror stories to their children—a method used to provide advice to their kids on how to properly behave and at the same time also implying expectations with their behavior and attitude.

Today numerous articles speak about a famous tale that exists in San Antonio, Texas known as The Haunted Railroad Tracks. According to individuals, an incident took place sometime in the 1930s or 1940s—taking place in Villamain and Shane roads—in where a train stalled on the tracks when attempting to see if a nearby train was coming. The train could not stop on time and this resulted in a clash with the school bus where ten children ended up dying. According to testimonies today, if you stand 80 feet away from these tracks, put your vehicle in neutral, the vehicle begins to move on its own. Many visitors stop near these tracks and also pour baby powder on the rear of their vehicles when trying out this experiment. Once the vehicle finishes moving over the tracks, handprints can then be seen on the rear of the vehicle. These handprints are thought to be those of the children who died attempting to push vehicles over the train tracks in order to avoid another tragedy like theirs from ever occurring. Kids such as Jessica Gutierrez said that growing up in the nearby area she would hear of this tale. Individuals believe that this tale became the product of a warning sign to children in order to scare them out of playing on the train tracks.

Many ghost busters have arrived at the great San Antonio tracks in order to debunk this tale. Individuals now blame the slight decline that exists in the tracks, though not fully visibly, and how that is what pushes these vehicles downhill. To add on, they also blame individual’s for leaving their own handprints on their vehicles and thus causing the baby powder to appear with what seems like children’s handprints. Other individuals like Matt De Waelsche have also pointed out that no record of this incident actually exists in San Antonio, Texas. Instead, it exists 1300 miles away in Salt Lake City, Utah. On December 1, 1938 a train clashed with a school bus in Utah after stopping at 10600 South and 300 West in South Jordan in front of railroad. The ongoing blizzard made it difficult for the driver to see the oncoming train and out of the 39 kids on the bus, 23 students from Jordan High School were killed.