Hobos, Tramps and Homeless Bums

[KaBar]

Required to Identify Yourself by law

 

Wackass---I don't know about other states, but in Texas you are required to identify yourself by law, and giving a false name or someone else's identity to a cop is a "state jail" felony, meaning it carries a penalty of less than one year in jail. Once they arrest you, they usually take adults to the County jail to be processed, take your photograph, get your fingerprints, search you, and put you in the lock-up. Once you have been before a magistrate (a judge) and have been formally charged with the crime, they spray you with a insecticide (for lice), you take a shower, then they give you jail clothes and slip-on deck shoes, and hold all your possessions until you are released. Not every jail does it exactly the same, but this is pretty much how it works in Houston. If you are an adolescent, you go first to a holding facility for kids called the Chimney Rock Center, then on to the Juvenile Detention Center lock-up on West Dallas street. They hold adolescents charged with a crime there until they go to court. They run your fingerprints through a Federal government computer called the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) to try and identify you. They will not release you until they know who you are for sure, most of the time. If you get convicted, you either finish your time there, or you go on to the Texas Youth Council facility, which is, more or less, a prison for people who were teenagers when they committed their crime and younger than 18. If you get a sentence that is going to run longer than your minority (i.e. that lasts until after you turn 18) you are transferred to the regular Texas Department of Criminal Justice system at age 18. However, violent offenders as young as FOURTEEN are housed in TDCJ prisons, in a special unit for kids. These inmates are are usually gang bangers, child murderers, rapists, arsonists, child molestors and kids like that. In TDCJ, you are housed in a Youthful Offenders unit until you turn 21, and then sent to a mainline penitentiary or to a prison farm. Now honestly, I don't think anybody would go to TDCJ for shoplifting, especially not on a first offense. But I know several teenagers who had repeated brushes with the law, and who got probation, and who blew off the probation appointments, and wound up in TYC until they were 18 for a bullshit crime like malicious mischief (he broke windows in his girlfriend's Dad's car.) He spent 2-1/2 years of his life locked up because he was stupid. I'll tell you what though, when he got out he had a whole different attitude about breaking the Laws of the State. The worst part about being locked up is the other detainees. They are used to hassling everybody and using force and violence to get their way, and now the only available victims around are other detainees. So guess who they victimize? Being in jail sucks. The other prisoners will try to steal your clothes, your food, your personal possessions, they try to fuck the weaker inmates and they just try to make life shit for everybody around them. They attack one another in groups. If you break the law, you can expect to get punished eventually. If you don't want to get punished, then don't break the law. Personally, I see a difference between rinky-dink crimes like trespassing on railroad property and smoking cigarettes, or minor-in-possession of alcohol and the bigger crimes like stealing or robbery. But a lot of times the law doesn't make that distinction. If you go before a hangin' judge, you might get the maximum sentence, especially if you have a cocky ass attitude.

[kid kazoo]

books

 

KaBar-

in one of your threads you posted some information on books about freight hopping. i lost the information and have not been able to find that post. would you be so kind as to reprint the titles, authors, etc?

[KaBar]

Books about Hopping

 

Kid Kazoo--Sure.

"Hopping Freight Trains in America," Duffy Littlejohn 1993 $13.95

ISBN 0-944627-34-X 354 pg. Sand River Press, 1319--14th Street, Los Osos, CA 93402 Send them $16 in a MONEY ORDER not a check.

 

"Freight Hopper's Guide for North America," Daniel Leen 1992 $8.95 ISBN 0-9632912-70 112 pg. My address for this book was in Seattle, but it's no longer good. Try used book stores or out-of-print services. I heard you could still get it from Loompanics, but I don't know. Maybe. Leen's book is kind of out-of-date, there must have been a lag of several years between the time he wrote it and the time he found a publisher.

 

"Done and Been," by Gypsy Moon (Jaqueline K. Schmidt) 1996, $8.98 ISBN 0-253-32985-X Indiana University Press. You can get this one from Barnes & Noble or some place like that. Daughter of a hobo wrote a book about all the old tramps she has met over the years at the National Hobo Convention at Britt, Iowa.

