# Ray Tylicki



## trainfinder222 (Jan 20, 2013)

My judgement is still out on these folks. They run some good organic cafes though
FOI they used to hand out at PHISH and Great-full dead concerts to recruit people. They remind me of the Amish and of the kibbutz.


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## trainfinder222 (Jan 20, 2013)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Tribes_communities
The wikipedia artical is not givng them a free pass by any means


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## trainfinder222 (Jan 20, 2013)

http://www.peacemakermarine.com/gallery.html
Hey they got tall ship!!! Looks like fun and hard work


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## EphemeralStick (Jan 20, 2013)

If your judgement is still out on them, then why did you post this thread? This sub-forum is for posting serious and personal information about people who shouldn't be trusted. What have they done to you that warrants them being put on this list?


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## EphemeralStick (Jan 20, 2013)

Furthermore, aren't you Ray Tylicki? 
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/clevelandrails/message/16691

"NAME: Raymond Tylicki

ALIAS: Ray Tylicki, Ray Taylor, Phillip Roads, Roger Truman, Pat 
Brandyberry , Rapid T, 
TrainsinMaine, Transittrains, Paul Rider, *Trainfinder22*

DESCRIPTION: Height: 5' 6" Weight: 150 app.
Eyes: Blue 
Hair: Red/Blond

EMAIL: [email protected], [email protected]
He is consistently posting notes to railroading mailing lists. Plus 
several other railroad related sites. 
He consistently uses public libraries to upload provocative and 
dangerous information to these groups.

DISPOSITION: 
Mr. Tylicki has a serious mental health problem and a significant 
problem with authority figures; he is un-necessarily rude and 
confrontational in interactions in both everyday interactions and in 
situations when he is confronted breaking the law. In the recent 
past, he has caused a number of incidents towards public officers and 
railroad personnel. Unfortunately, due to his behavior, he tends to 
get anyone he is with into legal trouble with those same authorities 
as well. Mr. Tylicki is a pathological thief and will 
shoplift in almost every establishment he enters, placing himself and 
anyone he is with in serious legal jeopardy.

In 2000, Mr. Tylicki attended the National Hobo Convention in Britt, 
Iowa, and was caught several times attempting to steal money out of a 
donation box.

In 2000 Mr. Tylicki was caught by security in a Florida shopping 
mall, fishing money out of a fountain, he attempted to evade mall 
security by throwing the money at them and run out of the mall. When 
cornered, Mr. Tylicki attacked the security guard by stabbing 
at him with an umbrella. He was apprehended and sentenced to 30 days 
imprisonment

In 2001 Mr. Tylicki was arrested by the Burlington Vt. Police for 
trespassing and resisting arrest when asked to move from a park bench.

In 2001 Mr. Tylicki was reportedly video taped by Norfolk Southern 
cameras stealing copper welding cables from a maintenance truck at 
the NS Bison Yards, Buffalo N.Y. He was also cited for public sexual 
exposure, and harassment after he exposed himself to NS employees at 
the Bison Yard, and made crude sexual suggestions to them.

Mr. Tylicki has had a long history of psychological problems, he 
claims he is non-violent but has the easy potential to become 
violent. He is a well-known thief, and feels it is his right to steal 
off of anyone, or any business that gives him the opportunity.

LOCATION: He travels frequently by freight train between the cities 
of Boston MA, Cleveland OH, and Chicago IL, he lives thru most 
homeless shelters wherever he might be residing at the time.
He has family in Solon, Ohio. This is a potentially dangerous person 
and as mentioned above, frequently places those he is with in 
physical and/or legal jeopardy. Take appropriate action. Do not 
allow this person access to your home or business."


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## trainfinder222 (Jan 22, 2013)

They have been labeled a cult by the cult awareness network


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## trainfinder222 (Jan 22, 2013)

http://wwrn.org/articles/9324/?&section=12-tribes


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## nomadman (Jan 29, 2013)

Dude... if you are ray tylicki then i met you a couple of years ago in Boston and I hope I never run into you again. I realize I'm not exactly posting on the topic of the thread...but it would be helpful if you would at least answer to whether or not you are this person. If you aren't, then clear your name, but if you are...then man...you need some serious help and I hope you end up getting it.


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## shwillyhaaa (Feb 16, 2013)

perfect! he didnt mean to, but he put himself on the list of shady people!! ahahaaa!!
wow im impressed. And a standing ovation "...stick". great digging ;]


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## DisgustinDustin (Feb 17, 2013)

This is the second thread I've seen him out right dodge the record that ppl post about him. 
Like he just replies with whatever he was talking about.


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## LeftCoast (Feb 22, 2013)

Supermod for the win!


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## Raging Bird (Nov 7, 2013)

I still think Rapid T rules, I don't get what everyone is on about


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## crow jane (Nov 8, 2013)

In the world of fictitious characterizations, yes he rules.

But in real life, not so much.


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## Pepin (Nov 8, 2013)

What in the actual fuck?


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## Raging Bird (Nov 8, 2013)

crow jane said:


> In the world of fictitious characterizations, yes he rules.
> 
> But in real life, not so much.



True, I have been afraid to meet him in real life. We are facebook friends, though.


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## Pepin (Nov 8, 2013)

He's obviously quite nuts.


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## Raging Bird (Nov 10, 2013)

I always hoped this would be the last community to look down on people for being nuts, though.


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## Pepin (Nov 10, 2013)

I'm not lookimg down on him, however he is someone I'd avoid at all costs. From everything I've seen and heard of him, he's dangerous.


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## Joni (Nov 11, 2013)

yes i ran into many of comments/ posts about this person online as well none of them good... btw anybody know if there is a picture of this person?


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## Kim Chee (Nov 23, 2013)

Joni said:


> yes i ran into many of comments/ posts about this person online as well none of them good... btw anybody know if there is a picture of this person?












I'm not sure if I did that correctly. If not, check these out. Whoever can make the images appear, share the process.

http://www.hobo.com/whatisahobo/unwanted.html
http://www.dailygazette.com/photos/2010/feb/15/14362/


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## Joni (Nov 23, 2013)

nope the pics didn't take


mmmmmmmichael said:


> I'm not sure if I did that correctly. If not, check these out. Whoever can make the images appear, share the process.
> 
> http://www.hobo.com/whatisahobo/unwanted.html
> http://www.dailygazette.com/photos/2010/feb/15/14362/



pictures didn't load properly...

thank you...
-joni


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## spoorprint (Nov 25, 2013)

There's an interview with him at WWW.gonomad.com It's their only freight hopping article.


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## Kim Chee (Nov 26, 2013)

curbscore said:


> There's an interview with him at WWW.gonomad.com It's their only freight hopping article.




http://www.gonomad.com/component/co...7-hopping-freight-trains-the-story-of-rapid-t

Pure drivel


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## spoorprint (Nov 27, 2013)

mmmmmmmichael said:


> http://www.gonomad.com/component/co...7-hopping-freight-trains-the-story-of-rapid-t
> 
> Pure drivel


 He thinks he's an advocate for younger riders, but they don't like him either. And his biggest beaf (not in the article) seems to be with the Texas Madman, who really was trying to bridge generations.


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## Kim Chee (May 11, 2014)




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## Joni (May 11, 2014)

thank you for the update


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## Kim Chee (May 11, 2014)

I was glad to be able to get them posted (dunno why it was different for me this time, but there they are). 

Kind of reminds me of Sean Penn.


