Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Tom Johnson
Trad climber
Guerneville, Cal
|
|
|
Jul 17, 2011 - 12:24am PT
|
As a youth I occasionally hopped a freight from San Jose to my friend's house in San Luis Obispo. A beautiful ride through Steinbeck country. The first time, in the yards of San Jose, I encountered some other riders who were actually cooking a can of beans over a campfire. One of them said he was on the run for a rape he didn't commit. Hmm
Another time I rode north in a gondola car - the guys said a boxcar door might slide shut and the car could sit unused for weeks. When I got to San Jose, I walked to bus depot to get a ride to Redwood City. Everyone in the bus station stared at me like I was from the Twilight Zone. I went into the john, looked in the mirror and saw in addition to wind blown frizzed hair (ah to have hair) my face was completely covered with soot.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Nov 19, 2011 - 12:17am PT
|
Hobump...
|
|
Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
|
|
|
Nov 19, 2011 - 12:55pm PT
|
While living in Churchill back in 69, I knew a kid in school who lost his foot hopping a train. I was eleven at the time and wasn't digging the scene and despite my friend's misfortune, decided to hop a train and find my way back to BC. Scrounged up a wool blanket and crawled into an open box car in the wee hours and eventually headed south. At one point the train stopped in the mid morning heat and the Manitoba muskeg mosquitoes attacked me with a vengeance.
I was real glad to have that blanket and even happier when the train started rolling again. I made it about 350 miles south and the Queen's Cowboys found me sleeping in the box car waiting for the next leg south to Winnipeg.
I had no idea how I was going to get across the prairies to BC but I was giving it my best effort.
Kinda reminds me of a Bluegrass song.
Tony Rice Unit, Blue Railroad Train
http://youtu.be/yhI-4Agmax4
Tony Rice, Old Train
http://youtu.be/f0teWGME6nw
|
|
Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
|
|
|
Nov 19, 2011 - 02:06pm PT
|
On Boxing Day of 1963, I think it was, Dick Culbert and I grabbed a 3 a.m. drag out of Squamish; we were heading for Prince Rupert. It was cold, snowing, and the only thing not sealed was a flat car. We spread out our sleeping bags at the front of the flat, with the adjacent box car giving us a bit of shelter from the wind. The train rolled on, and it snowed, and it was cold, cold.
Around dawn, at Clinton, the drag slowed but didn’t stop. A yardman waved to us from the platform, but we were too cold and sleepy to respond, let alone get our hands out of the sack.
An hour or so later, someone came over the top of the boxes and dropped down onto our flat. We sat up. “Ah, I’m glad to see you two are ok,” the fellow said, “they radioed from Clinton to say that the yardman there thought we had a couple of frozen corpses on board!”
We chatted for a minute before he headed back. He mentioned that the temperature was going to reach a high of minus 35 that day, and he suggested that at the next stop (Quesnel) we climb into the second unit. Of course, we did, and we spent the rest of the leg to Prince George in toasty comfort.
|
|
flyingkiwi1
Trad climber
Seattle WA
|
|
|
Nov 19, 2011 - 03:10pm PT
|
Awesome thread, like reading "On The Road" over breakfast. It never occurred to me before, but there are some parallels between rail-riding and wave-riding. Although surfing on a day when the high was minus 35 might be tough. Jeezus, what a ride! You British Columbians must have anti-freeze in your veins.
|
|
Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
|
|
|
Nov 19, 2011 - 05:38pm PT
|
There's a strange show on Netflix called Thumbs Up. The host is an urban artist from the bay who travels from LA to NO by freight and hitching. Kinda juvenile at times, but worth checking out.
Great thread, BTW.
|
|
BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2011 - 12:50am PT
|
The one time I rode a freight train, it was with 7 other members of the UCLA Bruin Mountaineers. Our stated goal was fairly tame as freight adventures go: to see the UCLA-UCB football game. We gathered at the San Fernando Valley freight yard. Someone asked a worker there which train to board. He told us about an empty caboose in the middle of the train, so we climbed in and rode in comfort all night to San Jose. So much for freezing our asses and breathing soot and other hardships of the hard-travelin’ life!
However, there we were met by the police who took us to the Santa Clara County jail where most of us spent the rest of the weekend. And there we saw another side of life which was one in which I decided I did not want to participate again: 18 bunks in a cell; one toilet in full view of the other 17. Meals were definitely lower level dirtbag at best!
The story of the freight ride is most humorously told by the reporter who ran our story three times in the Mercury News and can be found on the “Ever Been Arrested” thread here:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1243506&msg=1243580#msg1243580
As far as music, my favorite hobo tune is Fast Freight sung here by The Kingston Trio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1rWyyYfQaw
Another version that I also like by Gordon Lightfoot & Terry Whelan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpWccNgx-GQ
My favorite fiddle tune is also a railroad tune: The Orange Blossom Special
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEjp-CG7h4w or here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjkpI6jfR6g&feature=related or here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEl-V1gfK24
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2011 - 01:03am PT
|
Oddly, I was thinking of the story of Glenn and Dick's adventure - entitled "Freight Christmas" - on my way back from Squamish today. The story was originally published in the BCMC newsletter, and reappeared in the Canadian Mountaineering Anthology.