[FR8HOUND]

KABAR, VERY GOOD INFO, AS WELL AS,QUITE ACCURATE....YOU ROCK...GOOD TO HAVE SOMEONE, WHO IS INFORMED,AND EDUCATED ABOUT TOPICS, AND WILLING TO SHARE THEM WITH PEOPLE ON THIS BOARD, THAT MAY FIND THEM USEFUL/HANDY...IF AT ALL POSSIBLE, WITH THE GROWING TREND OF ''RAIL RIDERS'', I WOULD CONSIDER WRITING A BOOK, YOU MAY BE SURPRISED, ON HOW WELL IT WOULD PROBABLY SELL...HAVE A GOOD ONE MAN...AND WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ''OLD HOBO LEGENDS'', DON'T FORGET ''11030,SIDEDOOR PULLMAN KID'',EST. 1930...PART OF ''THE MILLION MILE CLUB''..THIS MAN WAS UNBELIEVABLE, AND THE STORIES HE TOLD, OF YEARS GONE BY, I'LL NEVER FORGET IT...[EX:] ''2001 PENNSBURG,PA. HOBO GATHERING''.......TAKE CARE KABAR..

[TEE_rase_war]

hey kabar....

 

just touching base...havent been hear in a while...nice to see your stil pounding out the facts..keep it up!

 

question : have you ever run by any "other" monikers on trains...or have you played tic-tac-toe with anyone?

 

my peece as always

[KaBar]

Monikers

 

TeeRase---Actually, I only started using "Kabar" as a moniker relatively recently. I never thought that much about using an alias when I was hopping full-time. I was young, and inexperienced. A "moniker," or nick-name, is supposed to be given TO you by older, wiser riding companions, you see. The idea of some twenty-year-old naming himself "Tennesee Pass Paulie" or 'Thousand Miler Mike" or some such thing is pretty funny to me. Rufe used to call me "Prospect" all the time, as in "Hey, PROSPECT, go get some fucking firewood! This ain't no hobby!" but I wouldn't consider that a moniker. More like an epithet. (If you don't know what a "prospect" is, it's some young guy who is trying to join a motorcycle club, more or less like a recruit. Below the level of "prospect" is "hangaround." Hangarounds aren't even included in stuff like beer runs, they are considered to be unworthy of much consideration at all. I once saw a patch-holder decide to get rid of a bunch of hangarounds. (A patch-holder is a full member of a motorcycle club, someone who has completed his time as a prospect and has been "voted a top rocker", i.e. voted into the club and given the "top rocker" to his colors. The top rocker has the name of the club on it, like "Hells Angels", "Bandidos", Satan's Slaves" etc.) Anyway, the hangarounds were sitting around at this bike shop out behind a patch-holder's house, and one of the bros decided to "clear out the light weights." He came out of the shop with an M-1 carbine and fired about ten rounds into the ground, pow-pow-pow-pow-pow. ZOOM! All the hangarounds except one hauled ass running. The only guy that just sat there calmly drinking his beer got promoted to "prospect" at the next meeting, and the guy with the carbine sponsored him.

Anyway, Rufe used to call me "prospect," but I wasn't really a prospect, I was just younger than him. Actually, having someone around as young and strong as I was back then was a real advantage for Rufe. If anybody had tried to hurt him, I would have kicked their ass into next week. He would have never admitted that to me, of course. "What the fuck--are you asleep at the switch, or what? You're lucky I'm here to show you the ropes, or you'd be dog meat for these fucking streamliners, no shit. Listen up, prospect! I shit you not, these guys are assholes!" He was a cool old guy, and to hear him tell it, he took care of me, not the other way around. I figured I'd just humor him. I learned a lot from him, especially about how the railroads do business.

[TEE_rase_war]

do you still talk to your old hombre's...or meet up with them...