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## Raging Bird (May 17, 2014)

This chump is nowhere near cool enough to write about Rapid T


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## B Shoe (Mar 6, 2015)

http://www.timgibbons.net/journeys/hobo/sunday_january_7.html
A long yet entertaining article from years past..


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## Kim Chee (Aug 30, 2015)

@pepper hotzauze, why would you rate my post a poopie pile

Are you a RT sympathizer?


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## Desperado Deluxe (Aug 31, 2015)

Whatever happen to good ol' ray anyway?
Also why is he carrying ski's down the highway and what's up with the look on his face?


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## Raging Bird (Aug 31, 2015)

Fox Spirit said:


> Whatever happen to good ol' ray anyway?
> Also why is he carrying ski's down the highway and what's up with the look on his face?



He's in the Erie Canal area. We're facebook friends.


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## Mankini (Sep 4, 2015)

What are you talking about??!! He IS Sean Penn. ! Too many coincidences: Sean Penn's Hollywood career goes belly-up...Madonna dumpz him....RT appears around the same period.


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## Kim Chee (Sep 4, 2015)

Fox Spirit said:


> ...what's up with the look on his face?



It is a fine example of the "I gotta take a shit" look.

-or-

"I'm about to poop my pants".


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## Desperado Deluxe (Sep 4, 2015)

7xMichael said:


> It is a fine example of the "I gotta take a shit" look.
> 
> -or-
> 
> "I'm about to poop my pants".


..Or I am currently shitting my pants..


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## pepper hotzauze (Sep 4, 2015)

7xMichael said:


> @pepper hotzauze, why would you rate my post a poopie pile
> 
> Are you a RT sympathizer?



Woah haha phones are dumb. I actually meant to like that post I find the twelve tribes people to be creepy as fuck


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## Kim Chee (Sep 4, 2015)

Nothin' like a rt bash session, except maybe a Justin Bieber bash session.

Oh, where is that thread.


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## Mankini (Sep 4, 2015)

I want RT Fanfiction!!!!!!


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## Desperado Deluxe (Sep 4, 2015)

voodoochile76 said:


> I want RT Fanfiction!!!!!!



Omg that is so totally a great idea.
Now that I think of it he kinda reminds me of woodpecker. From still life.


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## Mankini (Sep 4, 2015)




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## Kim Chee (Sep 4, 2015)

Alright @voodoochile76, I think we've succeeded at going off topic.

This thread was started by @trainfinder222 about himself (Ray Tylicki) and how he is not trustworthy.

If you don't understand what I'm saying, shoot me a pm.


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## Desperado Deluxe (Sep 5, 2015)

I just read the first posts. Dude he totally is woodpecker.


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## Matt Derrick (Nov 21, 2017)

hasn't been seen or heard from in some time as far as i know.


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## Matt Derrick (Nov 9, 2019)

Recent posts by @David1 have proven to be ray tylicki once again so that account has been banned.


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## Deleted member 24782 (Nov 11, 2019)

Matt Derrick said:


> Recent posts by @David1 have proven to be ray tylicki once again so that account has been banned.



HOLY SHIT, I knew something was off about that mo-fo.


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## Deleted member 24782 (Nov 11, 2019)

Heres a 7 part series about Ray Tylicki (@trainfinder222/@David1) (missing part 5?) of the "Hobo Adventures with Rapid T" written in 2003 by Timothy Gibbons, it's pretty fuckin' hilarious........

*Sunday, Jan. 7*

It took a day to get out of the house. My putative guide, Raymond 
Tylicki, called from a pay phone in Buffalo to wake me up around 8 a.m., 
letting me know he planned on hitting town sometime later in the day. He 
showed up at 2 or so, and I got my first warnings that he might have a 
sanity problem.

After asking if he could take a shower, he proceeded to spend the next 
two hours in the bathroom, apparently alternating between baths and 
showers. When he finally emerged, he asked to borrow some of my clothes 
and told me to wash his clothes. My surprised look -- I was still being 
subtle at this point -- went unnoticed, and I scrounged up enough money 
for him to do a few loads. Actually getting quarters required a trip to 
the corner mart for a dollar exchange, a trip he returned from with a 
fistful of quarters and a bag of clothes he found on the sidewalk.

This haul was augmented when we went down to the basement laundry room, 
a cubbyhole adjacent to the apartment trash pile, wher he found a bottle 
of Chinese herbs. Tylicki emptied the odorous brown bills from the 
incomprehensibly labeled jar, debating with himself whether he should 
take them on the trip. When he finally decided not to, he offered them 
to me. I declined.

While we waited for the clothes to dry, my guide raided the cupboard, 
eating two bowls of cereal, three of oatmeal and all my milk. Before 
heading out, I made up an odd casserole of rice and vegetables, a 
mixture he topped off with salsa, honey mustard dressing and mayonnaise. 
To wash it down, he rifled through my roommate's beer stash -- three 
Coronas and an El Presidente. Pleas to not consume my roomie's supplies 
fell on deaf ears; when I finally acquiesced and handed him a Corona, he 
handed it back. "I want the El Presidente," he says. "I don't drink Corona."

I took the Corona. By that point, I needed one.

Eventually, we were ready to head out. We pored over the computer to 
find out the best way to go, deciding to catch a train from the Bronx to 
Selkirk, NY, a train yard Tylicki was familiar with. During our 
preparation time, I got my first glimpse of Tylicki's strange 
transformation when it came to dealing with the railroads. As a sort of 
Conductor Jeckle/Mr. Hyde, Tylicki became eerily businesslike when it 
came time to hop.

"Hi, I'm Mr. Tylicki and I'm trying to get through to the dispatch 
office in the Bronx," he told a somewhat bewildered clerk in a Metro 
North office. A few minutes and a few calls later, he had the number. 
Posing as a freight shipper, he got the dispatcher to give us all the 
information we needed about the last train from the Bronx to Selkirk. We 
took to the subway, getting off the No. 6 train just across the street 
from the Oak Point yards. While Tylicki went to check out the situation, 
I laid low under a bridge at the east end of the yard ("Act like a bum," 
Tylicki hissed before heading off to talk to a yard worker).

The worker turned out, Tylicki says, to be "friendly-unfriendly" -- 
confirming where the train was going and which track it was one, but 
warning that he'd be keeping an eye out and would be sure to kick us off 
if he discovered us.

Once he was out of view, we headed to a grainer, a large, empty, 
tank-like car with two little cubbyholes graciously built into the front 
of it. We crammed into one of the holes, blocking the entry point with 
my duffel bag and crouching down at every noise we heard. It was the 
first time I'd been in a freight train: when I backed into the minuscule 
compartment and brushed against the sloped wall, I inadvertently 
screamed like a little girl; I'm not sure what I thought was in there, 
but I know I didn't expect to feel like someone was touching my back.

It took almost an hour before the train lurched into motion, screeching 
along at a good clip except for those time when were shunted to the side 
to make room for a passing Metro North passenger train.

(There's a strict hierarchy of track usage among trains, I later 
learned. In general, the type of freight trains I rode is at the bottom, 
with passenger trains at the top. Anytime the faster passenger trains 
have to get by, the freighters are kicked to the side.)

After the train started moving, I crawled into the other cubbyhole, on 
the left side of the car, rolled out my sleeping bag and crawled in, 
laying so I could look out the door at the passing landscape. The 
snow-covered landscape looked like a postcard from Winterland, 
especially as we rattled past some bridge or other. "I feel like the 
ultimate passenger," I write in my journal -- a theme that will be 
repeated as the trip progresses. "I can just watch the world pass by -- 
not worrying about directions, road signs or other drivers." I fall 
asleep around midnight. Around 2:30 a.m., the train stops in a field 
somewhere, waking me up from my dozing reverie and giving me a glimpse 
of what may be the most tranquil scene I've ever seen: a snowy expanse, 
with not a person in sight or a sound in earshot. Later, we're put "in 
the hole" between Yonkers and Greyhorse, making room for a Metro North 
passenger line to rocket by.

