BootsnAll Travel Community

This ARTICLE may be for you!!!

quote:

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Nothing beats the Hobo life,
Stabbin' folks with my hobo knife.
I gouge them here...

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Hobo from The Simpsons

As poor as I am, it's a possiblity!!!

For those who may just glance at the headline, I think reading the story is worthwhile.

We used to jump trains all the time when I was a kid just to get across town, but in high school 3 friends of mine and a friend of theirs hopped on a train for a trip to the Bay Area. The guy I didn't know somehow fell off (nobody knows how) and was decapitated by the train. I quit jumping trains after that and encourage caution when you do it.

On the other hand, I know other people who have done it for extended periods with out decapitating themselves and had some great stories to tell.

I would do it in an instant if I had someone to go with. Don't think that doing it for the first time I'd be comfertable alone. But if I had no transportation and no money I would in an instant.

I think I'll try it when I train my dog a bit better. "E.& Epona Railtramps". has a good ring to it.

E.

i've always been tempted to do that. i have some anarchist friends who swear by it. but they also get their food out of dumpsters...

At the end of my dead end street is a heavily used railroad track for coal and natural gas, and oil (three huge oil refineries in my general vicinity). When I was a bit younger, we used to stand off in the woods till the last car approached, usually a coal car or something heavy along those lines, and hoped onto the side ladder. Never went very far, but for a trip to local Burger King it wasn't so bad.

When I was growing up in the Upper Peninsula (beyond the bridge in Michigan, for you uninformed) I would jump on a freight car to visit my girl friend in a town further north. In the U.P. it was easy, and free, transportation.

It's kinda dangerous though. Do they call you "stumpy" now?

wow~ great article! so well written and illustrated, that it really makes you imagine "what if..."

how very kerouac....

Very vivid story of hobo life.

I enjoyed it.

Several years ago I met an older guy on a train while coming back from Seattle. He told me all about the greatest adventure of his life. As a kid in the worst part of the Depression, he hopped trains from Fargo, North Dakota to Seattle, Washington to pick up his mom and bring her home. On the trip out there they were attacked by the railroad police (he called them bulls) and they were shot at and chased by dogs, they road on the top of the boxcars across Montana. Then in the mountains, they went through a 7 mile long tunnel and nearly died from the smoke. He said it was the biggest adventure of his life. I've read this article before and found it facinating. I'd like to try it someday, but decapitation just isn't all that appealing to me.

Jet