 

have you met any "famous" hobos...peeps like that

[KaBar]

Old Friends and Acquaintances

 

Tee Rase---Regretably, I almost never hear from my old friends. Rufe has very likely passed away years ago (he was in his late forties or early fifties in 1970, if he is alive, he'd be probably in his late seventies.) Most of the tramps I knew were just everyday guys, they weren't well known. I did meet "Utah" Phillips once in Berkeley, he was playing a college gig and I was hanging out with some trainhoppers who were IWW members. He always allowed the IWW to set up literature tables at his concerts. Of the people I personally tramped with, an old girlfriend is now an executive with the U.S. Forest Service. Another one, who was an LSD and pot dealer back before LSD was illegal, is now an LCDC (a Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor.) My late ex-wife (who was a fearless hitch-hiker and trainhopper, in her day) was murdered by her landlady's ex-convict son in 1989, and is buried in Houston. My old running buddy from the late Sixties is a folk musician with several albums out. His ex-wife is a very well-known singer and guitarist, but I can't front her off so I guess I shouldn't mention it. Another of my old buddies, who was a hellacious drinker and druggie in the Sixties is now a born-again Christian who works offshore in the North Sea oil field.

The "famous" trainhoppers and hobos often don't ride all that much. A lot of the old guys have died. "Herbie" passed away--I didn't know him, but I saw his streak about a zillion times.

Z.Z. Top (who?) used to live around the corner from me on West Drew Street in Houston's Montrose district. A lot of the folk singers or country-and-western crossovers, like Lyle Lovett, got their start in a cafe where I used to hang out, Anderson-Fair Retail Restaurant. Before Anderson Fair, there was another Houston hot spot, The Family Hand Restaurant. The Family Hand was one cool group of people. I've never known another group of folks since then that were quite that creative or sophisticated.

I guess the short answer is "Nah, not really." Appreciate the friends you have when you are young. You may never see most of them again.

[TEE_rase_war]

time is a bitch....

 

when i think of the 80's it's like 20 or so years...but for some...time is running out...50 to 70

 

man...growing old!

[vinyl junkie]

hey KaBar-

what do you think about asking yard workers which trains are going where? i've never had a problem with it but i know people who would kick my ass just for thinking it... i'm just curious about the opinion of someone with more than just a few years experience...

 

and if this has already been asked, then someone just shut me up and i'll read through again...

[KaBar]

The Rails Are Just People

 

Vinyl Junkie---The railroad guys are just people, you know. They go to work, get a paycheck and bitch about the company just like everybody else. Their attitudes vary, just like our attitudes vary. One car knocker or switchman may have a real slack attitude, and not have a problem with you writing or hopping; but the next guy may be some kind of CSX nazi who yells at you and chases you around. I have asked car knockers and switchmen many times for information about trains and I've only gotten bad scoop a couple of times. Even then I might have misunderstood the guy or might have accidentally boarded the wrong train in the dark. (If the guy says "Oh yeah, all these trains in this side of the Yard are westbounds--Track Seven is going to El Paso" and I boarded Track Eight and wound up in New Mexico, that's my fault, not his.) You need to be careful not to "front off" the railroad workers. If management, supervisors or the bulls see him talking to you and not reporting that you are trespassing, he's in a world of shit. If you are talking to a car knocker or a switchman, and you suddenly spot The Man, pretend like the car knocker is ordering you out of the Yards. (Like pointing your finger towards "out" and saying "This way? You want me to go out this way?" and then act like he kicked you out.) If it's a bull, they can pursue you even off railroad property, so don't bother to run unless it's at night and you think you can lose him. If you DO get popped, NEVER RAT OFF A RAILROAD WORKER. NEVER. We know that we are breaking the rules, and that we could get popped. If you get caught, just suck it up and grit your teeth. Getting popped once in a while is a risk we agree to take. IF YOU CAN'T ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES, DON'T TRESPASS ON RAILROAD PROPERTY. If I get popped, it's my own fault. Never say "That guy over there said it was okay." He doesn't have the authority to say shit. He's there to hook up brake lines and check for dragging gear. If you rat on him, he could lose his job, so keep your mouth shut, or if necessary, lie, and say that he told you to get out and you disobeyed him. Blaming somebody else is punk behavior. Be a stand up guy.