Already, my feet are frozen -- another recurring theme. I took my boots 
off before getting in my sleeping bag and plan to try sleeping with my 
boots on next time. The root beer bottle I'd filled with water (now 
root-beer-tasting water) has frozen solid by the time we pull into 
Selkirk, around 4 a.m.

I begin increasing my train riding knowledge now, discovering what it 
sounds like when a train releases its brakes. Freight trains operate on 
air brakes: the brakes naturally reside in the closed position, holding 
the wheels in place. Before the train starts moving, air is pumped into 
the brake lines with one type of distinctive hiss, a kinda long-out, 
modulated one. When the brakes are cut, at a train's final stop, the air 
is released, with a shorter, sharper hiss.

We clamor out of the train and walk between a line of cars, running into 
the first worker I've encountered on the trip. The worker is trying to 
force closed a boxcar full of oranges that came open while heading 
north, and pauses in his work to hand us a few of the fruits. He also 
directs us to a nearby convenience store -- directions that Tylicki, an 
old hand in Selkirk, doesn't really need. We stop by the store to use 
the bathroom and from there hike a block or two to the post office, 
where we loiter and doze for the rest of the night.

*Monday, Jan. 8*

We hang out at the post office until it opens and then head back to the 
yard, stopping en route to break our fast on a couple Butterfinger bars 
and the filched oranges. We're not sure exactly what our next stop 
should be; we're trying for Ohio, but Tylicki says Buffalo might be our 
best option.

The departure area for Selkirk is on the other side of the yard, so we 
trudge along a nearby road to get to it. To obtain an overview of the 
yard, we head to a highway bridge near the middle of it, giving Tylicki 
a chance to expand my train knowledge. Tylicki came to train hopping 
after a childhood spent as a train buff. When he looks at a yard, he 
doesn't just see a bunch of cars and engines (units in railroad 
parlance.) Fascinatingly, he provides a rundown of the different types 
of cars -- what grainers can't be jumped, what units have historic 
significance, what type of loads different cars are carrying.

Around 5 p.m., we find a train going to Willard, a big Ohio yard 
Tylicki's been in numerous times. The first hopable car we see is a mini 
grainer -- like the grainer from Sunday, but with one, much, much 
smaller cubbyhole. I force my 6"2' frame inside, with my legs hanging 
out, rubbing against the metal lip. After a few minutes of that, all 
circulation is cut off in my legs and I switch to a kneeling stance, in 
which my feet are inside the hole and my upper body hanging out. Twenty 
minutes later, I'm trying to think of other stances that might work when 
I hear Tylicki's "Yo." Since the train hasn't left yet, he thinks we 
have time to find another car. A few minutes search turns up a boxcar; 
its door is closed, but it's not sealed, meaning there's nothing inside. 
A few minutes work with a crowbar is sufficient to unlatch the door and 
shove it back.

Once inside, I can actually lay out, the first time I've laid prone in a 
day, with the steel toe of my boot braced against the wall in case of 
sudden stops. (It's always a good idea to put your feet facing the front 
of the train. Hobos have had their necks broken by laying with their 
heads against the wall.) The jostling of the boxcar soon lulls me to 
sleep, but I wake up several times to watch the huge winter moon as it 
goes one direction in the sky and we go the other on the tracks. The 
temperature has dropped still further -- I know it's bad when Tylicki 
starts complaining about how cold it is. In truth, it's not so much the 
wind and weather that makes it cold as the steel floor, which leeches my 
body heat like it was getting paid for it, despite a sleeping bag, four 
layers of clothing and a plastic tarp shielding me from it. Wearing my 
boots to bed doesn't help much with the cold, but makes it a little 
easier when I have to relieve my bladder in the middle of the night -- a 
process that introduced me to the odd pleasure of watching the world 
stream by while going to the bathroom from the door of a box car.

The moon is still big and beautiful as we pull into Willard around 2 
a.m., lighting our way through the lines of train stretching every which 
way. Cold and tired, we walk the three blocks to town, where the tipsy 
barkeep at the Victory Inn lets us huddle in a corner, listen to old, 
sad country songs -- the type of music you can only find on the jukebox 
at a place like the Victory Inn, a tin-roofed tavern built some hundred 
years ago. We chat with the locals a bit, including a guy named Weed, 
who looks exactly like you'd expect a guy named Weed to look. Weed plans 
on heading to Los Angeles, he says, as soon as he can save up enough 
money from his job unloading trucks. When the bar shuts down at 3 a.m., 
we head back to the streets, declining an invitation by a horribly drunk 
woman to "come party" ("Where's the party?" she asks the barkeep. "I 
dunno," he slurs. She looks around the bar. "It'll be at your place," 
she says, pointing to me. "I don't have a place," I reply. "Then we'll 
have it at my place," she says. Her muscle-bound boyfriend looks on and 
glowers.)

We head a few more blocks down "the stem" -- hobo speak for a town's 
main drag -- and fetch up at the Post Office, which is left open all 
night. We discuss the historic WPA painting decorating the post office 
wall and play a few rounds of blackjack (sans money) before both falling 
asleep, Tylicki with his head on a table holding tax forms and me lying 
on the floor next to the radiator.

Tuesday, Jan. 9

We wander out of the post office around 5:30 a.m., heading to the train 
yard to pick up our bags from where we'd stashed them the night before. 
Again demonstrating his touch for getting train information, Tylicki 
headed to the yard office, where he traded my Buzz Potter CD -- Poems of 
the Hobo Road -- for a "ticket": a map of the train yard and the number 
and time a train bound for Columbus would be called. It was scheduled to 
head out around 7:30 a.m., but as I'd already learned, that didn't 
necessarily mean anything. Mechanical problems, oversleeping crews and 
congested tracks could all conspire to make a train, once made up, sit 
for hours.

Nevertheless, we walked for about 40 minutes to the other side of the 
yard, with my feet getting colder with each step. By the time we got to 
the departure point, my feet were numb, a coldness that no amount of 
stamping did anything to dissuade. We wander around, quizzing passing 
brakeman, before discovering -- after about three hours -- that the 
train hadn't arrived in the yard yet. We have the right track, though, 
and the right train. We wait. By this point, I can't feel anything below 
my knees. The scarf wrapped around my face was keeping my chin from 
going totally numb, but was turning my mustache into a slash of 
hoarfrost: as the moisture in my breath percolated through the scarf, it 
froze, dotting my upper lip with pellets of ice. My waterproof gloves 
are similarly decorated, from wiping my constantly dripping nose on 
them. Sure, it's gross; but getting a handkerchef from my pocket 
requires removing my gloves, a task that's just too much trouble after 
the dozenth time.

The train finally shows up shortly before 11 a.m. It's a long string of 
coal cars -- a dangerous ride (because of the chance of getting buried 
by a shifting load) in the best of weather, but perilously exposed with 
the weather some 15 degrees below freezing even without the wind chill. 
The train has one unit, and we take the hobo's last recourse, asking the 
conductor if he would mind a few passengers. Getting caught would mean 
his job, however, and he tells us no. Somewhat discouraged, we head to a 
nearby switchman's shanty -- nicely heated -- where we sleep on narrow 
benches for a few hours before heading into town.

