Do people still hop freight trains?

What really scares you is when your walking your train in the middle of nowhere, I mean nowhere, 100 miles west of Ogden/Salt Lake City west of the causeway across the lake, it is just dirt and salt, no roads, so you walk your train thinking nobody is out here to bother me and someone about 75 cars back from the head-end at 3:30 a.m. asks why we are stopped? That scares the hell out of you!

slchub wrote:What really scares you is when your walking your train in the middle of nowhere, I mean nowhere, 100 miles west of Ogden/Salt Lake City west of the causeway across the lake, it is just dirt and salt, no roads, so you walk your train thinking nobody is out here to bother me and someone about 75 cars back from the head-end at 3:30 a.m. asks why we are stopped? That scares the hell out of you!

I have had the same thing happen to me as well.

I let out a yell that probably sounded like Shirley Temple or the guy on Home Alone who got the spider placed on his face.

I know, people still do it to avoid Amtrak Fares, or Bus fares, so they try to catch a free ride by freight train to new destinations. But it's not recommended, in fact, you could be locked up for trespassing.

In my short time working for the BNSF I have only seen a few riders. They seemed to be college aged back packers.

An old head I worked with when I was a conductor trainee had a neat idea. He always whistled or hummed to himself when walking his train. He was especially loud when there were box cars with open doors or gons. It was a good way from just walking upon someone & scaring them.

Speaking of being frightened. One foggy eveneing this past Spring, we were stopped West of Savanna, IL. We were waiting for a signal maintainer to clear his track warrant. I was getting some fresh air on the deck of the engine. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I noticed someone coming up the steps. I was ready to take a swing at the guy when I recognized that it was a train master.

In college way, way back in the early 1990s, some buddies of mine would ride some Conrail locals east from South Bend to Eklhart, IN, grab a few beers at a local pub and then take a freight train home. Of course, the two towns are only 15 miles apart, so it wasn't a long trip.

Hi Jersey,

Good story, but could have been dangerous. Reminded me of the days in Butler, NJ, and our trips to Paterson and Pompton Plains, Lakes, etc. One of us always had a car, and we would fill it to capacity. On occasion, a car was not available, and we "hitched" a ride with passersby. We would stagger outselves so that only one would be picked up at a time. However, the good people of Butler always picked up ALL of us. Fine folks. Accordingly, I and the others always will have a warm spot in our hearts for the people of NJ.

I always carry a flare or two with me as well for the occasional animal you may come up to as well. Badgers are notorious for standing their ground and a few guys have had to run up the side of a car and wait for the little guy to go away. Good idea about making some noise. Be sure to take your ear plugs out once you get past the engines so you can hear whats going on around you when you walk especially for rattlers hanging around the tracks.

For the most part the 2 or 3 guys I have seen riding cars in the past 3 years have not said a word or bothered me. Thoughts of asking them to get off of the equipment and scram were out of the question as we we always in the middle of the desert with no place for them to go except with us.

slchub wrote:I always carry a flare or two with me as well for the occasional animal you may come up to as well. Badgers are notorious for standing their ground and a few guys have had to run up the side of a car and wait for the little guy to go away. Good idea about making some noise. Be sure to take your ear plugs out once you get past the engines so you can hear whats going on around you when you walk especially for rattlers hanging around the tracks.

Thanks for the advice about the critters. I never even thought about snakes. (Rattlers are not that common in Wisconsin , but we do have them.) I also keep an eye out for dogs.

