# Highway tattoo



## Batsy (Jan 6, 2022)

I remember hearing somewhere that if a traveler is gonna get a tattoo of a highway, they’re supposed to earn it by reaching a certain number of miles traveled first. Someone I met on the road encouraged me to not worry about other people’s rules for what to get inked or not. But if there’s a common number of miles people usually think of as having earned a highway tattoo, then I feel like looking forward to reaching that number and rewarding myself once I do by getting a tattoo would be fun.

So I’m wondering, how many miles do most travelers consider having “earned” a highway tattoo?

Thx!


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## ali (Jan 6, 2022)

Don't let gatekeepers decide for you what you choose to do with your body. It's your skin, and you are the one that will live with it the rest of your life. If you want a tattoo of a highway, just get one. Anyone who gives you shit about it because of some made-up rule is just being an ass and not worth your time.

Of course, if you want to wait till you feel like you achieved something first and then get a tattoo as a reward for yourself, that's fine too. Personally i consider objective metrics (distance traveled, number of years, number of countries) kinda boring. I don't much care to keep track of those things because i don't think that's what makes journeys interesting. For me it's more about what happened along the way. If something significant happened that moved you or changed you, maybe that's the moment to think about getting a tattoo to commemorate it.


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## croc (Jan 6, 2022)

Set your own goals. 

Avoid people who give u requirements for what u put on ur own body bc at the end of the day they're insecure and unhappy with themselves or else they wouldn't be concerned about wtf u put on urself.


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## Matt Derrick (Jan 6, 2022)

i've never heard of this "requirement"? must be a new thing. like others have said though, this sounds like silly gatekeeping.


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## Gin (Aug 10, 2022)

When people tell me what I can or can't do, I throw the 3 Fs at em & say.,
You don't Feed me, Finance me, or Fuck me, so what I do is none of your damn business gtfoh.


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## Coywolf (Dec 17, 2022)

You can only get that tattoo if you've successfully hitched to Hell and made it back alive.

Same goes for the train tracks. You have to be in the Honolulu Double-stack club before you can even THINK about putting it in ink.

Also, please...and I'm pleading with you here...dont ever get them on your face...but if you choose to...please let it be one or the other. Not both. Especially if they are to replace your eyebrows.


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## laughingman (Dec 19, 2022)

This has a very "how many roads must a man walk down untill you call him a man." vibe. I say get the tattoo you want and if people give you a hard time remind them that the answer is blowing in the wind, and they can blow with it.


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## born2raizehell (Dec 19, 2022)

if thats what your crew says to do you gotta follow their rules!!! (if it means anything to them) but like a lot of people here you should get it if you fucking want it, I got tattoos I want thats just random shit and never regretted it. its always going to remind you of the time when you got it!


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## Eng JR Lupo RV323 (Dec 20, 2022)

born2raizehell said:


> if thats what your crew says to do you gotta follow their rules!!! (if it means anything to them)



If that's what your crew says then you should leave that crew because that crew sounds lame as fuck. What even is a crew? Is that a thing? I've met a fucking shit ton of travelers and nobody has ever mentioned any crews. I remember graffiti had crews, but travelers? Well I guess there's The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Autorack Riders but that's different. Are there actually crews? Am I being left out of the loop?


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## born2raizehell (Dec 20, 2022)

Eng JR Lupo RV323 said:


> If that's what your crew says then you should leave that crew because that crew sounds lame as fuck. What even is a crew? Is that a thing? I've met a fucking shit ton of travelers and nobody has ever mentioned any crews. I remember graffiti had crews, but travelers? Well I guess there's The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Autorack Riders but that's different. Are there actually crews? Am I being left out of the loop?



yea theres traveling crews that make rules especially about who can hop on what part of a line, and if they dont like you theyll try to steal your shit! if you got a group you travel with you got a crew...


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## Eng JR Lupo RV323 (Dec 21, 2022)

born2raizehell said:


> yea theres traveling crews that make rules especially about who can hop on what part of a line



That sounds like some made up shit to me. Like I can totally envision some dumbasses trying to flex like that on some inexperienced riders perhaps, but I just have a really had time believing there's crews of riders out there policing lines and telling people "Sorry pal, this line is ours". How do you even police a line if you're traveling? Sounds like some no-life tweaker homebums who don't even travel just talkin out the side of their necks at some gullible youngsters to me.

@croc You travel a lot, you ever heard of or experienced any of this silly goose shit before? Are these those corny "gearless and fearless" kids?