This is the first time Tylicki and I have really interacted away from 
rail yards since leaving my apartment, and the Conductor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde 
syndrome comes into full play. Tylicki insists on hitting every store 
along the stem, including a florist's shop where we're horribly out of 
place, and a Mexican restaurant where he begs a bowl of tortilla chips, 
eats two, and then bolts out the door. We wander into a clothing shop 
(which has pictures of trains in the window) where the proprietor tells 
us about a local woman who was killed on the tracks the other day while 
walking home from the grocery store -- a somber tale that has us promise 
to be careful a dozen times as she relates the gory details. At the 
Chamber of Commerce, Tylicki falls back into railroad speak (suggesting 
that Willard host a hobo convention, a proposition the Chamber president 
receives quite dubiously) before weirding out and quizzing the man about 
Mexican Pentecostal churches in the town.

Tylicki wants to next head to a Mexican grocery store down a side street 
-- a scene I can't begin to imagine -- so I mosey over to the local 
newspaper office. After a few minutes of chatting with an employee, 
Tylicki comes in, forcing a quick exit when he begins insisting that the 
paper do a story on us.

Hoping for some peace and quiet -- and a chance to check my email -- we 
head to the Willard Public Library, a visit that gets off to a bad start 
when Tylicki discovers its collection doesn't include a Torah. After 
working his way up the chain of command, he's finally mollified when a 
senior librarian promises to order one. Meanwhile, I've read through a 
few days' papers and headed to the computer room. Twenty minutes later, 
Tylicki tracks me down, plops down on the floor and begins arguing with 
the librarian who tells him he has to sign up to use the machines. He 
finally does, and things quiet down, although Tylicki's habit of 
removing his shoes (a practice accentuated by the one white and one blue 
sock he's wearing) garners him some odd looks and an eventual command to 
please put his footwear back on.

Although we didn't meet the editor when we stopped by the Willard 
Times-Junction, our sojourn there sticks enough in his memory enough 
that he recognizes us when he runs into us at the library later that 
afternoon. After chatting for a while, Clif Spires invites us back to 
the office for a cup of coffee and some fruit. During the conversation, 
Tylicki tells his stories about working for a paper in Vermont -- a 
palpable lie. Nevertheless, Clif's heading out to a city council 
meeting, he tells us, and invites us along -- a situation I know will 
end badly, but that Tylicki is committed to experiencing. Having covered 
hundreds of city council meetings, I'm interested, too, if for no other 
reason than the surrealness of it.

On the ride to city hall, Clif explains the big news at the meeting: a 
local businessman is seeking some additional tax abatements, a topic 
that makes Tylicki quite irate, prompting a lecture on the evil of 
businessmen. We get to the meeting right before the public comment 
portion of the agenda, the part of the meeting I'd dreaded. Sure enough, 
Tylicki raises his hand when the council president asks if anyone wants 
to say something, and, saying he lives in Willard, begins a tirade 
against tax abatements, urging the council to pass a living wage law 
instead. The businessman gets up and leaves and I see Clif write in his 
notebook: "Note to self: Don't pick up strangers."

During a break in the meeting, an old woman -- one of the few spectators 
at the meeting, instantly recognizable to anyone who's covered city 
government as the local crazy -- comes up to Tylicki and congratulates 
him on his keen insight. The meeting breaks up for good after a 
long-winded discussion on overtime for the local cops.

Clif drives us to the local Catholic church, where Tylicki says he knows 
the priest. "Knows" turns out to be a bit of an overstatement: he'd 
heard about the father through his social work, and knew the priest will 
provide a night's lodging at a local hotel for those down on their luck. 
Father Mac sets us up the Country Inn and, in the type of generosity I 
still find amazing, slips us 15 bucks to get some food. (After which 
Tylicki begins a theological discussion, centering in whether people who 
paint pictures of Jesus as a white guy are true Catholics.)

The true weirdness was only beginning.

While walking to the hotel, Tylicki picks up a cheap bottle of wine, a 
purchase that surprised me, since, for all his faults, he didn't appear 
to be a drinker. He says he'd drink it in the hotel, but when we stopped 
by the nearby Denny's-knockoff, he pulled it out.

First, some background is in order: Tylicki is of Checkoslovokian Jewish 
descent, coming from a family that had been, probably forcibly, 
converted to Catholicism centuries ago. At 28, Tylicki was now trying to 
rediscover his Jewish roots, a pursuit that could be summed up by his 
habit of eating kosher whenever it was a pain in the ass to do so.

So my first order of business at the Country Kitchen is to stop him from 
complaining that every breakfast dish comes with pork products. Finally 
he decides to order the only breakfast food that comes pig-free: a 
ground beef and cheese casserole over eggs. Needless to say, that ain't 
kosher either. He didn't notice. He did notice that it came with 
pancakes, though -- and he wanted French toast. That occasioned a 
15-minute discussion with the waitress about substituting, a request 
that she refused to fulfill. Finally, she summoned the manager, who told 
us the same thing, and Tylicki subsided.

(It's interesting, I noted at the time, that much of Tylicki's 
train-riding advice was about keeping a low profile, a stance he seemed 
to utterly forget when back to civilization.)

While waiting for our food he began pestering the waitresses, walking 
(shoeless) into the kitchen demanding a plate of bread. ("Three pieces. 
Whole wheat. On a plate. With nothing else.") It turned out the bread 
and wine were to serve as a Jewish meal blessing, with Tylicki pouring 
small glasses of the drink, salting the bread, and consuming both in 
silence.

When the food finally came, he made two more trips to the kitchen, 
asking for Tabasco sauce and French dressing, both of which, combined 
with maple syrup and butter, he poured over his Fiesta Skillet. 
Meanwhile, perhaps in the spirit of combining things, he poured some 
more wine into his orange juice.

He never got to drink it. At some point, his erratic behavior had pissed 
off the wait staff to the point they called the cops.

Four boys in blue -- Sgt. (no joke) Pepper, looking a bit like a younger 
Kevin Spacey; Officer Helden, wearing an Eskimo-like hat; and two others 
-- showed up tableside.

Officer: "Heard you guys had an open container."

Me: "I don't have anything."

Tylicki: "We're just sitting here eating. We're not bothering anybody."

Officer: "Do you have an open container? We heard you came in with a 
paper bag. Do you want us to search you?"

Me: "/I/ don't have anything."

Tylicki: "This is private property. You can't search us. Do you have a 
warrant to search our possessions?"

Officer provides explanation of the law, the hallmark of which is that 
restaurants aren't private places and he's not going through our bags. 
Finally, he pulls Tylicki out of the booth, finding the bottle in a bag 
on the floor.

Tylicki: "We didn't do anything. It's not an open container. Look, the 
top's on it."

Sgt.: "You boys have IDs?"

Tylicki says nothing, but tries pulling away with the cop holding him. I 
give them my driver's license.

Sgt: "How'd you'd get here?"

Me: "Walked."

Sgt.: "You walked here in 20 degree weather?"

I smile.

Sgt.: "Where you heading?"

Me: "Down south."

Sgt.: "Walking?"

I smile again. The sergeant smiles.

Tylicki, finally, remains silent -- but now the officers want him to 
speak. His not answering any of their questions finally pisses the cops 
off to the point that they cuff him, at which time Tylicki begins 
spouting various legal phrases, none of which, as far as I can tell, 
have any application to the current situation. One officer asks him 
where he got his legal degree, to which he replies "Ohio State."

