# Would this even count as a hop?



## Wolfeyes (May 20, 2010)

Ok, so here's the story of my first "train hop" I use the term (very) loosely, and you'll see why...

So there I was, hanging out along a siding along the local line, looking for bones and spikes and intently studying the 8 grainers parked there. When all at once I noticed the faint, far away song of a train horn. Once, twice, three times the song rang out, meaning this wasn't just some truck with a horn attatched. Then I hard the melodious clatter and clanging of a crossing being activated. The great steel serpent was returning to the town of Brooksville!

My heart raced as I dove for the bushes near the track, taking up a vantage point to observe the beast in secret safety. The steel that had not long ago been beneath my feet began to rumble and vibrate as the beast drew closer. I looked down the track to see its blue and yellow steel face smiling as it raced up the tracks. The beast generated a hell of a noise as it barreled past my hideout, six grainers dragging behind it, up past the eight that lay sitting by the wayside and off to the north.

I quickly gathered up my meager belongings, knowing the beast would returning in a few short hours, possibly to pick up the parked cars I had been exploring, and jumped into the hole of the center-most grainer at the siding to await that return.

Sure enough, two hours and eighteen minutes later I heard the train approaching from the north. It slowed to a stop along the main track, and I heard the workers jump out and begin the task of un-hooking the drag. The unit pulled forward again, switching track to where my car waited. This was it, my excitement mounting, my first ride was about to commence... Or so I thought. The unit backed up and hooked my drag sure as the tides, then began to slowly pull forward. We stopped about three hundred feet from the split in the rails and started backing up. I figured they were gonna hook up the other drag, head south and in three hours(give or take) I would be in Tampa. WRONG!

They hooked up the other drag and headed south alright, but once all 14 cars were passed the split, we started backing up again. I'm thinking to myself "what the hell?" then once we had gone backwards enough to get the train fully onto the siding, I heard the sounds of workers unhooking a car. Then, as I heard the locomotive start moving, but didn't feel the cars moving I realized what had happened. They left the damn cars behind! I dared to look out and saw the unit heading back to Tampa on it's own. FUCK!

So yep, that's the story of the closest thing to hopping a train I've done so far... Went a whole 300 feet, go me.


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## farmer john (May 20, 2010)

lol something similar happened to me once 
boots and i hopped on a shorter train going in a different direction then originally planned went 14 miles thinking all is well till it stopt and backed up into ferndale (neighboring city) yard so for a buck we got on the public bus and back to the catch out spot within a few hours


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