When I was touring James Madison College, the tour guide warned us not to try to catch rides on the CSX Trans-appalcian track through campus because the campus is a perminent slow zone, but once the engine clears the campus, it can speed up and there were often stories of kids hitching onto the end of the train, thinking they will use it to cross campus, and ending up in Norfork VA (apparently the next time the train slows down)

LoL Hawko watch out for deer!! Had one come up to me on the Brookfield sub at Camp Point siding" I DID sound like Shirley!"
I would have loved to see the look on the TMs face!!One night up at Western in Chicago I had to walk back and line us in. I was mad as hell and carrying a few fusee's and the AB wrench ( BNSF cops dont get out of their cars here so what help are they lol)Cussing a blue streak and making a lot of noise.I scared a switchman half to death adn he called for his foreman and the TM to come see this large bald guy and ask just what he was doing in the yard.So said TM comes with the switch foreman to the switch I am at calling out car counts to my engineer and the TM has the audacity to ask " Do you work for the railroad son?" I have on bibs the yellow belt my radio a switch list in hand and am calling the engineer. I said Nope I am just a railfan helping this crew out cause the conductor wanted to stay in the nice safe cab. Heres your sign lol. He came back with Yup you are a railroader.
I was switchtending once and three days in a row we had crews call and say " got some about 60 cars or so back supposedly can you confirm" Yeah like I can stand flat footed and look into mty gons( which was the claim two out of the three days)never saw any but like others have said as long as they are not destroying stuff or being stupid so be it.

Robert Paniagua wrote:I know, people still do it to avoid Amtrak Fares, or Bus fares, so they try to catch a free ride by freight train to new destinations. But it's not recommended, in fact, you could be locked up for trespassing.

...or dead; and not just from falling off, either. Death by exposure or dehydration is a real possibility. Falling asleep while perched in a precarious spot can result in a rather messy ending also; and who can hang or even lay for up to 12 hours without getting bored and sleepy?

Two thoughts. First, when I was a new-hire, a brakeman on a local merchant, I saw some slobs (can't really call them "bums," this was in an urban area and we weren't a through freight; they were just out for kicks) hopping our train. I asked the conductor what we should do.

"Here's what you do, kid," answered the conductor. (I was 39 years old and was more amused than offended at being called "kid.") "You look STRAIGHT AHEAD and don't look back until we hit Campbell Yard.

"Why's that?"

"Because, if the @#*&%$ falls off and lives, and sues the railroad, his slick-mouthed lawyer could make a case that you LET HIM RIDE by not stopping and chasing him off."

I thought there was probably something to that.

Second incident: We were out in the middle of nowhere, tying down a train...had a trainee with us, three-man crew. The dispatch chief, in his wisdom, thought it better that we hop a train home to Buffalo rather than have a cab sent...CSX was on an "austerity budget" that quarter.

UPS hotshot van shows up, stops. The eager-beaver trainee hops onto the second unit, a brand-new widebody, climbs inside - and he's back out just as fast. "Uh-uh," he's mumbling.

What the... I think. I go up there, and there's this guy, about 23, hasn't washed for about five years, smells like a corpse, looking at us, glassy-eyed. I'm back by the front door, going for the toolbox for a hammer or something, he follows me down.

"...uh...you want me to leave?" he asks. Docile as hell.

"YES," I say, trying to recover my own dignity and play the Avenging Angel. He hits the dirt with his backpack and disappears into the dark. He was no danger to anyone but himself...obviously he was road-testing pharmaceuticals.

We were lucky there. If he'd been crazed, he could have picked us off as we went in, one, two, three. For that matter, he could have gone berserk with the train's own crew.

i'm suprised more people arnt angrily responding to this topic. Many of the employees are respoding well to this topic. Its funny reading conductors saying how they "just let em ride" in this post, and then in other topics; conductors fly off the handle just from thinking about railfans. I'm not complaning, I like the general attitude of this thread though. I'm just suprised.

Hey,
When I was a sophmore in high school a freshmen fell under the wheels of a coal drag being witched in the yard. The do-gooders in my school decided to take up a collection to help him buy a wheel chair or a van or some $#!^. I remember how amazed they were at my response, I asked if the train chased him down the street or up onto his yard or if they were taking up a collection for the train crew that had to aid this "poor unfortunate youth". I wrote a letter to the editor of our school newspaper but it never got published, I was chastized by the staff for being too insensitive. I tried it once, and was lucky enough to escape any injury, but had I been injured it would have been ALL my fault and I wouldn't have taken any gifts from the community.
Mike

Typical. The tresspasser is the victim and the railroad is the bad guy.