One his way out, being dragged by two of the officers, Tylicki asks the 
waitress to bring a doggie bag. When she does, I wave it away -- a 
decision I hear complaints about for the rest of the trip.

With Tylicki gone, the situation calms down a bit. They pull Tylicki's 
Social Security Card from the discarded camouflage suit he left behind, 
calling in the number and expressing surprise when it turns out to be 
valid. I chat with the two officers left, wondering how likely it is 
I'll get picked up for trespassing. Like many of the people we meet on 
the trip, it turns out the officers couldn't care less. "We don't care 
if you hop trains," Sgt. Pepper says. "If the railroads care, they'll 
take care of it."

"We get kids in here all the time," Helden says.

"We didn't even want to do anything when we came in here," the sergeant 
says. " If he'd given us the bottle, we'd probably have taken it and 
told you not to do it again. When he started giving us trouble, we had 
to do something. Everyone here's watching. They expect us to do something."

Making it clear they weren't arresting me, the sergeant then asked if I 
wanted to head down to the jail, or if I had another place to stay. 
"It's 20 degrees out there," he says. "We don't want you freezing to 
death on the street."

I settle the bill, apologize to the manager and live a dollar tip -- 
another decision I hear about for days. The hotel is across the parking 
lot. When I show up alone (the priest had told her there'd be two), 
she's surprised for a second, and then nods at the restaurant. "Over 
there?" she asks. "Yep," I reply. I get the keys, and proceed to take 
the longest, hottest shower of my life.

Tylicki shows up a few hours later, just after 1 a.m. Charging him was 
too much of a hassle, the cops said, and simply told him to catch the 
first train out of town. I fall asleep again while he mu

*Wednesday, Jan. 10*

We wake up around 6:30, shower (two showers in 24 hours -- what luxury!) 
and walk a few miles to the rail yard, showing up at the departure yard 
a little after eight. To our surprise and consternation, the 7:30 train 
actually left at 7:30 -- a first (and almost a last) occurrence on the 
trip that leaves me muttering about Stalin. After dithering a bit and 
deciding we have no interest in hanging around Willard for another day, 
we head to the library to plan out a new route, hoping to catch out in 
the afternoon. Checking routes, in fact, is what we'd planned on doing 
yesterday, but the thrill of being warm and in civilization had pushed 
the plan from our minds.

The library didn't open 'til 10 a.m., though, leaving us with an hour or 
so to kill. After 30 minutes of sitting in the wind on the sidewalk, I 
suggest heading to Trinity Lutheran Church, an imposing building sitting 
across the street. The doors are all locked, but eventually we're able 
to get the attention of the secretary, who lets us in. I start talking 
first -- hoping to forestall weirdness from my Virgil -- telling the 
secretary we're passing through town and asking her if we can sit in the 
sanctuary for half an hour. Tylicki cuts in and begins explaining that 
we're missionaries, a claim that moves him closer to collecting the 
complete set of quizzical looks.

She leads us to the sanctuary and we head for pews on opposite sides of 
the church, sitting in silence for a few minutes. After 20 minutes, the 
pastor shows up – with his first question being what type of 
missionaries we are.

After clearing up the "confusion" ("No, pastor, my friend was just lying 
to your secretary" is just a strange thing to say.), we chatted with the 
Rev. Kent Wilson for a few minutes, with Tylicki occasionally hijacking 
the discussion to explain why all conservative Christians are evil. Out 
of nowhere, then, Wilson says he wants to show us a multimedia project 
the church has been working on. Now, I've been in a lot of churches, 
I've covered religion, I know bunches of pastors: there are few things 
more frightening then having a pastor invite you to view a videotape of 
the youth group's latest drama. So I didn't figure we were in for an 
enjoyable wait for the library.

To my amazement, the pastor leads us upstairs to an alcove where I 
encounter one of the sweetest collections of high tech gadgetry I've 
ever seen gracing a church. Wilson then runs us through a series of 
PowerPoint presentations, videos, slides and other multimedia 
extravaganza – spending two hours talking geek speak and explaining how 
his church is in the forefront of a high-tech multimedia religious 
revolution. Before we leave the alcove, we ask to add requests to the 
prayer list sitting by the sound board. Tylicki asks for peace between 
Jews and Christians. I ask for traveling mercies.

Wilson takes us to his office, then, where he prays, takes my picture 
with his digital camera, and invites us, if we're in town, to come back 
for a community dinner and service that evening. He then leads us to the 
kitchen, makes us the best cheese sandwiches I've ever had in my life, 
and shows us the door, inviting us back if we need anything else.

We walk out of the church in a daze: warm, fed, heads spinning; and 
cruise over the library. While Tylicki looks up railroad maps, I peruse 
USA Today, feeling almost like a civilized member of society. Heck, I'd 
even had a shower that morning.

Tylicki hits the computers again, a situation that takes on a slightly 
surreal note when his Hotmail account keeps crashing. Eventually, he 
leans back in his chair and (literally) begins sobbing. I fix the 
problem and life goes on. Later, he goes on a 15-minute tirade against 
the Internet: "It's so hyped up and all the ads show it so pretty, but 
it's really slow. Unless you're a millionaire, you don't really get the 
experience. The Internet sucks." And so on.

Before leaving, though, we check out the web sites we're using to plan 
the trip, including the Bull Sheet, a railfan resource that shows when 
trains arrive and leave from certain yards; email suggestions from the 
train hopping list we're on; and the web sites of CSX and Norfolk 
Southern. We figure on heading to Columbus, Ohio, now, a town from which 
we can, it appears, get to Cincinnati. From there, we can catch a 
hotshot to Tennessee, cut down to New Orleans and blast over to Arizona.

On the way from the library to the train yard, we pass the Willard Food 
Bank, open for the first time since we hit town. We go in and I explain 
we're just passing through and ask if we can have one of the dozens of 
bags of apples sitting up front. The man running the place says sure, 
and then begins to load us up with a variety of portable food stuffs, 
including pretzels, potted meat, oranges and crackers. We head back to 
the train yard, consume most of the oranges at the little box we'd 
stashed our bags in and then, for what seems like the hundredth time, 
head to the opposite end of the yard to catch our train. It's around 7 p.m.

The train's a short one and leaving sometime soon, so we grab the first 
rideable car we've seen: a gondola. Gondolas are like huge metal 
shoeboxes without a top. Their 5 1/2-foot-high walls provide a decent 
windbreak, but it probably won't be the best ride in a Ohio winter. 
While we're waiting, Tylicki susses out the rest of the train and finds 
a Canadian grainer -- similar to the one we rode in the first night, but 
with only one, smaller cubbyhole that's rideable; the hole on the other 
side is filled with brake machinary. He offers it to me, I accept, and a 
few minutes later I'm sitting upright, with my knees to my chest, in a 
hole whose floor is covered with bolt heads. The train leaves about an 
hour later, providing perhaps the least enjoyable ride of the trip. 
Because of the seating arrangement I can't see out, and every time I 
drift off I'm awakened by either the cold or the bolts. The cold problem 
is different than in the past, though; the entry hole is small enough 
that I can block most of it with my duffel bag, but a eight-inch hole in 
the back corner directs a stream of cold air to my left foot the entire 
trip. By the time we arrive in Columbus -- awaking me in a blind panic, 
convinced Tylicki's gone -- I have no circulation in my entire left leg 
(and, indeed, wake up at one point during the trip convinced I've had a 
stroke. Eerie.)

*Thursday, Jan. 11*

When we disembark, I come the closest yet to killing myself.