They were then (late 1963) working on finishing "A Climber's Guide to the Coastal Ranges of British Columbia", which appeared a year later. Glenn and Dick had to go to the Prince Rupert area to interview sources, and being impecunious students, that was their only option. Dick tells of them leaving North Vancouver on Boxing Day morning. (It was a white i.e. cold Christmas even in the city.) Having gotten to Prince George via Quesnel and the P.G.E. aka Please Go Easy (Pacific Great Eastern, later B.C. Rail) train, they warmed up overnight in a laundromat. A day later they were in Prince Rupert, visiting Jim Baldwin and family. Dick's observation: "The best way to travel with freights is in a stupor.". They talked with their sources, in particular about rumours that the "Reisenstein Peaks" were in the area, hopped freights back to Prince George, and hitch-hiked back to Vancouver for New Year's.
The sacrifices that authors of climbing books make...
|
|
Auto-X Fil
Mountain climber
|
|
|
Nov 26, 2011 - 02:59pm PT
|
Bumping political garbage off the main page.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Jul 14, 2012 - 01:14pm PT
|
And the sons of pullman porters and the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpet made of steel
Mothers with their babes asleep
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel
|
|
RyanD
climber
Squamish
|
|
|
Jul 14, 2012 - 02:18pm PT
|
Very cool thread & awesome stories. A type of freedom that can't be obtained in too many other ways.
Interesting documentary on railroad hobo subculture & train art monikers. An interesting concept of putting your signature or message on a moving canvas that is free to travel & reach others all over the continent, for free. Warning: these guys aren't what you would consider to be your usual graffiti artists & may change your perception on train art.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]
[Click to View YouTube Video]
trains are so cool!
|
|
scaredycat
Trad climber
Berkeley,CA
|
|
|
Jul 14, 2012 - 11:49pm PT
|
bump 'cause I like it.
|
|
Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
|
|
|
Jul 15, 2012 - 02:00am PT
|
So why do the railroad companies want to spend their money on yard dicks to
keep people off their trains? They afraid someone will get hurt and sue them?
|
|
Mark Rodell
Trad climber
Bangkok
|
|
|
Jul 15, 2012 - 03:05am PT
|
I hired out on the Southern Pacific in 1974 and worked as a brakman and conductor for 14yrs, mostly in Oregon and California. I also jumped a few during lean years.
Why does the company hire bulls? Well, not all who ride are angels. I had very few problems with the men who rode but a friend of mine took a knife in LA. And I worked the Oakland yard and it was a tough place. Theives. Worked out of K.Falls and it gets real cold there and a bum wants to warm so he starts a fire and uses a bit too much kindling and maybe the plywood walls catch and the next car is full of some god-awful chemical.
And once we came into Roseville and bum had busted out a lot of windows of the autos we'd hauled. They're not all angels. But most are and most trainmen get along fine with those who ride.
Don't ride the power - don't climb into the cab of a unit.
And it is dangerous. A hobo in Colton got slammed by a boxcar, they roll quiet off the hump. He didn't stand a chance. And rolling steel wheels on steel rails, they cut as clean as a guillotine; I know; I've seen. Lop a head off easy.
|
|
Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
|
|
|
Jul 15, 2012 - 05:40am PT
|
Good job, Mark. Yes there are all sorts of things to learn.
I have been in and through that L.A. yard, met a big fellow
who seemed crazy, wondered what I was doing there. He kept
asking if I had drugs. "You can't ride the freights without
drugs." Some other people later said to watch out for him, that
he was known to jump people if he thought they had something
of worth.... The yards are a little more paranoid these days,
what with all the terrorism stuff and 9/11. Security is a little
tighter at certain yards, or especially around fuels.
There is, as I pointed out upthread, that danger of a boxcar
slamming shut when the cars bang together, and you can have your
head chopped right off. Or just get locked in a car, and your
screams will be like wind blowing through the yards. My dad
was a sheet metal worker at the Denver round house for 17 years
and dealt with the big power. He used to take me down with him
to work, when I was a kid. I always felt the mystery of trains.
Where I live now, they roar by often each day, just outside my
window. I remember staying at Dennis Henneck's house on the
coast north of L.A., in Ventura, and I had
a little bed by a window, and freights roared by that window
close enough to touch (it felt so).
The yardsmen were always great help to me, filled my water bottles,
shared stories, told me when the next train was leaving, where
it was going. Some even walked back to wake me up, when they were going
to leave a boxcar or piggy-back I was riding on. When I told them
about my dad, it always seemed they treated me a little like
family.
|
|
RyanD
climber
Squamish
|
|
|
May 12, 2013 - 12:53am PT
|
Bump
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Dec 15, 2013 - 10:48pm PT
|
Non-acrimonious Bumpage...
|
|
rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2013 - 12:17am PT
|
Rodell...I heard you use to run down the tracks to squeeze in some training...Rumor has it...?
|
|
Chugach
Trad climber
Vermont
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2013 - 11:07am PT
|
I hopped trains a bit in my youth and enjoyed it.
Here's a quick story; an old adventuring partner of mine was in S. America, caught a freighter to Miami and then a train (or trains) back home to LA. He hopped a train in the Gulf coast where it was nice and warm but headed into West Texas and beyond it got cold. Really cold where he couldn't stay warm. He worked his way back to another rail car that was full of new cars (automobiles). He hopped in one, fired up the engine, cranked the heat and fell asleep. When that one ran out of gas (they carry very little from the factory), he moved to the next car, fired up the engine, cranked the heat and fell asleep. Repeated this all the way to the coast.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!