The platform is nearly empty.
It’s late enough that the crowds have disappeared, leaving only the hum of fluorescent lights and the occasional sound of footsteps somewhere farther down the station.
Then you hear it.
A train approaching through the tunnel.
You glance toward the darkness and wait for the familiar headlights to appear.
But when the train pulls into the station, something is wrong.
It’s silver.
No familiar color. No advertisements covering the cars. No reassuring signs that this is just another ordinary train carrying tired passengers home.
Through the windows, you can see people sitting inside.
They’re strangely still.
No one is talking.
No one is reading.
No one seems to notice you standing on the platform.
The doors slide open.
Maybe you’ve been waiting a long time. Maybe you’re tired. Maybe you don’t know the stories.
So you step aboard.
The doors close behind you.
And that’s when you realize something else.
This train isn’t stopping at the next station.
According to one of Stockholm’s most enduring urban legends, you’ve just boarded Silverpilen—the Silver Arrow.
And some say once you board Stockholm’s ghost train…
you may never get off.
What Is the Silverpilen Ghost Train?
Long before Silverpilen became a ghost story, there really was a strange silver train traveling beneath Stockholm.
During the 1960s, the Stockholm Metro introduced a small group of experimental C5 cars. Unlike the familiar painted trains commuters were accustomed to seeing, these cars were made of aluminum and left unpainted.
They were silver.
Their interiors were different too, with a stark appearance and fewer of the advertisements passengers expected to see.
And there weren’t many of them.
The C5 consisted of only eight cars, making an encounter with them unusual. They were also frequently used during off-hours and at night.
So picture being a commuter in Stockholm decades ago.
You’ve taken the same route countless times.
You know what the trains look like.
Then, late one evening, something unfamiliar slides out of the darkness.
A bare silver train.
Quiet.
Unadorned.
Almost empty.
It wouldn’t take long for stories to begin.
And they did.
Eventually, the strange train acquired a name.
Silverpilen.
The Silver Arrow.
The Silverpilen Ghost Train
As stories about Silverpilen spread through Stockholm, the train became something very different from the unusual C5 cars commuters occasionally encountered.
According to the legend, another Silverpilen travels through Stockholm’s tunnels late at night.
Some say it appears around three in the morning, long after most passengers have gone home.
You might be alone on the platform when you hear it coming.
The train pulls into the station.
The doors open.
And inside are passengers who don’t look quite right.
Their faces are pale.
Their expressions are blank.
Their eyes stare straight ahead.
They don’t speak to one another.
They don’t acknowledge you.
Because according to some versions of the legend, the passengers aboard Silverpilen are already dead.
And if you’re standing on that platform when the doors open, you have a decision to make.
Wait for another train.
Or climb aboard.
The stories are very clear about which one you should choose.
What Happens If You Board the Silverpilen Ghost Train?
Like most good urban legends, the details change depending on who tells the story.
But none of the endings are particularly comforting.
In one version, Silverpilen never stops.
You board expecting to ride a few stations.
Instead, the train continues through the tunnels.
One station passes.
Then another.
And another.
Maybe you try the doors.
They won’t open.
Maybe you pull the emergency brake.
Nothing happens.
The passengers around you remain perfectly still.
And the train keeps going.
According to the legend, Silverpilen can travel forever, carrying its passengers endlessly beneath Stockholm.
Another version is even stranger.
The train eventually does stop.
But by the time it does, far more time has passed than the passenger realizes.
Someone might believe they’ve been trapped aboard for hours or days, only to discover that much longer has passed outside the train. Other versions claim Silverpilen stops only once a year, finally releasing passengers who no longer look quite alive themselves.
Then there’s another possibility.
Perhaps Silverpilen isn’t simply traveling endlessly through Stockholm.
Perhaps it has a destination.
And that destination is a station where no living passenger is supposed to go.
The Silverpilen Ghost Train and Kymlinge Station
Between Hallonbergen and Kista on Stockholm’s Blue Line sits an unusual place.
Kymlinge Station.
The station was planned during the expansion of Stockholm’s Metro in the 1970s. A new development was expected in the area, and Kymlinge would serve the people who eventually lived and worked there.
But those plans changed.
The station was never opened.
Instead, its unfinished platforms remained beside the tracks as trains passed through without stopping.
An empty station hidden along an active subway line is unsettling enough.