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## born2raizehell (Dec 21, 2022)

Eng JR Lupo RV323 said:


> That sounds like some made up shit to me. Like I can totally envision some dumbasses trying to flex like that on some inexperienced riders perhaps, but I just have a really had time believing there's crews of riders out there policing lines and telling people "Sorry pal, this line is ours". How do you even police a line if you're traveling? Sounds like some no-life tweaker homebums who don't even travel just talkin out the side of their necks at some gullible youngsters to me.
> 
> @croc You travel a lot, you ever heard of or experienced any of this silly goose shit before? Are these those corny "gearless and fearless" kids?



on dogs, theres groups of travelers under the jurisdiction of scum fuc family who would earn you tattoos, and then the obviously freight train riders of america/association which I guess has a code as well. theres hobos who will stalk you on the trains and fuck you up in the next city you get to if they dont like you riding the lines, they might even throw you off!


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## born2raizehell (Dec 21, 2022)

in this beautiful world of ours I believe that family and small groups has more ownership over land than the state and as an anarchist theres the dream of freedom where the family makes the law and the land is free from our system of oppression!


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## Matt Derrick (Dec 21, 2022)

born2raizehell said:


> on dogs, theres groups of travelers under the jurisdiction of scum fuc family who would earn you tattoos, and then the obviously freight train riders of america/association which I guess has a code as well. theres hobos who will stalk you on the trains and fuck you up in the next city you get to if they dont like you riding the lines, they might even throw you off!



No offense, but this post basically proves that you don't know what your talking about. FTRA hasn't been around for a very long time. You're just parroting things you've heard.

This goes against our policy in the Guide to StP:

"Do not give advice on topics you have no experience with"

Doing so just perpetuates rumors and only harms the community.


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## born2raizehell (Dec 21, 2022)

Matt Derrick said:


> No offense, but this post basically proves that you don't know what your talking about. FTRA hasn't been around for a very long time. You're just parroting things you've heard.
> 
> This goes against our policy in the Guide to StP:
> 
> ...



I asked my buddy whose been traveling for a long time... but if you say so!! I might just have a different perspective in the world since I respect authority of a group of train riders instead of church and the state!


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## Eng JR Lupo RV323 (Dec 22, 2022)

born2raizehell said:


> as an anarchist





born2raizehell said:


> I might just have a different perspective in the world since I respect authority of a group of train riders



You definitely have a different perspective on a few things it seems. You're speaking in oxymoron. I'll be the first to admit I don't know a shit ton about anarchism but just on a very basic level isn't it more or less about not being down with hierarchy and authority/power? Aren't anarchists more into shit like equality than hierarchy?

How do you say you're an anarchist and then in the same breathe say you respect some made up "authority" of a group of train riders? A group of train riders who police lines that nobody else seems to even know about? Only citing the FTRA as an example. That shit isn't around anymore and it hasn't been relevant in decades. Someone's been feeding you some very outdated information dawg. You're tellin ghost stories basically.

I knew an old FTRA guy(who was probably one of the younger FTRA guys) and he was in his 50's back in 2004 and by no means claimed to be active anymore he was retired AF and died before even reaching 60. Those guys don't live forever, and even if they did how old would most of them be right now? 88 years old? 93 years old? Just out there still runnin shit huh?








You do realize that any person younger than about 70 years old that you've come across that claims to be part of the FTRA is basically just like that goofy white kid in 7th grade that wore all blue and claimed to be a crip, right?


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## born2raizehell (Dec 22, 2022)

Eng JR Lupo RV323 said:


> You definitely have a different perspective on a few things it seems. You're speaking in oxymoron. I'll be the first to admit I don't know a shit ton about anarchism but just on a very basic level isn't it more or less about not being down with hierarchy and authority/power? Aren't anarchists more into shit like equality than hierarchy?
> 
> How do you say you're an anarchist and then in the same breathe say you respect some made up "authority" of a group of train riders? A group of train riders who police lines that nobody else seems to even know about? Only citing the FTRA as an example. That shit isn't around anymore and it hasn't been relevant in decades. Someone's been feeding you some very outdated information dawg. You're tellin ghost stories basically.
> 
> ...



sorry to be the opposite in opinion here. I will ask around more about the FTRA and see if theyre still around. my info is based in online research as much as word around travelers. obviously you know people travel in groups!! I dont mean to disagree with your knowledge on the topic so I wont go on about it. just know with a wink we all got a different experience there in.