On the other trains, we'd gotten off on the right side of the cars, 
which I proceeded to do when we stopped around 3:30 a.m.. A minute or so 
after I jump down, though, Tylicki calls my name from the other side. 
With a combination of sleep and adrelinine battling it out in my head, I 
toss my bag back on the beast and climb back on -- doing it all as 
safely but as quickly as I can. Unbeknownst to me, the engineers were 
"cutting" the train: removing various cars and sending them to the hump 
yard, an area with a downhill slope where trains are pulled by gravity 
at 40 mph onto different tracks. The car I had just gotten back on was 
about to be cut.

The engineer doing the work noticed me just before he hit the release, 
which would have sent the car -- and me -- on a short, fast ride into 
the back of another car. Probable result: Tim paste.

The worker, who was as startled to see me as I him, relates the same 
story of the dead woman we heard in Willard, adding to it the tale of a 
railroad worker who was just killed. She, he says, was a new employee 
and had on a backpack like mine, which got snagged on another train 
while she climbed on the car. One or both of the trains started while 
the bag was caught, and she was dragged to her death. "We killed two 
people on two trains this week," the older gent says. "One was a woman.

"Heh," he added reflectively, "they both were woman. 'magine that."

Perhaps because of the tragedy, the yard is the least friendly one we've 
been in, with workers declining to provide information and indicating a 
general attitude that we get the hell out. There's no trains to 
Cincinnati from this yard anyway, they add, although we thought we could 
catch out in that direction at 11 a.m.

Figuring we'll have to try again after a shift change, we head about 
half a mile out of the yard, spreading our sleeping bags under a 
railroad bridge and nodding off. Tylicki wakes me up at 8:35, explaining 
that he's heading into town to check the place out and maybe get some 
maps, but he'll be back soon. He gets back just past noon, right around 
the time I'm going nuts from boredom. (In his Down and Out in Paris and 
London, George Orwell argues that enforced boredom is one of the worst 
aspects of vagrancy. When you have no money, no job, no friends, no 
transportation and -- especially -- if you have no education, you're 
reduced to simply sitting and waiting for stuff to happen.) Having none 
of the above save education, I page through a History of Protestant 
Theology and begin reading John Keegan's History of Warfare, brought 
along for this very purpose. My education was trumped by hunger at one 
point, though, when I pulled out the can of potted meat we got in 
Willard. Potted meat, for the uninitiated, is a substance that aspires 
to be Spam. I'd list the ingredients, but was afraid to look at them 
after consuming the stuff.

When Tylicki returns, he brings with him several boxes of cookies, which 
he founds in a dumpster behind a drug store. (Drug stores, he tells me, 
have some of the best dumpster hauls, though he's unable to explain 
why.) With my last real meal a day and a half in the past, I dive into 
them. Tylicki also got a hand-drawn map of the rail yard from somewhere, 
discovering in the process that Columbus boasts almost half-a-dozen 
yards -- and the one we came in having nothing heading anywhere we want 
to go. Norfolk Southern trains head out near a bridge half a mile away, 
though, and might go in the right direction, so we head down there to 
check it out. There's some freighters around, but none of them are 
moving anytime soon, so we repair to a doughnut shop a few blocks over 
and decide we need better maps. Tylicki's been walking around for hours 
now, so I leave the stuff with him and head three miles into town to 
find the nearest library. The branch's offerings in the atlas section 
turn out to be all but nonexistent; I photocopy what little I can find, 
print out some Internet guides and head back to the shop (evincing more 
weirdness when I get back and offer to buy Tylicki a doughnut. He 
insists on an apple turnover, badgers the worker 'til she microwaves it 
("I can't eat them cold") and gets yet another weird look when he asks 
for butter for it.)

With the library turning up little, Tylicki gets a chance to show off 
his social engineering skills again. From a phone in a crowded doughnut 
shop, he's somehow able to convince a CSX employee to lay out the 
schedule for the next few days. Norfolk Southern sounds like a better 
bet, though, so we head back to the yard around 6 p.m., seeing, from the 
bridge, a train that looks like a good bet. We hit (or perhaps "create" 
would be a better verb) some snags heading down three blocks to the 
actual yard.

One the way to the bridge that morning, we had passed a house with three 
mangy, yapping dogs in the yard. Tylicki had wanted to feed them the 
Vienna sausages then, an idea I had talked him out of at the time. 
Passing them again, the temptation proves irresistible, and he spend a 
few minutes handing out cookies (it turns out he ate the (non-kosher) 
sausages) to the mutts. We then stop to fill my water bottles, and by 
the time we get down to the tracks, the train was gone.

It appears trains ran south from the yard all day, though, so we camp 
out by the tracks, setting out our sleeping bags on the foundation of a 
railroad bridge nearby. Tylicki adds more to my railroad knowledge, 
showing me how to recognize different types of grainers, how to jump on 
a moving car and how to guess from a car's content where it's going.

Catching a train on the fly, he tells me, requires a hopper to 
concentrate on two things: just as when getting on while the train is 
standing still, the hopper must make sure to be braced at several 
points, so the rattling and rolling of the car doesn't shake him off 
mid-climb. The hopper also has to make sure that he's in a position that 
will throw him free of the car, rather than underneath it, if he does 
get knocked off. The correct way is to run alongside the train and match 
its speed and then grab the ladder adorning the side of all jumpable 
cars (other than boxcars) with an underhanded grip, in which the palm 
faces out. Instead of trying to lift your feet onto the ladder, you 
should then pull your body up, tucking your knees in underneath you, 
until your feet are above the bottom rung. You then put your feet on the 
ladder and clamber up as quickly as possible, moving only one limb at a 
time.

We drift off to sleep under the bridge, talking idly about our families 
and hobbies before sleep takes us. Three trains pass us in the night, 
all going the wrong direction.

*

*Friday, Jan. 12*

*

We wake up at 8 a.m., immediately heading back to the CSX yard we 
arrived at to see what's leaving. They confirm that to get to Cincinnati 
we'd have to catch a train that might be passing a switching point a few 
miles away. The problems: the train will be going at least 10 mph, and 
despite the previous night's "on-the-fly" lesson, Tylicki isn't sure if 
I'm ready; nobody knows when it's going by; and we don't really know 
where the switching point is. The best bet, we figure to head to the 
other CSX yard in town, about four miles away, where a train to Kentucky 
will be leaving later in the afternoon.

We have about two hours before the train we want leaves, which is a good 
thing. The yard lies on the other side of a baseball field, and as we're 
crossing the diamond, weirdness ensues. Tylicki had gotten a cup of 
water from a McDonald's we passed and, upon finishing it, tosses the cup 
to the ground. A few minutes later, a voice from nowhere says, "Hey, 
could you two guys come up here." Whirling around, we see a cop car 
parked on the far side of the park, with two officers inside. We trudge 
back to them. They demand our IDs and ask if we've been train hopping, 
questions we evade. They explain that they don't care about the trains; 
they detained us because they don't like litterbugs. "We have no 
problems with train hopping; that's up to the railroads," one officer 
says. "We just don't want you to litter."

