The first, entitled, "Death of the American Hobo", is a documentary look into the history of the "train hobo" from just after the Civil War to present day, and the mythos surrounding those still keeping the lifestyle alive in the 21st century.
The second video was shot by an actual hobo...or, if not a hobo in the true sense, a professional train hopper nonetheless. Known as "Shoestring", he claims he's been train hopping since 1989, and I don't doubt that he has. This guy knows his stuff. The video below is just one of several he's posted on YouTube (I even found a written blog of his travels), and although they don't possess much production value, they don't have to. His informative, detail-oriented commentary brings to life the whole business, whether he's riding a pusher engine out of Shreveport, Louisiana, or, in the video below, about to make his way through the 6-mile Flathead tunnel in Montana.
It's with fascination that I watch these videos, and others like them, but I've come to accept that I could never ride the rails, even if I wanted to, even as a dilettante. It's a romantic notion, and impossible not to acknowledge train hopping as one third of the mighty triumvirate of antidotes most likely to cure that virulent fever called wanderlust (along with sailing and road tripping). Not to mention, many tracks run through vast wilderness areas otherwise inaccessible to the public, so truth is, it's a way to see the country from a perspective most people never get to.
But train hopping is illegal, strenuously enforced in some places, and I've never really been down with risking jail time. Moreover, if I've learned anything from these videos, it's that nobody should be too quick to dismiss the "train hobo" as some shiftless slacker. Au contraire, you really have to be a hardy individual to live like this. There are some specific skill sets that must be finely honed in order to not a) get caught, b) die.
1) You have to be physically fit. You have to able to run to keep up with a train, hit the ground running when you've jumped off one, sustain long periods of time in cramped spaces, be able to climb ladders, descend ladders, and all with a continuous efficiency of movement so as to draw as little attention as possible. Players of the game Splinter Cell will understand when I say the more you can stay in the shadows as you make your way along, the better.
You have to endure unpleasant conditions: a soaking rain, a bitterly cold night's sleep, cold food being your only breakfast (and lunch, and dinner), or the opposite: blistering heat, in which you better always have a supply of water. You don't want to be caught baking in a box car 300 miles from anywhere without water. That could turn disastrous real fast.
2) There's an even emotional keel, I would imagine, one must be in possession of, and be able to maintain, when train hopping. A lot of time is spent in desolate places, either rail yards or beside tracks often on the edge of towns, unfamiliar towns, and always the edge of society. This profound, and prolonged, sense of isolation has to get to you eventually. I know it would me.
3) You got to be able to wait, watch and listen, learn the habits of train workers, know what jobs they do and when, so as to make your way around them as you figure out which trains are going where. You need to know how and where to find food, store food, store water. These are answers that change from town to town, a fact which in turn leads to a critical need for adaptability and savvy. I posted last spring about the potential need to improvise on 1/48/50, but that'll be nothing. Rail riding is a non-stop exercise in adaptability.
4) There's a need for constant vigilance around freight trains. With one misstep you could be cut down under the unforgiving wheels of a thousand ton rail car, and if this were to happen (God forbid) halfway through the remotest stretch of Montana, nobody might ever know you were there, or what happened to you, except the animals that dragged your cleanly cut carcass into the woods.
5) There's a need for constant wariness in the rail yards, where "bulls" patrol, looking for riders. They are the law anywhere on railroad property, and are reportedly of varying temperament. Get a cool one, and he might just kick you out and tell you never to come back. Encounter a douche on a power trip (and we all know it takes a lot less than being a bull in a rail yard to ignite a power trip), you might wind up in jail. Stories about bulls engaging in violence against riders, at least in the old days, are not infrequent.
Wariness, also, of the people you meet along the way. I'm sure there's a certain brotherhood among riders, but no doubt a criminal element as well, one that is more preponderant than it is in every day society.
6) Even if loneliness and depression don't get you, boredom might. There seems to be a lot of sitting around, with nothing to do but wait for a train to come. You have to be willing and able to absorb boredom while at the same time deploying patience.
And once you find the train that's going to take you where you want to go, once you have hopped aboard, there's another several hours of sitting around, waiting to arrive.
That last would be the deal breaker for me. I'm not really good with boredom; always got to feel like I'm doing something, headed somewhere, and if at all possible, I need to be in control of the vehicle taking me there. Don't know how comfortable I'd be sitting back and putting my travel in the hands of an individual a mile up the track.
Naw, the lack of control, the spartan conditions, the having to work to have a good time, all make train hopping something best viewed, for me at least, on my laptop, with a cup of hot coffee and a bathroom with running water nearby. But some of these guys, Shoestring in particular, are to be admired for how they choose to live, no question.
In the end, wanderlust is wanderlust. The difference between road tripping and train hopping really comes down to what lengths one is willing to go in order to go, when the fever hits.