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## Joe Btfsplk (Dec 22, 2022)

From Wikipedia:


An offshoot of the FTRA, known as the Blood Bound Railroad Gang, distinguishes themselves by wearing red bandanas, as opposed to the FTRA's black bandanas.

In 2011, Gus Melonas, a spokesman for the BNSF, said the "FTRA and associated act of riding and living on the rails have gone largely extinct."






Freight Train Riders of America - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org





At article's end, a list of books, TV episodes et al are given.

I've thought the FTRA were passe as Lupo implies.


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## Eng JR Lupo RV323 (Dec 23, 2022)

Anyone can edit that Wikipedia page and attempt to make their little wannabe Facebook group seem relevant or somehow associated to the FTRA(which is hella obsolete). I can go on there and edit in "The Tough Guy Whites Only Supertramp Wrecking Crew" and note their affiliation to the FTRA but that doesn't make it relevant. I can make a facebook group for it but that doesn't make it relevant. And that's basically all that John Burns AKA Crazy Cooter has done with that shit. He's even lightweight stealing the BBCRC notoriety by choosing the acronym BBRC(Blood Bound Railroad Club). That's clearly calculated AF, it's no coincidence.

He's also one of those stolen valor dudes that claims to be a veteran but he wasn't ever even in the military. I'm by no means down with the military but I think stealing valor is pretty lame. There's better ways to fly signs, you don't gotta lie. But saying you were in the military makes you sound tough right? In the same way he's stolen valor, he's also stolen the traincore tough guy bad boy reputation of the FTRA. Also definitely seen him post some racist shit in the past. And who's his roaddog? None other than everyone's favorite volunteer police informant Hobo Shoestring.

Shocking news? Here's a very interesting blog he wrote about the time he volunteered to wear a wire to get a dude sent to prison for selling weed so that the police would give him enough money to take a plane out of Alaska in true first class hobo style. He deleted that blog but the web archive forgets nothing. All I'm saying is the guy who's trying to make that "gang" relevant is a shitty person, he's got shitty ideologies and he runs with shitty people. It only does him a favor to claim that his little facebook trainrider club is valid in any way whatsoever.

I just think if anyone's looking up to these guys, they're really just looking up to posers. That "gang" is not relevant. I've met hundreds of riders and I've never ever heard a single story about any of them being told they can't ride a certain line because they're not attuned with some made up train gang that supposedly owns trackage rights. The only actual gang on the railroad are the bulls. I don't have any respect for their authority but they're the only gang who has any authority on the rails. That's just facts.


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## croc (Dec 23, 2022)

Eng JR Lupo RV323 said:


> @croc You travel a lot, you ever heard of or experienced any of this silly goose shit before? Are these those corny "gearless and fearless" kids?



Nah never heard that but I don't rly hang out w ppl who just hitch/walk. Sounds like some annoying ass kids who would say that tho

@Batsy to echo what Matt said, FTRA isn't rly a thing anymore tho there's a couple of them still alive I think? and scum fucks haven't been a thing in a long time either. Most of those kids are prob dead from cirrhosis and ODing.

Ur info is regurgitated and inaccurate like in a way that makes me wonder who even told u all that was it an old timer who's just out of touch??


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## Coywolf (Dec 23, 2022)

Eng JR Lupo RV323 said:


> The Amalgamated Brotherhood of Autorack Riders



🤣🤣🤣 I'm currently sewing that patch onto my guitar case in Colton as we speak


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## Coywolf (Dec 23, 2022)

born2raizehell said:


> on dogs, theres groups of travelers under the jurisdiction of scum fuc family who would earn you tattoos, and then the obviously freight train riders of america/association which I guess has a code as well. theres hobos who will stalk you on the trains and fuck you up in the next city you get to if they dont like you riding the lines, they might even throw you off!



Look, this does exist. I'll give you that. But it's not like its prevalent, or widespread, by any means. I've only met two people who claim FTRA while riding, one was an old head, I believed him. Other guy was a newer kid, and I think some people talked him into something that he didn't really understand.

And ya, there's a code. Of course there is. I was just talking to another rider im depth about this in Ogden. Take care of your family, don't shit where you eat/sleep, help others when in need, don't fuck with the railroad. Its just the 'hobo code' passed down through the years.

The idea of rail crews/gangs out there being dangerous is really silly. Most of us are out here to disappear and experience true freedom. The people who decide they want to 'police' that freedom need to fuck right off. This isint a club, its....well...I don't even know what it is, but its fucking great.


