Stony Valley Rail Trail crossing Rausch Creek

History & local legend

Rausch Gap, a former mining settlement in northern Lebanon County, is remembered for a lantern-carrying woman along its old railroad grade. The legend says she took over a railroad switch after her husband died.

Still overwhelmed by grief, she failed to change the switch when a train approached. The resulting derailment killed its passengers. Her lantern is said to move along the abandoned line, sometimes following people through the darkness.

Local guide Cliff Zeller grew up hearing several explanations for mysterious lights on the roughly four-mile stretch between Rausch Gap and Gold Mine. In a 2024 interview, he recalled the woman at the switch, but also versions in which the lights belonged to those who died in a train wreck.