# the oldest rail tags i've ever seen.



## spork. (Feb 27, 2009)

i was in brandon manitoba, catching out of there my first time. easiest place in the world to catch out of by the way. my partner and i were headed under the bridge to wait. it was dark out. before we made it under we heard an angry dog freaking out from under the bridge, and a kid (maybe 15? with lots of studs, patches and piercings) came out to greet us. 
"we've been here for 5 days trying to catch out. the next train is ours. you can have the next one." 
we asked why it's taken so long to hop out at such an infamously easy spot.
"some bad judgement calls" was the only explanation we got.
well, we decided fuck that, and went and hid in the tall grass right next to the bridge. we wern't about to wait another five days while they got their shit together. the next train was ours.
we only waited a few hours and a nice im pulled up, we took our time getting on and hid. as we started to pull away,i took a look back towards the bridge. the punk rock kids and their dog were hopping on the fly. i knew this was gunna be bad.
a few km down the tracks the sun started to rise and we were highballing. high priority. a via rail (amtrak) even sided for us. i took a look back, and saw the kids, feet dangling off the edge of the 53, throwing a beer bottle onto the highway next to us.
minutes later we sided next to a cop car. we hid under the cheese grater, and hoped they would find the kids, and not us.
they found us. 
we were brought down to the virden, manitoba police station. this is a largely mennonite community of less than 1000 people. we were written tickets for 144 bucks and told to walk to the highway to hitchike.
there, we decided to split up and meet again in calgary. my partner got a ride right away with a trucker.
it was getting dark again and starting to rain, so i headed back into town to find shelter for the night.
i found a pedestrian tunnel, that goes under the train yard. it looked pretty unused, so i slept in there. 
in the morning, i checked out the tunnel in more detail: turns out it was built in 1917 when the town was a main stop for steam engines. 
on the bricks on either side there were etchings. "mr and mrs whatever just maried 1931" "so an so looking for work 1939" and the oldest one i could find, was from 1919.
there were tags all the way from 1919 to present. right through the depression era, the fifties and sixties, a few from the 80's, one from 99, and now mine. "kicked off a choo choo, 2004".
i have a few pictures of it somewhere. i've been back a few times to show to people i'm not full of shit.
i just did a big old google search on it and couldn't find anything.
next time i go through i'll take some good pix of it as i know alot more about photography now.
i would never suggest stopping in virden, unless your a dorky hobo history buff wannabe like me.


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## bote (Feb 27, 2009)

you found the silver lining in the writing on the wall


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## dirtyfacedan (Feb 27, 2009)

Damn krusty kids, and thier bad judgement calls. Great story! sounds like it was worth it. Did you ever pay the ticket? i hope not.


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## Shoestring (Feb 27, 2009)

*Neat! *
*This story reminds me of being in jail in Regina, SK in 2007. Outside in the yard there were etched out names into the old bricks in the walls from people who did time way back as far as 1908 and 1922, etc.....!!! (It was pretty neat wondering how many prisoners had looked at all the very same bricks and the various names and wondering what everybody was doing time for)!!!*
*I could only guess that the etches were cut with pop tabs or tiny pebbles that were taken from the concrete courtyard foundation itself as time ate away at the mortar..........*


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## spork. (Feb 27, 2009)

of course i never payed the ticket, i just used another fake name. hope some kid named johnathan glenski who lives in dartmouth doesn't exist, or he's in big trouble by now...
the etchings in regina: wow that almost makes me want to check it out. well, maybe not. regina's never been good to me. or you either it sounds like. yeah i think i'll just take your word for it.


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## dirty_rotten_squatter (Feb 27, 2009)

Shoestring said:


> *Neat! *
> *This story reminds me of being in jail in Regina, SK in 2007. Outside in the yard there were etched out names into the old bricks in the walls from people who did time way back as far as 1908 and 1922, etc.....!!! (It was pretty neat wondering how many prisoners had looked at all the very same bricks and the various names and wondering what everybody was doing time for)!!!*
> *I could only guess that the etches were cut with pop tabs or tiny pebbles that were taken from the concrete courtyard foundation itself as time ate away at the mortar..........*



HA! thats awesome I was in jail in yosemite and I found one that dated 1917 cant remember name though but it was on the bar of the door to the cell, havent changed them obviously


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## severegout (Feb 28, 2009)

I know that other guy!!! that's funny.


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## Revo (Feb 9, 2010)

oldest one i ever seen was from 1941 on this busted down boxcar


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