Rarely have so many owed so much to such a small creature. The story of the lone moth that saved a whole train full of people is to this day one of the most fascinating legends of its kind. Of course given when it was first told and the unverifiable source of it's claim it's still considered just a story by many. Still others say it's one of the most interesting stories of its kind. And listeners are drawn to this tale much like moths to the flame.
The legend begins with an old steam locomotive racing across the plains with a single conductor at its helm. Lighting their way is an old lantern lit by a candle flame. As the conductor looked ahead of him suddenly he caught sight of something that caused him to do a double take. A man was standing on the tracks with what looked like a lantern waving them down as if to warn them to stop. Taking the warning seriously, the conductor stopped, but when he put on the brakes his eyes were averted from the stranger. After looking up once again the stranger was gone, leaving only the icy chill of the night behind. As he walked out into the cold he realized he was miles away from any civilization. Perhaps a train had stopped on the bridge ahead. He sent out a search party to find the man who had told them to stop.
As the search party was dispatched, he noticed a dead moth in front of one of the lanterns. Could this have been the cause of his worries? As he picked up the moth, he saw the shadow in front of the lantern it left behind looked almost like a man holding a lantern. As he considered it, he wondered if the lantern could really have just attracted a moth and projected a shadow eerily similar to a man standing there warning them of something coming up. Eventually deciding this must be what it was, the man was about to call the search party back when one of them suddenly called out to him.
He left the train and approached the voice. It was one of his men up the tracks. As he followed the sound of the voice he soon came to the remnants of a broken bridge. Had they not stopped at that exact place, they would have toppled over into a chasm below. As he held the moth in his hand he wondered if the whole train had been saved by this incredibly fortuitous creature.
Another version of the story suggests that as they searched the broken remains of the bridge while waiting for help the next morning, they found a single locomotive traveling past it had caused the collapse. And the conductor of that locomotive looked strangely familiar to the conductor. He would wonder for the rest of his life if this had been the man he had seen on the tracks that night. But he looked like he had been dead for some time. But then how could he have warned them?
