Hopping freights/Hoboes/Transients

Otto Vondrak wrote:It's a pretty serious topic, so folks tend to get a little worked up. No offense meant towards you.

So I see, but learning that is worth doing.

Thanks to all.

Allow me to add a strong second to Mr. Vondrak's point.

The rail industry of half-a-century or more ago was much more closely integrated into the daily fabric of American life. Every decent-sized community had a passenger station, sidings where modest-sized loads wre regularly picked up and dropped off, and often, a signal tower or train-order office where some sort of 24-hour/7-day presence was maintained. "Hopping a freight" was only slightly less dangerous than it is today, but the more common sight of empty boxcars moving with the doors unsealed made it more common, though just as strongly discouraged.

The industry today is primarily involved with the movement of bulk commodities between a much smaller number of heavy industrial complexes; very little local pick-up and delivery. Furthermore, that equipment is a lot less hospitable toward those seeking a free ride; if the cargo isn't hazardous in and of itself, it can shift, smother or suffocate.

Finally, if you dig a little deeper on some of the threads at this site ( http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 36&t=54483) (http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 36&t=57172), you might note that some of us are aware of the industry's not-easily-explained attraction for the overly-introverted, the withdrawn, and some people on the fringes of functionality; that also makes it a magnet for some of the criminal element.

Not everybody you meet at the yards is a dangerous nut, however. Many of us just have a penchant for technical detail and being able to watch the "real thing" at work that the sanitized atmosphere of the museums can't provide. But a thanks for raising the issue and allowing the regulars here to add our insights.

When I was working on the BN out of Gillette, WY we would receive a report 1-2x/yr about a hobo being found on the grates of the coal unloading facility at one of the power plants our company served. Seems that said hobo would fall asleep in a coal hopper and then wake up just as 100 tons of coal were being dropped into the car he was in.

2nd trick op wrote:Allow me to add a strong second to Mr. Vondrak's point.
(snip)

Not everybody you meet at the yards is a dangerous nut, however. Many of us just have a penchant for technical detail and being able to watch the "real thing" at work that the sanitized atmosphere of the museums can't provide. But a thanks for raising the issue and allowing the regulars here to add our insights.

I can vouch for the fact that the yards attracted so really strange characters, some of who WERE dangerous. The fellow I told you about earlier in the thread who got his foot cut off at Charlotte, NC? Upon investigation, the railroad cops discovered he was wanted in Charleston, SC for MURDER! He had "hoboed" his way north to Washington, DC then caught freights back south in hopes of throwing the cops off his trail. He might have gotten away if he hadn't gotten careless getting off a train at Charlotte Yard!


I did see some people out there that I did my best to avoid.


Gadfly

I recall reading about 10 years ago about people whose dubious hobby was hopping freights which mentioned getting locked up for trespassing as one drawback and dismemberment/death under the wheels as another. I also saw a cable TV documentary about a more hardcore, criminal group of modern hoboes who had commited murders (including killing a few of the "hobby hoboes") and were genetally pretty loathsome characters. The operated nationwide..
Anyone thinking about this as a hobby should grow up...

An 18-yo kid at work told me just the other day that he was considering doing some freight hopping. (He knows I'm into trains and asked where he could find freight trains) It seems he and a couple of other friends are into this building-jumping nonsense, and since they pretty much mastered this, they now want to try trains. (I saw some video footage they shot of themselves jumping off buildings, this is weird)

I tried to talk him out of train hopping for the reasons stated above, but I could see that it was wasted words.

An otherwise intelligent kid. You never know.

There is a group of people who ride trains - not "hobos", just thrill seekers. They carry their cameras and their cell phones and travel in their nice, new clothes. One of them posted some of his shots on the Trains Magazine forums a while back. Spectacular stuff, although it was pulled down soon thereafter so as not to encourage anyone to do the same.

They see nothing wrong with it, at least until they meet another 'rider' who relieves them of their valuables, and possibly their good health...

just gotta remember when we were teens , and out for a thrill .

GSC wrote:An 18-yo kid at work told me just the other day that he was considering doing some freight hopping... An otherwise intelligent kid. You never know.

Doubtful.

Just my opinion: We've noticed a few more "riders" in the last 6 months, probably due to economy. I've never been partial to going back in a consist and finding "extra riders", and my conductors are never happy about being surprised by riders while working. Maybe, the question should be, how would you like it if you were surprised by a strange, usually extremely dirty and smelly, person who had invaded your work place? And it was dark, and you were in the middle of nowhere (or even in a "bad" part of town) and you were by yourself and there was two or three or more of them and you were 1/2 mile from the engine?

10more years wrote:Just my opinion: We've noticed a few more "riders" in the last 6 months, probably due to economy. I've never been partial to going back in a consist and finding "extra riders", and my conductors are never happy about being surprised by riders while working. Maybe, the question should be, how would you like it if you were surprised by a strange, usually extremely dirty and smelly, person who had invaded your work place? And it was dark, and you were in the middle of nowhere (or even in a "bad" part of town) and you were by yourself and there was two or three or more of them and you were 1/2 mile from the engine?

Found one in my car once I thought the back door passenger side door was locked befor going off to start a shift at the James St. Wegmans in Syracuse a few years ago found a bum/hobo in the back seat sleeping when I go out off my shift. It was far from being a good expirence in the summer I tell you. The car stunk so bad I drove the car with the windows down till I could get the car cleaned and the smell out.

10more years wrote:Just my opinion: We've noticed a few more "riders" in the last 6 months, probably due to economy. I've never been partial to going back in a consist and finding "extra riders", and my conductors are never happy about being surprised by riders while working. Maybe, the question should be, how would you like it if you were surprised by a strange, usually extremely dirty and smelly, person who had invaded your work place? And it was dark, and you were in the middle of nowhere (or even in a "bad" part of town) and you were by yourself and there was two or three or more of them and you were 1/2 mile from the engine?

I don't like those kind of surprises either. But these bums may be surprised to know that brake sticks and lanterns have more than one use.

Never had a bad experience with freight-hoppers... Smarter than the the rest of us somehow I reckon.

We had one ride with us from phila to allentown years ago on conrail. she was young,had a black dog and was very nice. She told me about riding all over the country,going where ever the work was.

There are people who really need to travel by freight (Migrant Workers and the homeless transiants who as the bible says the poor will always be amoung us), And then there is a group of thrill seekers who started up around 1989 or who had Wall Street jobs and after reading Iron John by Robert Bly and Jack Kerowacks on the road were out there to have some fun. A carefull reading of railroad history and culture has shown that railroads will tolerate up to a point the classic hobo but newer breed of Yobos (Yuppie Hobos) has has the legal departments asking for tougher laws because the the greater liablity because these yobos have easy access to attorneys and the uncorrgible hobo prabably has it his will that he would prefer to die doing what he loves. Railroad Workers and railroad police know "there" hobos because they have seen the same man for 20 or even 50 years who as been on the railroad long before they started and will be there long after. The Darwin effect has the ablity to weed out the weak and anyone who can survive in the outdoors and in a unforgiving enviroment like the railroad derserves some respect as the "Kings of the Road".