[vinyl junkie]

cool, thanks KaBar...

i was just curious about an old timer's opinion :)

[Agent Uprise]

Kabar- Whats up, Im new here but I think I've read just about all of your threads. Much respect.

I got two questions about hopping. First, I read your posts about 'deadmans' , I've heard people talking about jamming the doors open with railroad spikes but never anything else. Whats your opinion on this? Is it more or less reliable than a deadman?

Second, whats your opinion on riding hotshots , the cars with two cargo box things on top of each other. Its my understanding that what you loose in space and comfort you make up in time because those cars are high priority. Whats your opinion on that?

[KaBar]

Dead Men and Hot Shots

 

Agent Uprise---I wrote a long explanation about something that happens on trains called "slack action" afew weeks ago, but after everybody read it it sort of slipped on off into the ozone. I don't know much about computers, this BBS or archiving. If you know a lot about all that maybe you can figure out how to retrieve it from archives.

Slack Action is created when the slack in the couplers and the draft gear under the cars is pulled out or pushed in. The slack between two cars usually winds up being between 8-14" considering weight, length of train, etc. For arguments sake, let's say a foot per car. If you have 50 cars, that means that the unit will move FIFTY FEET before the last car moves an inch, and when that last car starts to roll, it does so with a zero-to-twenty BANG. As the slack action comes "down the line" you can hear it: bam-bam-bam-Bam-Bam-Bam-BAM-BAM-BAM-BANG! When the train takes off, this is called stretch-out, or "draft." (as in draft horses.) When the engineer applies the brakes, it happens in reverse. It sounds the same, but the noise is caused by the couplers and draft gear being pushed together, or "buffed in." This is called "buff," as in buffeting.

Either type of slack action can cause a boxcar door to roll. They can roll open, or they can roll shut. Usually, because Rbox doors are heavy as shit, they just move a little bit, maybe a foot or two. But if you are travelling 600 miles, the repeated slack action can cause the door to rattle shut. If the door slides shut, and your car gets sidetracked out in the middle of nowhere, you are in a world of shit. You could die, for real.

SO--since there is no way one can open one of these heavy-ass, two-ton doors, the trick is to prevent it from sliding all the way shut to start with. It's true that you can drive a railroad spike under the door, and in an emergency, I'd do that, but a "deadman" doesn't harm the door or the track and doesn't create any hassles for railroad workers or warehousemen. "Spiked" doors piss off the railroad people. If you use a spike, TAKE IT WITH YOU WHEN YOU GO, unless it is too dangerous to retrieve it. I carry my deadman under my bindle, under the nylon straps. I made it out of a 2x4 about 26" long. You put a deadman in the door on edge (usually) because the door track is a couple of inches wide, and a 2x4 is actually 1-7/8" thick. It usually fits fairly well. I clean the dust, rust and crap out of the door track first, if any is in there. I put the deadman all the way against the door frame on the "forward" side. Deadman BOTH doors if you can. If every hopper carries his own deadman, and you always travel with a partner, you can deadman both doors, no problem. The only problem about deadmanning the doors is that it is a dead giveaway that there are hoppers on board that car, but nevertheless, ALWAYS DEADMAN THE DOOR. "Always means always." No exceptions.

 

Riding hot shot cargo is hazardous. "Well cars" designed to hold cargo containers (like TTX 48's) are a good, fast ride, but this type of cargo is extremely high priority and the bulls watch it carefully when it gets to their jurisdiction. Never, and I mean NEVER, tamper with cargo. The stack trains (two containers "stacked" on top of each other) are uysually loaded with the boxes all the way forward in the well, leaving a tramp space behind the containers. NEVER board a well car with the containers loaded to the back of the car. If anything goes wrong, you will be crushed into mush. Always ride BEHIND the cargo, and "always means always." NEVER RIDE IN FRONT OF CARGO. No exceptions.

