The phrase “ghost train” conjures up eerie, fantastical images: a spectral locomotive barreling through the night, passengers doomed to ride the rails forever.

In Britain, ghost trains are real — but they’re more of a bureaucratic curiosity than a Halloween nightmare.

They are scheduled passenger trains that hardly anyone actually rides, running infrequently at obscure hours and stopping at stations that almost no one uses. They might operate only once a week or in only one direction. Other than a lonely crew member or two, they are often completely empty.

Why do they even operate? Believe it or not, to save money.

Railway companies would rather not serve these routes at all, because they generate too little traffic. But if the companies discontinued the routes completely, they would be obliged under British law to formally abandon the lines, and that’s a very costly, time-consuming and legally complex business.