Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25165
become ghosts to the stationary world." tlWe have I stand there for hours, unable to take my eyes off of the passing scene. This rolling connection with the landscape is travel reduced to its purest essence. When night falls, we roar through an anonymous lumber town, a huge conical scrapwood burner erupting red-hot sparks a hundred feet into the air until they wink out among the cold blue stars. I am standing on the porch with a hand on the ladder. If I fell off out here, no one wou Id know. There's the argument that trainhopping is • ' bundle. railroad security guards who mm:r.s.:r.,m:ilmrr.:'l'is. the latest generation of hobos. More likely to have orange hair, skateboards and fleece than scraggly beards and long wool coats. Also known as the Nosering Nation. • patrol the railyards. In the old days, they would normally just evict hobos. Nowadays, they are more likely to escort hobos directly to jail. to hop a freight train. when a circle of hobos OOOOliillittmi!! tramps who ride full time for fun, for work and for their own throw money in a pile and use the money to buy as much communal booze as possible. personal reasons. • :, from" hoe boy" after the itenerant 19th century farm laborer who trainhopped with their belongings in a bundle tied to a hoe ~~~~ obo camp. o •• a~h~ tramps who take short, recreational trips. Lu.:lIaW.III::.II tramps who ride between multiple cities, collecting food stamps at each stop. New restrictive food stamp policies have greatly reduced the number of stamp tramps. !;:.&.tII.U.:lIAWLlUII.I.:I.1::.a traveling light with little to no baggage or gear. Stream liners are often mistrusted since other tramps expect them to mooch. the clock that tramps live by, characterized by train schedules rather than a 24-hour day. One final point ... hobos versus tramps. Some say hobos originally traveled to work and tramps traveled for the sake of travel. Others say a tramp is a hobo west of the Mississippi and a hobo is a tramp east of the Mississippi. Others use the terms interchangeably. a tramp who always travels alone. From the breed of dog. a hobo who carries a illegal and dangerous. Absolutely true. We are facing a CAN$600 fine and extradition back to the States if we're caught. And it is risky, the train jerking violently, making sudden stops, rattling over trestles hundreds of feet in the air. A moment of inattention would leave either of us a pile of carrion for the black bears and eagles. Still, the risk seems to fall behind when your feet leave the ground. Pike tells me about two girls hopping together. One lost both legs and her friend had to drag her to the highway by her backpack straps. The Federal Railroad Administration reported over 500 train-related fatalities in 1999, but doesn't keep separate statistics for the number of these that were hopping. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada reported 109 train-related fatalities in 1999, over half of which are attributed to trainhopping. The risk is real, but on that car with the moon over the Fraser Gorge, there seemed to be nothing more beautiful. The towns, farther and farther apart, pass by in moments. In the middle of the night the train shudders to a stop in a darkened yard. Pike and I huddle in the crawl space, wrapped in sleeping bags. Suddenly there are footsteps in the gravel right next to us, and voices. An icicle of fear goes through my heart. We've been caught already! The footsteps get closer, they're right outside the hole. Just when I'm about to come out with my hands up, I hear the telltale rattle of a spraypaint can being shaken . My fear melts instantly and I stifle a laugh. A bunch of kids tagging a train in the middle of the night. Pike sticks his head out of the hole and says "Hey, what town are we in?" The kids take off running, despite Pike's crying after them "It's all right, we're just hobos!" We have become ghosts to the stationary world. The anonymous artists never finished their tags, but the rail system in North America has a rich history of hobo graffiti, itinerants marking their date and direction on the vast web of the rails, with a whole set of symbols devised to communicate and help each other out. Names like Flange Squeal, The Artful Dodger, Bag Man, Broke Toe and XLR8 adorn cars from Vancouver to Miami . The hobo population boomed as industrial- ization displaced workers and a mobile workforce was needed to do the labor of westward expansion. The rai lroads were the only way to circulate this large mobile workforce. They followed harvests, camped in "jungles" on the edges of cities, and moved to wherever there was work. The Depression swelled their numbers to millions, whole families rode the rai ls in search of opportunity, and the hobo subculture in North America hit its apex. An extraordinary amount of American history has f lowed along the rai ls that cross the continent. After World War II, the primacy of the automobile led to a decline of the railroads. There were mergers and closures of many of the independent lines, and massive government bailouts. With the decline of railroads the hobo culture went underground. Most people consider it a thing of the past. Why should you hop trains when you can take a Greyhound? But a small and thriving tribe of people still do it. Most, like the hobos of the Depression, are the displaced who have been left on the margins of our thriving economy: refugees from Mexico and Central America, homeless vets, alcoholics, anyone who does't fit into the tidy box of capitalist culture. And of course there are people like Pike, who do it for the unalloyed sense of freedom it provides. That's why I've joined him. Stealing a ride in the belly of the beast that carries fert ilizer, televisions, oil, nuclear waste and cows to slaughter all across our continent is liberating because it comes in under the radar of the market. It can't be bought or sold. There are no Extreme Trainhopper sneakers to purchase. Unless you get caught, trainhopping doesn't cost a dime. "This rolling connection with the landscape is travel reduced to its purest essence."