There is only one circumstance that I can think of that could result in tramps riding BEHIND a container box to be crushed, and that would be if the front of the container were to strike an overhead obstruction, like a bridge or a cable hanging down across the tracks, and the boxes were slammed to the rear of the well car container deck. But this is very unlikely--I've never heard of it happening, but I guess it's theoretically possible.

. TTX 48's aren't the only rideable well cars, but many of the other well cars (TTX 53's, for instance) have no floor, just a web of steel girders. Too dangerous. Don't ride unrideable cars. An old hobo rule was "Never ride the rods, the bumpers or the deck." This sort of rule still applies. Tramps who want to live only board rideable, appropriate cars. Dumb asses ride bad cars and get killed. Don't DO it.

[TEE_rase_war]

humping? same thing...before they tack right?

[KaBar]

Humping

 

Tee_Rase-- If what you are asking is will the doors move during humping, the answer is "yes, they will," maybe even more than from slack action, because the humped car (the "cut"), as it rolls down the classification side of the apex, towards the retarder will be rolling faster than 10 mph, probably. When it hits the retarder and the retarder applies braking action (slows it down to less than 5 mph--"No More Than 4") the door is getting 6 mph inertia applied to it. Then, when the cut is switched onto it's classification track, to be included in a consist (when the switchmen are "making up" a train) it will crash into the cars already standing on that track, and the couplers will close and lock from the impact. The string of cars that the cut hits may move a little, maybe a few feet. If there are a lot of cars there, they won't move much, because the string weighs a lot more than the cut, so the impact is abrupt and violent--Ka-BAM.

IF YOU ARE INSIDE THE CUT--YOU ARE IN A WORLD OF SHIT.

When trains are being broken up, they are pulled over a hump going forwards, by their road unit. The road unit may be taken off the train, and a goat added for power, or, the train may be humped using road power. It depends on how big the train is, how heavy the loads, etc. The trains are BACKED UP over the hump apex, and at the "moment of truth" a switchman "pulls the pin" on the cars as they get right to the apex, and the men in the crest tower direct each free-rolling "cut" to where it's supposed to go, after it goes through the retarder and is slowed down to about 4 mph.

 

Get off trains that are being broken up, preferably way before it ever gets to the classification yard. If you can determine that your train is being pulled up over a hump apex, GET OFF THE TRAIN and get out of the yard, DEFINATELY get away from the hump and the classification yard and the retarder. If you get caught there, you will be arrested, it's a very dangerous place to be.

 

Is that what you were asking?

[Agent Uprise]

Kabar- Thanks for the response. As far as the train spike is concerned I definatly respect what your saying about taking it with you. Concerning deadmans, Dont trains make all sorts of stops giving numerous chances for people to notice a big peice of wood in the door track? You cant take it out when your stopped cause you need it to hold the door for when the slack 'hits' right? Also, I just recently saw a box car whose door was lashed open with metal bands, are those trustworthy?

Finally, I was looking for your opinion of which is better to ride, hotshots or boxes? Thanks again.

[KaBar]

Good Questions

 

I can see that you are definately applying your brain to riding. You've got a point about the deadman maybe attracting attention sitting there in the door track, but most trains have fifty or sixty cars, and one 2x4 half visable in a door track is not too likely to attract a whole lot of attention, especially if the wood is a little weathered and gray, or if you just "weather" it a little yourself. A bright yellow, fresh pine 2x4 would be a lot more noticeable than a gray/rusty one. Also, if you use a solid piece of oak or ash shipping pallet to make a deadman, it will look more like junked-out "dunnage" or "wood they use to secure cargo in a boxcar or ship's hold."

A boxcar door held open with steel banding could be anything. It could be because some warehouseman wanted it to remain open, but it also could be that the door is DEFECTIVE and dangerous. Those doors do fall off once in a while.

Whenever a train arrives in a town or yard, if it's just passing through, it will continue to roll on the main line, the so-called "high iron." If it switches onto a sidetrack, or starts a sort of back-and-forth banging around, it's probably dropping cars or picking cars up. It will take a while for you to be able to figure out what is going on from just the movement of the train. A scanner will help a LOT in this situation, just be sure you're on the right "road channel" for that railroad. You can listen to the radio traffic between the unit and the switchman or conductor on the ground. There are too many different situations for me to be able to explain it all in a post on the net. Buy Duffy Littlejohn's book, he describes a slew of different ways to tell what is going on. Knowing what the air brake sounds indicate is an enormous help.