Then the stories started.
And eventually Kymlinge acquired a warning of its own:
Only the dead get off at Kymlinge.
It wasn’t long before Stockholm’s strange silver train and its ghost station became part of the same legend.
Silverpilen had found its final stop.
Only the Dead Get Off at Kymlinge
According to the stories, Silverpilen doesn’t wander aimlessly through the tunnels.
It’s taking its passengers somewhere.
Kymlinge.
The train slips through Stockholm in the middle of the night, carrying the dead until it reaches the abandoned platform.
Then the doors open.
And the passengers get off.
All of them.
They walk onto the empty platform and disappear into a station that was never meant to receive them.
Maybe that’s why the station doesn’t need to open for ordinary passengers.
Maybe it already has passengers of its own.
But one of the creepiest Silverpilen Ghost Train stories involves someone who supposedly boarded the train without realizing what it was.
And unlike most of its passengers…
she was still alive.
The Girl Who Boarded Silverpilen
One version of the legend tells of a young woman returning home after spending the evening in central Stockholm.
It was late.
She entered the Metro and boarded a train.
At first, nothing seemed terribly unusual.
Then she began looking at the people around her.
Something about them was wrong.
They sat quietly.
Their faces looked strange.
Their eyes seemed empty.
The woman grew increasingly uncomfortable, but she only needed to reach her stop.
Except the train didn’t stop there.
She reportedly tried the emergency brake.
Nothing happened.
The train continued through the tunnels until it finally slowed beside an unfamiliar platform.
The woman looked through the window.
Kymlinge.
She got off with the other passengers.
Maybe she thought she could find another train.
Maybe she simply wanted to get away from the people she’d been sitting beside.
Instead, she followed them toward the station exit.
At the top of the stairs was a locked door.
The woman stopped.
The other passengers didn’t.
They walked straight through it.
And that’s when she understood why the passengers aboard Silverpilen had seemed so strange.
They hadn’t been traveling home.
They were already where they belonged.
What Happened to the Girl at Kymlinge?
The story has more than one ending.
Neither is particularly reassuring.
In one version, the young woman disappears.
A week later, she’s reportedly found dead in the woods near Kymlinge.
But another version allows her to survive.
She’s discovered near the station about a week after she boarded the train.
Alive.
Terrified.
And insisting that from her perspective, only a short amount of time had passed.
That’s one of my favorite details in the Silverpilen Ghost Train legend.
Because it suggests the train doesn’t simply travel through Stockholm.
It may travel somewhere else entirely.
Somewhere the usual rules about stations, distance…
and time…
don’t apply.
An Empty Silverpilen Ghost Train May Be Worse
You might think seeing a train filled with dead passengers would be the worst possible version of Silverpilen.
Apparently not.
Some versions of the legend say you should pay close attention to whether anyone is aboard.
If Silverpilen arrives filled with silent, expressionless passengers, there’s still hope.
The train already has what it came for.
You may be allowed to leave.
But if the silver train arrives empty, the meaning is much more disturbing.
It’s not carrying anyone.
It’s looking for someone.
And according to the legend, that someone may be you.
The doors open.
The empty seats are waiting.
All you have to do is step inside.
The Train That Shouldn’t Be There
There’s something particularly effective about a ghost train legend.
Most haunted places wait for you to come to them.
The haunted house stays where it is.
So does the cemetery.
The abandoned hospital isn’t going anywhere.
You can decide not to enter.
The Silverpilen Ghost Train comes looking for passengers.
It moves beneath a living city, through stations people use every day.
And perhaps that’s what made the legend so easy to pass from one commuter to another.
Someone waiting alone for a late-night train doesn’t need much imagination to become uneasy.
The platform empties.
The tunnel goes dark.
Then headlights appear.
And for just a moment, before the train gets close enough to see clearly, you wonder:
What if it’s silver?
Does the Silverpilen Ghost Train Still Run?
The real Silverpilen eventually disappeared from regular Metro service in the 1990s.
But according to the legend, Stockholm’s other Silverpilen never stopped running.
The stories survived the train that inspired them.
People still tell of the silver ghost train traveling through Stockholm’s tunnels, appearing late at night when stations are quiet and almost everyone else has gone home. Kymlinge still sits along the Blue Line, unfinished and unopened.
Which means the legend still has everything it needs.