After running our IDs and extracting a promise that we'll go pick up the 
cup, they let us go. We head back to the tracks (picking up the litter 
on the way). Our luck doesn't seem good, though. The train heading to 
Kentucky is all coal cars, a dirty, nasty ride if empty and a possibly 
deadly one when full. (Shifting loads have been known to bury unwary 
hobos, a way that I, hailing from the coal country of Pennsylvania, 
really don't want to go.) Most of the other trains in the yard are 
loaded with intermodules (flatbed-like cars carrying tractor trailers), 
auto racks, tankers and locked box cars -- all utterly unrideable. 
Things take a definite turn for the better when we ask the coal train 
engineer if any other trains are going his direction. He says no, but 
offers to let us camp out in the second unit on the train, where no 
workers will be. (Additional units, or engines, are attached to give 
more pulling power.) He warns us that the train might be searched and 
"If we get stopped, I never saw you." There's more risk in riding in the 
unit; if we do get caught, penalties might be more severe. But the 
chance for a warm, comfortable ride -- in an actual train engine! -- is 
something no self-respecting 'bo could turn down.

We walk inside and lay down on the floor, making sure no prying eyes 
from outside could catch a glimpse of us. While we wait the requisite 
hour or so for the train to start moving, we get to listen to the 
chatter of the crew. The holdup is no different from that of previous 
rides, but this time I can tell what's going on. (There was a problem 
with the brake hookup, and workers had to check out various cars to see 
where it was.) I also learn that it's apparently a requirement that 
railroad workers have a southern accent.

Riding in a unit added a layer of excitement to this leg of the trip. 
Besides being warm and having access to an actual bathroom and 
refrigerator stocked with cold water, the windows of the unit provided 
an admirable lookout point from which to see the fields of Ohio turn 
into the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, a vista broken only 
when we ducked away from them at any sign of civilization. Plus, though 
I've never been a real rail fan, what little boy hasn't dreamed of 
riding at the controls of a behemoth locomotive?

We sneak out of the engine in Russell, Kentucky, around 8 p.m., heading 
into the depressed little Appalachian stereotype of a town crowded 
around the rail yard. The first convenient store we stopped at had no 
maps, while the second one was presided over by a young woman who 
couldn't find our location on the atlases they had there. A customer 
finally pointed out where we were, information that allowed us to get an 
understanding of how the yard was laid out. We headed back to what 
appeared to be the departure yard and jumped into the second wide open 
box car we passed on a southbound train. After half-an-hour, we began to 
re-think our decision. We hadn't seen any workers around and weren't 
altogether certain where our train was heading -- or when it left. The 
best option might be to jump off and find a worker, but that created the 
chance that the train might head out while we were looking. Finally, we 
decided information was necessary and ran like demons for the engine 
house in the middle of the yard. "Ayup, I'll be testing the brakes in 
'bout 45 minutes," drawled the brakeman who answered our knock, 
confirming that our train was heading to West Virginia, where we could 
switch for Waycross. "What you want to do is head down the train a bit. 
There's some good box cars there for you."

(The phenomenon of incredibly friendly and helpful railroad employees 
surprised me for most of the trip. There's a few reasons I can think of 
for their behavior. First, they really just want to get us out of their 
yard: if we're going to get ran over, they'd prefer it to be somewhere 
else. Also, I think many of them feel more in common with hobos than 
they do with the office-worker types charged with finding hoppers. 
Helping us along is their way of sticking it to the man. Many of them 
are proud of the trains as well, an interest they share, by necessity, 
with successful hobos. As far as the bulls -- the security agents who 
kick folks off trains -- avoiding them is generally easy. They drive 
around the yard is quickly identified SUVs, which can be seen for a 
distance and hid from. Yards are too big and the trains too difficult to 
get around for a vehicle-bound persuer to really find one or two people 
bent on eluding them. We had no real run-ins with bulls on the trip, 
although three times we had to duck into bushes or hide behind trains 
when we saw suspicious-looking folks around, and one boxcar we were in 
was panned with a searchlight while we hid in the shadows in the back.)

We run back to our boxcar and jump back on, with the train pulling out 
about two hours later. For the first time, I enjoy a night trip; while 
still cold, the weather is warm enough that I can stand in the doorway 
at times, watching the hills pass in the distance. We pull into East 
Charleston just after midnight, we hop off and wander over to a nearby 
7-Eleven. After reviewing some maps there, we once again kick around the 
idea of heading to the Norfolk Southern yard, a plan that looks good 
until we find out it's six or seven miles away, on the other side of the 
river.

Instead, we head to hotel row, with Tylicki hitting up a Ramada at 2 
a.m. for its business service room, which has an Internet connection, 
allowing him to check his Hotmail and print out railroad maps. He spends 
some three hours there, doing God alone knows what, most of which time I 
spend loitering outside, watching the world go by. Eventually I stumble 
inside, with the desk clerk letting me lounge in the lobby. We leave 
with a stack of printouts and an actual route: The plan now is to go to 
Jacksonville, Fla., the headquarters of CSX. From there, I can head back 
to NY and Tylicki catch out due west to Arizona.

We get back to the yard around 5 a.m. and decide to camp out in an 
old-time caboose that a worker tells us should be sitting around the 
yard 'til Monday. (Cabooses are rarely used anymore. Their purpose -- 
letting people at the front of the train know the back of the train was 
OK -- has been taken over by an automated Rear End Device system 
(affectionately called Freddie; you can figure out where the F comes 
from yourself), marked by the blinking red light attached to trains 
shortly before they're ready to go.)

*Monday, Jan. 15*

As do many big shipping or port cities, Richmond has several railyards, 
usually brought under the control of the big boys (CSX and Norfolk 
Southern) as companies merged. The yard we're looking for in Richmond is 
know as Acca Yard, but we're uncertain if the yard we've entered is that 
one or another. We argue for a bit, trying to tell what direction we're 
heading based on the moon -- a skill neither of us possess. Eventually 
we get off the train and wander around a bit, with Tylicki, who has been 
to Acca Yard, determining this ain't it. We begin walking in the 
direction he says Acca lies -- but when we pass the back of the train, 
we realize we're walking in the wrong direction. Fed up with the entire 
thing, we head back to our car and sit around for half an hour until the 
train pulls out, depositing us 45 minutes later in Acca.

After stashing our bags in a switchman's shanty near the edge of the 
tracks and using the bathroom next to it, we wandered out of Acca Yard 
into Richmond, our first extended period off the train since Saturday. 
Our first stop is a bridge over the yard, where can get a sense of how 
things are laid out. From our vantage point, we see the ubiquitous black 
Blazer driven by bulls pull into the yard. All of the other times we saw 
them (in Columbus, Kentucky and West Virginia), the bulls -- hobo slang 
for railroad security agents -- had been on the other side of trains or 
far enough away that we could hide. General railyard workers, such as 
brakemen, engineers and conductors, are unlikely to call the bulls on 
hoppers; they're more concerned that you stay the hell off the tracks 
and get out of their yard as soon as possible. This bull, though, scared 
us a bit. When he got out of his truck, we could clearly see a gun 
strapped to his hip, and a cell phone and radio on the other. He was 
obviously a man who took his job seriously.

Hoping he'll be gone by the time we get back, we walk 20 minutes to a 
gas station, where I enjoy a blissful cup of actual coffee. I buy 
Tylicki a package of Strawberry Newtons and a bottle of milk, but that's 
not enough for him. He ducks back in the store while I'm outside 
studying a map on the wall, returning a few minutes later with a cup of 
hot water into which he puts a tea bag he's been carrying around. 
Moments later the manager comes out, asking him if he paid for the cup. 
"It's just water," Tylicki replies -- at which point the exact same 
conversation about charging for cups takes place, almost word for word, 
as we had at the Taco Bell. When it's over, and the manager takes the 
cup away from him, I go slightly insane myself, standing in the parking 
lot yelling "you have to pay for cups!" at him. (You know, I wonder if 
that's how the crazy people I see wandering the streets of New York got 
started. I'm sure I'd get weird looks if I walked around saying, "pay 
for cups, pay for cups" -- but it would, in a twisted way, make some 
sort of sense.)

