# Roseville Engineer story pt. 4



## Eng JR Lupo RV323 (Oct 2, 2011)

We found a 48 further up the train with a larger open well and rode that into Belin. On the way to Belin I began to get very thirsty and all I had was cans of tuna in water. I opened the cans and drank the tuna water which to my surprise tasted better than I was anticipating. Tony wasn't eating meat at the time and as far as I know still doesn't. He went across the platform over the knuckle to the car behind us to escape the funk of my tuna breath and the tuna in cans themselves I think. I took pinches of tuna and lobbed them through the air over the knuckle into his well. I really don't know why I did that, I felt bad about it right away but I thought it was funny when the tuna was air-born.
We yarded in Belin. We hopped out in daylight and high-tailed it out of that yard over barbwire through back yards, chased by a dog and yelled at by the property owner. We got more whiskey and ate Mexican food then visited a railroad museum. We waited in a field next to the yard in Belin all day until the crews were out of sight and jumped on the train we were watching for hours. That train took us to Clovis NM. This was the yard we were to avoid at all costs. This was the yard that train would pass then stop and shove back into. We stayed on the train hoping it was just a pick up or small set out and what happened next nearly had me shitting my pants. We were flat on our backs in that well and a suburban or large tall vehicle by the sounds of it drove up next to us on the side of the train I could hear him coming crunching the ballast and stopping briefly at each car, not long enough to get out but long enough to listen at least.

I lay there looking up at the top ledge of my well exactly where someone would pop their head over if they were looking and I saw a Mirror on a pole with a flashlight affixed to it shine down into our car and pan around and somehow that damn light never once hit on us. It then vanished and the vehicle was on to the next well. We heard the train break air later and we were pretty well sure it wasn't going anywhere and we were sitting in the hottest spot along our route, Clovis NM. We had to get the fuck off that train the first chance we got. I threw my pack in my sleeping bag and threw it over my shoulder like a santa sack and we jumped out in the middle of that yard and got into the darkness quickly.

We walked to some motel drive looking strip and paid for a motel room at some dive and slept. The next day we decided it would be best to hitch to Amarillo. I had hitched before and I didn't like walking with my thumb out, I thought it was hopeless. I learned to find the cleanest white cardboard I could find and buy a magnum 44 marker with a 1 inch wide tip and write neatly "Amarillo" and then I took a pen and punched two hols in the top corners where I then hooked two carabiners through it and affixed it to my pack so we could just walk and no matter how filthy we were, that clean legible sign was all it would take for a retired police officer to pick us up within 20 minutes of walking along the highway. He said he hated cops and how they treated people and he wanted nothing but to wash his hands of the whole experience. He was a good guy and I hope he's found a career he likes.

He dropped us off in Amarillo and we drank all night behind some industrial building near a Y at one end of the yard. When it was good and late we walked to the yard and around it to some school that bordered the tracks. We sat there in that soccer field and waited till we saw our train. When it came we made a move for that cyclone fence. My steel toe doc's wouldn't fit in the holes and the fence had dew on it and I kept slipping down. Tony was getting anxious and I could tell he was worried we were gonna miss that train. I finally pushed myself to just get the fuck over the god damn fence and made it. I don't know what type of car this was other than it was similar to a 48 but had no open well space, the best I could find was a grate platform up top near the brake rigging and I was able to toss my pack under it and slide in as fast as I could.

I had a sewing needle in my pack that had poked it's tip out and when I slid in my face hit that pack and that needle pierced my cheek. I bled but I remained still until we were well on the move. I lay there in fast winds, 70 mph no cover my sleeping bag was packed and I didn't have the room to get in it and stay under that grate even if I wanted to so I had to ride in the wind and hope it ended soon cause I wasn't going to sleep that night, no way. I rode that way all the way to Wellington KS. When that train stopped I jumped off and Tony was off it as well, we made for some woods off to the side of the tracks where I laid my sleeping bag open and slept like a baby.
Wellington is a Mayberry type of town, small and everybody knows each other. We stayed in the woods all day other than a trip for more booze. Another train came in later that day and we made a rush for a 48. When we jumped down in that well, the large bottle of Jameson whiskey came out of Tony's pack and smashed on the hard steel floor. It shattered into pieces and we were left in a puddle of booze, broken glass, rain filling up, and one large bottle of Crown Royal. I should mention we were both still RxR employees during this ride so the expensive booze was affordable. It was humorous, the thought that there was a conductor and an engineer at the head end of any train we rode not knowing that there would be a conductor and an engineer in the cars they pulled. We had all the certification to legally operate any of those trains.

Tony beat himself up all the way to Kansas City about that damn bottle of Jameson. I think mostly because he preferred it over Crown Royal. When we left Wellington and that bottle shattered, the rain came down hard on us and fast and it didn't let up at all. We rode in the rain all the way to Kansas City. When we pulled up to the beginning of the yard we had had enough, we walked up to the head end and got inside the 3rd engine of the consist. The rain was bad and we had to get dry even if it was risky. We turned on the radio and found the local yard channel. We dried our clothes over the side wall heaters and made stock of the crew packs and whatever else we could find. We rode that engine like we owned it. We thought we were set. We rode that engine for all of 20 minutes till it reached the other end of the yard track, the conductor walked back and started tying down the cars and then came up to our engine, turned the valve to cut the air and pulled the pin, signaled the engineer to take em ahead and we heard the air break and we could tell we were light power because there's no feeling of slack.

That conductor stood 10 feet from us outside on that step till they reached the roundhouse track. He hopped off and lined the switch for the shops. He got back on and gave the signal to back em up and we saw the big bay door of the roundhouse shops we were about to be shoved into. We saw enough lights overhead to light up football stadiums, and employees everywhere. We knew we had to get off and fast. We exited as quietly as we could out the back door of that locomotive and headed for the steps. We jumped off at good speed and ran as fast as we could hurdling over sets of tracks headed the first direction our feet landed. They took us to an edge, a cliff so to speak with a sheer drop but it was possible to navigate down and so we did as fast as we could.
There were boulders as large as us and jagged. I had a heavy pack and it overtook my balance, throwing me down onto those jagged rocks I bashed my shins and bled good but sprung up and kept running down the damn thing anyhow. It ended with a river, a huge river so we had to take that river edge to the end of the yard where we found an overpass that seemed almost out of the yard but not quite. It had a lot of monikers and graffiti so I think we felt it was far enough out that we'd be ok to stop and rest. I'm 100% certain we were spotted and seen by many employees bailing off those engines, I don't know if any of them gave chase or reported us to the bulls. We were never found.
We slept under that bridge out of the rain till the wind picked up and started blowing it in from both sides like some sick joke. The next day we sat in a park at the opposite end of the yard and watched trains all day. Nothing we could ride and it seemed we'd never get out of Kansas City. Finally we found our train and it was good. It was a 48 which had a short container on the bottom and a long one stacked on top so as to make a covered porch over us We rode that train out of that shithole yard all the way to Chicago. When we were pulling into Chicago Tony stood up to get his bearings and the exact moment he did so there just so happened to be a bull sitting there looking in the same direction we were and he laid eyes on Tony instantly. Tony dropped down and said "fuck! we gotta run!" and he jumped up and over onto the ladder and I followed, we bailed off that train at an unsafe speed and hurried down the ballast across a grass field that bordered a large interstate and we ran our asses across that interstate to the other side where we found ways to get away.

******************To Be Continued Part 5 also found in the stories section************************


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## JackieBlue (Oct 2, 2011)

badass! awesome story, brother. can't wait for more.


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