Dark tunnels.
Empty platforms.
A station where trains aren’t supposed to stop.
And somewhere beneath Stockholm…
a silver train that may still be looking for its next passenger.
Other Creepy Transportation Legends
Kisaragi Station
A late-night train carries a young woman past her usual stop and eventually leaves her at a station she’s never heard of.
Kisaragi Station.
There’s just one problem.
She can’t find the station on any map.
As she tries to find her way home, her messages become increasingly disturbing—and eventually stop altogether.
Like Silverpilen, Kisaragi Station turns an ordinary train ride into a journey somewhere you may never have been meant to go.
The Last Bus to Fragrant Hills
According to one of Beijing’s creepiest urban legends, the Last Bus to Fragrant Hills, often called the Beijing Ghost Bus or Bus 375, picked up several strange passengers during a late-night journey.
Something about them wasn’t right.
And before the night was over, the bus itself would supposedly disappear.
When the story is told today, the mysterious passengers, the missing bus, and what was allegedly discovered afterward have turned an ordinary bus route into one of China’s most chilling transportation legends.
The Lincoln Funeral Train
After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, a funeral train carried his body from Washington, D.C., to Springfield, Illinois.
Over the years, stories began circulating about a ghostly funeral train traveling along portions of the old route near the anniversary of Lincoln’s journey.
Witnesses have described eerie lights and a phantom train passing through the darkness before disappearing again.
The Ghosts of Flight 401
After Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades in 1972, stories began circulating about deceased crew members appearing aboard other aircraft.
Captain Bob Loft and flight engineer Don Repo were reportedly seen by passengers and airline employees.
And according to some accounts, the dead crewmen weren’t simply haunting the planes.
They were still doing their jobs.
The Phantom Funeral of Archer Avenue
Chicago’s Archer Avenue is famous for its ghost stories, including the legendary Resurrection Mary.
But another tale describes something even stranger:
an entire phantom funeral procession.
Drivers have reportedly encountered an old-fashioned hearse and mourners traveling along the road before the procession mysteriously disappears.
Final Thoughts
There are plenty of reasons to feel uneasy while waiting alone for a train late at night.
An empty platform.
A dark tunnel.
Footsteps you can’t quite place.
But Stockholm’s Silverpilen adds one more.
Maybe the train that finally arrives isn’t yours.
Maybe it isn’t anyone’s.
A silver train pulls into the station.
Silent passengers stare through the windows.
The doors slide open.
And somewhere farther down the line waits a station that never opened to the living.
So if you’re ever standing alone in the Stockholm Metro late at night and an unfamiliar silver train arrives…
let it leave without you.
Because according to the legend, the Silverpilen Ghost Train always has somewhere to take its passengers.
Getting back is another matter.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Silverpilen Ghost Train
What is Silverpilen Ghost Train?
Silverpilen, meaning the Silver Arrow, is the name associated with a distinctive silver C5 train once used on the Stockholm Metro and the ghost train legend that grew around it. According to the folklore, a supernatural Silverpilen still travels the Metro late at night carrying strange or deceased passengers.
What happens if you board Silverpilen?
Different versions of the legend give different outcomes. Some say passengers become trapped aboard while the train travels endlessly. Others describe strange distortions of time or claim the train eventually carries its passengers to Kymlinge Station.
Is Kymlinge a real station?
Kymlinge is a real unfinished station on Stockholm’s Blue Line. It was planned as part of a development that didn’t materialize, and the station never opened for passenger service.
Why is Kymlinge connected to Silverpilen?
The two became intertwined in Stockholm folklore. According to the legend, Kymlinge is Silverpilen’s destination—the station where its ghostly passengers leave the train. The chilling saying associated with the station is “Only the dead get off at Kymlinge.”
Does the Silverpilen Ghost Train still appear?
The C5 cars that inspired the legend were removed from Metro service decades ago, but stories about the supernatural Silverpilen have continued long after the distinctive train disappeared from Stockholm’s regular service.
About the Author
Karen Cody is the creator of Urban Legends, Mystery, and Myth, a blog exploring eerie folklore, strange history, and the mysteries behind the world’s most chilling stories. From haunted places and supernatural creatures to ghost stories, horror films, and modern myths, she examines the legends—both ancient and modern—that continue to fascinate and frighten us.
© 2026 Karen Cody. All rights reserved.