A solitary railway signalman, stationed in a desolate cutting, begins to see a ghostly figure near the tunnel--each appearance heralding catastrophe. When a traveler stops to hear his story, the line between reason and forewarning blurs, and the tale gathers its terrible inevitability. In this unnerving masterpiece of atmosphere and compression, Charles Dickens turns from social realism to metaphysical dread, crafting a story that prefigures both Freud's uncanny and the mechanized anxieties of the modern age.