CatDog wrote:
Ah, that would be old Moonshine. Haven?t heard anything about him in a while. It?s probably not news that Jersey City (like most cities, I guess) was awash with booze during prohibition, and while most of it came down from Canada, there were plenty of shiners out in the woods in Jersey, and even in some basements in JC. They?d send unmanned horses down the old rail tracks late at night with saddlebags to the move the hooch - less dangerous than driving the stuff themselves, of course. Some of it would stay in JC, some of it would stop in warehouses on the waterfront before moving onto the ferries to NYC.

So that?s the background. After a while of course, the feds caught on, and made a stake-out to track these horses and find out where they were going and who was sending them, so they set up shop along some of the rails in the area, though I can?t remember which line. Might not even be there anymore, but I guess the embankment makes sense? I don?t know much about the rail lines. Anyway, they were supposed to be following a horse on its trip down to the waterfront, but someone screwed up and spooked the horse back up towards the hills. The horse had to arrive at its destination or they?d raise suspicion, so the feds chased after the horse and backed it into a rail tunnel on another line. As they were trying to calm it down and turn it around towards the waterfront, they heard the whistle of a freight train that was much too loud. Giving up on their charge, they abandoned the horse and made a b-line for the tunnel entrance. After a mad dash, a couple of them made it, one guy lost a limb, and another got creamed by the train. The horse was still in the tunnel and of course, had no chance of squeezing by the side of the train, and got turned into horsemeat.

Now Moonshine the horse roams around JC at night sometimes, spooking people who walk their dogs late at night.