One thing for sure, never "skyline" in a rail yard or anywhere on a train. HIDE. Way out in the country you can skyline a little bit, but if some rail fan taking pictures sees you, he'll probably call the railroad and report you, and the local sheriff will stop the train and you'll be arrested. Just be serious about what you're doing. Like old Rufe said (all together now) "This ain't no hobby!"

High priority freight is fast. Fast is good, you can go coast-to-coast in a couple of days or so. But high priority trains are closely watched. Closely watched is bad--you are more likely to get popped.

Empty boxcars are low-priority. They are on slow units. They go in the hole a lot to let high priority trains pass. This is "bad." Sort of. Low priority trains are not closely watched. You are not likely to be popped, but "not likely" is a relative term. When you are riding ANY freight train, HIDE. Hope this makes things clearer.

[vinyl junkie]

hey KaBar, i have 2 questions for you... first what's your opinion of frame packs? most of the kids i know use them, but all the old timers i've met hate them. second, i've been thinking about bringing a respirator for trips that go through tunnels, but i don't really know if it would be that neccessary. how bad do the fumes get in the longer tunnels? i've yet to be through any serious ones myself. thanks for any input...

[KaBar]

Frame Packs/ Respirators

 

An extrenal frame pack is too ridgid and awkward for hopping in my opinion. The purpose of a frame is to better distribute the load from your shoulders to your hips when packing. This eases the strain on your shoulders and your neck and your lower back. I use frame packs when hiking, but it would be awkward throwing one on or off a train car.

Secondly, you want to be able to sit on your pack like a seat, to stuff it through a grainer hole, and to pitch it off a moving train without damaging anything. Anything breakable, like an expensive camera or a bottle of wine, is going to BREAK. Don't bring anything with you that can break.

Your total hopping gear should only weigh in at about twenty-five or thirty pounds. More than that and you are going to be so weighed down and restricted that you'll hardly be able to trot, much less run.

 

I never saw anybody wear a respirator (a fancy dust mask) on a train. There are some tunnels in the West that are so long that it is actually dangerous to your life to ride them. If the train stopped in a long tunnel, it would probably kill you. If you are ever actually in this situation, the air closest to the ballast should be less dense with diesel fumes, but getting off the train in a pitch black tunnel filled with smoke just seems like an act of suicide. A respirator would help with the particulates in the diesel smoke, but it won't help with the carbon monoxide. Most people carry bandanas and wear a couple soaked in water to cut the smoke in a tunnel. I've heard of people pulling their jacket or coat over their head and breathing through a restricted coat sleeve, too, but in a five mile tunnel on an uphill grade, I doubt it would be any picnic. Tunnels are completely dark, usually, and unbelieveably NOISY. Finding stuff in your ruck in a tunnel would not be easy at all without a flashlight.

I don't know the exact location of all the really long tunnels. I've been through a few shorter ones about thirty years ago, but frankly I didn't have a clue as to where in the hell we were. You are WISE to be concerned about it. If you've already got a respirator, what the hell--throw it in your ruck. Knowing where you are headed and what's on that line is obviously the way to go here. If you're headed towards Colorado, GET A MAP AND STUDY IT.

[TEE_rase_war]

kabar- that reminds me...in some of my more ignorant days a older friend of mine talked once about tunnels,in my area...(northwest) you cannot hop a train without tunnels. i know of one that goes under the whole city. My question is for your knowledge on tunnels....can you make the mud, water.. i see how tunnels can be potentialy very dangerous..and how it could create a vacuum when the train enters...is ther oxygen inside?....how does the carbon monoxide vent...is ther vents...stuf like that...it has been something that i think alot about....tunnels that is since my friend mentioned them some time ago.

 

so thanks very much...