After sitting around for a bit finishing our coffee and milk, Tylicki 
heads back into the station to see about using their bathroom, a display 
of moxie I've never seen the likes of. He comes out in a few minutes and 
says he has to head across the street to another bathroom; the first one 
was too dirty for him.

He finishes up there and suggests stopping by the United Methodists 
Community Services Building a few doors down. Although it's closed for 
Martin Luther King Day, somebody comes to the door when we ring the 
bell, a man who we ask if there's a food bank around. He asks us to wait 
and returns a few minutes later with two vouchers for a restaurant 
across the street. We repair to the place, called McLean's, where I get 
the roast beef dinner and Tylicki gets whole fried herring, which he 
douses with Tabasco sauce and maple syrup. It's the best meal we've had 
all trip, and on the way back, full and drowsy, we sprawl out in a field 
by the tracks, napping for an hour or so.

We hang around the yard all day, waiting for trains to show up, reading, 
napping and talking. From our research back in West Virginia, we know 
what trains we want: we can catch either the L148 or the Q409 from 
Richmond. to Waycross, Ga. The former, an intermodule, is supposed to 
arrive in Acca at 4:15 p.m., while the later is scheduled to be handed 
off to Richmond half an hour later.

The intermodule shows up on time, but is made up entirely of flat cars 
with tractor trailers on them, not the double stack cars that we could 
ride. (Double-stack trains, as their name implies, have two trailers on 
them, and a cubbyhole underneat them where hoppers can ride.) The 
manifest train, Q409, though, is nowhere to be seen. We hang around the 
top of slanted wall under a highway bridge we've made home for another 
hour, but I start getting antsy. I head down to the bathroom at the 
entrance of the yard, and on the way back stick my head into one of the 
yard offices to see about some information.

It's like my own private graduation ceremony, as I actually get to put 
into practice the knowledge I've picked up over the past week. I chat 
with Douglas, a clerk there, asking questions and getting information I 
wouldn't have even understood a week ago. Douglas pulls up the 409 
schedule on the computer and tells me the train is about an hour away, 
indicating the track it will come in on. He then starts giving me tips 
on riding -- pointing out the garbage cars to avoid, telling me how to 
get into box cars. "Be careful who you ask questions of," he says, 
pointing to the cars in the parking lot and naming their drivers. "Those 
are Eric's and Jack's," he says. "They're good guys.

"The bad guy is Gumshoe Andy," he explains, describing the starched 
white shirt, tie and gun we'd seen from the bridge in the morning. "He 
used to be a special inspector. Now he's called a property protection 
specialist. I call him Gumshoe Andy. He's an asshole."

I thank Douglas for the info and the dozen little bottles of water he 
gives me and head back to the bridge, successfully spotting and dodging 
the Amtrack train as it passes. I realize for the first time that I feel 
at home in the train yard.

While I was gone, Tylicki started a fire in a can a quarter full of 
motor oil and raided the dumpster at a nearby Budweiser plant for a 
handful of dented but full cans. While we're sitting there enjoying the 
fire, we see a train pull in. It fits the schedule Douglas gave and 
appears to be going the right way, but we're not certain it's the 409 -- 
and the train is too long, the conductor too far away, to ask him. When 
we ask a conductor on another train he says he has no idea, but points 
to another train, which has been sitting in the yard all day, which he 
says in going to Newport News, from which we can catch out to Georgia. 
This creates something of a quandary. The worker in Charleston also 
suggested going to Newport News, but he had says the train we got on 
went there, which it hadn't. Also, Newport News wasn't listed on any of 
the Internet resources we'd been using to plan the trip.

Tylicki says its my call, and I opt for the 409. We pick a mini-grainer 
-- the type that have one small hole, meaning it's my turn to sit on the 
porch -- and climb on, finding it covered with some sort of corn syrup 
cement, a sticky, slippery, nasty concoction that coats everything we 
own in minutes. We continue arguing about what train we should be on. I 
stick to my guns, but agree to get off and find another car. If we can't 
get something more comfortable than the grainer, I say, we'll head to 
Newport News. A dozen cars down, though, we find an open boxcar complete 
with cardboard padding and climb aboard.

Eventually, the train takes off like a bat out of hell who's not 
receiving overtime. Despite starting some four hours late, we pick up 
three-and-a-half hours while booming through the night, getting to Rocky 
Mount, N.C. around 2 a.m., only a half-hour behind schedule. Bizarrely, 
the train then sat there for the rest of the early morning, finally 
leaving at 9 a.m.

*Tuesday, Jan. 16*

This is the most classic hobo experience I've had all trip. The weather 
is beautiful, making sitting in the doorway of the "personal Pullman" a 
delight, and most of the trip is being done during the day, actually 
letting me see the countryside through my moving picture window. The 
land is beautiful -- rolling hills and fields, dotted with tobacco 
drying sheds blanketing the air with a spicy odor. We swoop through 
little towns like Wilson, N.C., the type of town time forget, with the 
old-fashioned downtown not having needed a citizen's committee to create 
it, but having just evolved over time. I wave to cars at grade 
crossings, wondering what goes through their minds when they see a 
grinning figure standing at the entrance to a boxcar. Hey, Mable, they 
say, nudging their wives, there's one of them old-fashioned hobo folks. 
If nothing else, I figure it's sort of an adventure by proxy; how many 
kids that I waved to chattered excitedly about it at the dinner table 
that night?

When I got tired of standing, I lean back against the door on the other 
side, nicely warmed by the rising sun. A woodsy odor creeps in, 
replacing the tobacco fumes, as we pass sites of new construction, 
seeing the carcasses of recently cleared scrub pines. Later, a fishy 
odor takes over as we cross trestles with rivers babbling away below.

Once again I realize how relaxed I am. The ride is smooth, letting me 
return every so often to my tome on military history, but most of the 
time I just sit and stare, wondering about the lives we're rolling 
through. We rumble by trailer parks and office parks, cutting through 
horse farms, goat farms and cotton plantations, seeing the cycles of 
city life from urban sprawl to quaint downtowns to suburban homesteads 
set far back from the tracks. I lean back on a pile of cardboard 
pallets, put my feet up on a block of vulcanized rubber left in the car 
and just look.

All of the books I've read on hoboing talk about the meditative 
qualities of train hopping -- something I've somehow missed in-between 
dealing with a nut, freezing off my feet and worrying about missing 
trains. Now, though, the rolling pines and jostling box car lull me into 
a state of calm, into which I just sit and relax.

As the afternoon wears on and we pick up speed, I get up and stick my 
head out the door, watching the countryside roll by first hand. As the 
warming wind blows into my face, I at first reach up and hold my hat on 
my head, before finally pulling it off and let the air blow through my 
hair for the first time in days. I continue reading Keegan's history of 
warfare, coming across this passage: "The nomads had a weakness: they 
liked the nomadic way of life and despised the weary cultivator, bound 
to his furrows and his plough-ox. What the nomads wanted was the best of 
both worlds: the comfort and luxury that settled ways yielded but also 
the freedom of the horseman's life, of the tented camp, of the hunt and 
of the seasonal shift of quarters."

I look out at the blurring landscape and think how nomadism will never die.

The trip continues through the day and night as we sweep through North 
and South Carolina, stopping for about five hours in Charleston, S.C., 
in mid-afternoon, but finally getting to Waycross, Ga., shortly after 
noon Wednesday.


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