[1][2] The light typically appears a distance of several hundred yards from the railroad crossing, approaching noiselessly while increasing in brightness.
[3] Its presence attracted large numbers of spectators from around the state throughout the 1960s and 1970s hoping to catch a glimpse of the light.
In one legend, a train loaded with wounded Confederate soldiers departed from Richmond after an 1864 battle, intending to evacuate its passengers to West Point, but never arrived.
[3] Another story describes the light as the lantern of a railroad worker decapitated in a nineteenth-century train accident as he searches for his missing head.
[1] These fanciful legends are likely not based in fact; there are no records of railroad decapitations near West Point, and during the American Civil War Confederate forces in the area retreated away from West Point in the direction of Richmond, the opposite of what was described in the legend.