[KaBar]

Limited Knowledge of Tunnels

 

My knowledge of tunnels is not very good, but-- yes, there is air inside, of course. Sometimes the wind keeps the tunnel pretty clear, sometimes they have great big fans that blow the diesel fumes out. I've never seen mud or water in a train tunnel. They are usually tunnelled going uphill, so tunnels drain pretty well. That's not to say that some tunnels somewhere don't have mud, just not the ones I've seen.

[vinyl junkie]

hi kabar, i have another question for you... you said: "NEVER SKYLINE IN A RAIL YARD OR ON A TRAIN." are you against skylining even when you're out in the middle of nowhere? just curious...

[KaBar]

Skylining

 

Vinyl Junkie---The first time I ever heard of skylining was from Rufe, I think. Like all kids, I couldn't see any reason to not "have a blast" while I was riding a train--waving at girls, yelling "yee-haw", hanging half out the door of the boxcar and so on. I was just as goofy as any other newbie. Rufe schooled me in why I shouldn't be doing those things. He learned about not skylining yourself in the service, probably.

The word "skylining" refers to not silhouetting yourself against the sky when humping on a patrol. You want to move quietly, slowly and silently, without ever going up on the apex of a ridge. You don't move from where you are until you know where you are going to , and how you are going to get there. You move in the shadows. You try not to make any noise. I learned a lot more about not skylining yourself in the Marines. You work in pairs, four to a Fire Team, with a Fire Team Leader calling the shots. Each man has a sector of surveillance responsibility, right, left, forward, to the rear. You try not to attract any attention, to make any noise, or to leave any trace.

Some situations call for this kind of caution, and some do not. How to tell the difference is what makes an experienced trainhopper or graff artist. In some cases, I've strolled down the high iron like I owned the place. In some, I skulked along, creeping and crawling around, hiding, waiting silently. Just use your judgement, and do the appropriate thing.

[suburbian bum]

The isssue of tunnels is a difficult one. It would really suck to accedentally get stuck in a huge tunnel and die. I know there is one near my house way up in the mountains at least 20 miles long, and the trains might go max 20 miles an hour through it. That means a whole hour in the tunnel. Sounds like a resporator would be a good idea but still you may die. I never thought about this fact before. In our drivers ed class, we had a gentle man come in with "operation lifesaver" a train safety course. He informed us that in some tunnels in the mountains trains will have snow plows that run only 6 inches above the ground. I just thought that was an interesting subject considering I have never thought about that before and there is lots of tunnels here in Colorado.

[vinyl junkie]

thanks kabar... and yeah, as cool as i may feel, i know not to wave at the girls... what i'm wondering though, is what about sitting on the edge/roof of a boxcar when your out in the middle of the desert or somrthing... this may just be yet another young kids versus old timers thing, but i'm curious about yer opinion... thanks!

[muthafuckinfatso]

i was surprised to read that u just bumped into roni/rune/ sorry i forget his name-the guy who taught u eveything in hoppin.

 

yeah so u were over the road and just bumped into him on the path and continued along his side. man, i don't trust anyone i meet in weird places or close to tracks. maybe back then it was differant for u.

 

btw, thanks for all this good reading. i been printing it off cuz i can't stand readin on the puter.

[KaBar]

Satori

 

Vinyl Junkie---Please don't think I'm putting you down, because that's not the case. Nobody can expect you to know anything about trainhopping--you aren't experienced and you're young. The idea that one might reasonably ride up on the deck (the roof of a boxcar or the deck of an open flatcar) occurs to you because you lack experience. You've probably heard that old saw about parachute jumping and chute failure--"It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop." This is true of hopping as well. While it might be possible to ride up on the deck, if you could find a boxcar that still has ladders and handgrips permitting access to the roof, it is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. I know that people did it back in the olden days. Hell, I did it a few times myself in the '70s, but looking back on it, I must have been the biggest dumb ass on the railroad. "Riding the deck" is super dangerous because there is nothing to stop you from being bounced or thrown off the car, down between two cars to the ballast, or off the side. If you're on the deck, and a brake line parts, effectively dynamiting the brakes, and your train decelerates from 60mph to 15 mph in ten seconds, what do you suppose will happen to you if you aren't holding on or belayed to something with a safety harness and a carabiner?

THE RULE IS---"Never ride the rods, the bumpers or the deck." This means that in order to ride safely, you must be on a safe car (no tankers, no loaded gondolas, and never in front of a load) and you must be "secured," that is, holding on to something, riding in a secure spot (like a grainer hole) or secured to some part of the train (safety-harnessed or attached with a carabiner to an upright.) I never used carabiners back then, and I still don't, but I've met a few people who do. You should be CONCEALED, that is, HIDING on the train. Nobody should be able to see you. If you want to "pop out" occasionally and watch the scenery, or "lowline" by watching out the door at an angle, that's fine, but one should never skyline oneself by standing up on a grainer porch or by sitting in a boxcar door. For one thing, if slack action causes the door to slide shut you could easiely become a double amputee.

The word "satori" is a Japanese word, I believe, meaning a sudden occurance of insight or enlightenment. RIDING FREIGHT TRAINS IS A DANGEROUS ASS THING TO DO. Eventually, if you don't follow the rules exactly , you would be injured or killed. Even long-term old hands get hurt once in a while. I heard that Collinwood Kid got hurt twice--he was asleep, and the car he was on got humped. (He woke up, and stood up to go look out the door. He didn't realize the car had been humped and was rolling free. He was groggily staring out the door when the car he was on impacted a standing string being made up, and his head "bounced" off the boxcar door edge. He was hurt pretty badly, but he was lucky--it could have killed him. The second time some nut case hit him with a chunk of concrete.)

The idea is to lowline in the yards, hop your train, safely ride it until you reach your destination and lowline out of the yards, ALL WITHOUT EVER BEING SEEN OR LEAVING A TRACE. If you get spotted, get injured, or if you leave any trace, you have not done it correctly. That's the way I was taught, and that's the way I am passing it on to you guys. Like Rufe always said, "This ain't no hobby." And he was right.

[vinyl junkie]

thanks alot kabar... like i said, i don't get many opportunities to talk to any old timers with out buying them a six pack or something... and your absolutley right, us kids don't know shit. thank you very much!:)

[KaBar]

Everybody is Ignorant About Something

 

Vinyl Junkie---I guess the headline says it all. They say that a wise man keeps his own counsel---that means that you don't tell everybody what you're up to, but I think that it also sort of means people who want to appear smart sort of steer the conversation towards a topic that they know something about. Many people in my generation don't know shit about computers. It comes easy to you youngsters, because YOUR ENTIRE LIFE THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN COMPUTERS. You didn't have to "adapt." The schools started teaching you guys computer skills in the second or third grade. People in my generation usually don't know much about the upcoming technology. CD players and fiber optics have been around since the late 70's early '80s. I had a friend who advised me to invest in CD reader technology in 1980. I sure wish I had done it. Who knew? CD's cost $25 apiece back then. Cassette tapes were like $7. I didn't think CD's would become popular--too expensive. (Wrong!) Someday you guys will be taking vacation trips into space. It will be like going to Fiji for Christmas. Expensive as hell, but really cool. Many people in my generation hate the idea of "one card" or "one number" being able to handle all your banking, debt servicing, medical information and so on. This is the technology that's coming and it's just around the corner. To me, it seems like Big Brother personified. You youngsters may find it's super convenient, like pagers or cell phones. Paying bills by a paper check will soon be ultra-old-fashioned, like horse-and-buggy transportation. Not just old fashioned, but sort of quaint. We will soon be in a PAPERLESS world, where everything is done "online." Don't say that you and your pals don't know shit. You guys know all KINDS of cool shit. It's just that you are sort of inexperienced about trainhopping, and really that's not difficult experience to get. STUDY the topic. Learn the language. Hell, subscribe to "Trains" magazine, it's a first-class piece of work. I reallt enjoy reading it, and it's extremely informative, and so is "Railfan" magazine. Both of them are a font of information. Try to find books on railroading, you can learn a lot just by reading.