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## born2raizehell (Dec 23, 2022)

Coywolf said:


> Look, this does exist. I'll give you that. But it's not like its prevalent, or widespread, by any means. I've only met two people who claim FTRA while riding, one was an old head, I believed him. Other guy was a newer kid, and I think some people talked him into something that he didn't really understand.
> 
> And ya, there's a code. Of course there is. I was just talking to another rider im depth about this in Ogden. Take care of your family, don't shit where you eat/sleep, help others when in need, don't fuck with the railroad. Its just the 'hobo code' passed down through the years.
> 
> The idea of rail crews/gangs out there being dangerous is really silly. Most of us are out here to disappear and experience true freedom. The people who decide they want to 'police' that freedom need to fuck right off. This isint a club, its....well...I don't even know what it is, but its fucking great.



okay sounds like most are saying its not a thing. Its funny that youd mention blood bound because I may be new here but Im an old soul and believe that I will be reunited with my group during 'the great reunion' when every traveler must pass on.


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## Eng JR Lupo RV323 (Dec 25, 2022)

Ok but just as long as you understand the "great reunion" isn't some ridiculous big rock candy mountain hobo heaven where every boxcar comes with a space bag & Hobo Stobe and all your shwilly pals are there waiting for you to join them on the A37 eastbound. The great reunion will be your body decaying into the ground(or your burnt pulverized bone remains will be bagged up and given to your family to be scattered) and then you'll be leeched into the earth where the mycelium will reunite your energy to the flora on the surface. 

Your energy will carry on in that flora as it utilizes your contribution of iron, calcium, phosphorus and other minerals to grow strong and create seeds, flowers, fruit and such. The insects and birds and shit will feast upon said flora, seeds/fruit which has all been infused with your energy and they will use it for their energy to grow, live and fly. Eventually they'll age and be eaten by rats, birds or other animals or maybe even just die from cirrhosis of the liver and they'll one day also decay into the ground where the mycelium will reunite their energy and your energy back into the flora on the surface to be eaten and reunited again and again and again and again.


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## Zippy Blamo (Dec 25, 2022)

Eng JR Lupo RV323 said:


> Ok but just as long as you understand the "great reunion" isn't some ridiculous big rock candy mountain hobo heaven where every boxcar comes with a space bag & Hobo Stobe and all your shwilly pals are there waiting for you to join them on the A37 eastbound. The great reunion will be your body decaying into the ground(or your burnt pulverized bone remains will be bagged up and given to your family to be scattered) and then you'll be leeched into the earth where the mycelium will reunite your energy to the flora on the surface.
> 
> Your energy will carry on in that flora as it utilizes your contribution of iron, calcium, phosphorus and other minerals to grow strong and create seeds, flowers, fruit and such. The insects and birds and shit will feast upon said flora, seeds/fruit which has all been infused with your energy and they will use it for their energy to grow, live and fly. Eventually they'll age and be eaten by rats, birds or other animals or maybe even just die from cirrhosis of the liver and they'll one day also decay into the ground where the mycelium will reunite their energy and your energy back into the flora on the surface to be eaten and reunited again and again and again and again.



This is weirdly comforting


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## Eng JR Lupo RV323 (Dec 25, 2022)

Zippy Blamo said:


> This is weirdly comforting



I think so too. It's guaranteed eternal life without all the crazy stipulations and guidelines someone else says you have to follow. So keep on sinning! Or shining benevolently, you're going to the same place either way. Right where you are now. Idk, that's my take on it anyway. But we're exceedingly getting away from the subject of gatekeepers(more or less the subject of OP's post) and I don't wanna derail too far away from that so I'm gonna look for a thread about afterlife and maybe just necro that back to life and maybe this conversation can reach some neat new levels there, in a more fitting thread.

[edit] Found one. @Zippy Blamo and it's actually written a million times better than I put it, too. I'm actually disappointed nobody even commented on that thread. Also I remember that member from many years ago and I liked the things they had to say. I wonder where life has taken them and what they're up to now. Here, have a look at this post.


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## roguetrader (Dec 30, 2022)

who actually records how many miles they do on their travels ? despite being the times when much ground is covered, the 8 hour stints on the motorway / interstate are the least interesting bits of the journey..


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## Batsy (Jan 2, 2023)

Ended up getting the tattoo!


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## Crisy (Jan 3, 2023)

I have a tattoo of a nut on my ass, that dosnt mean I let people nut on my ass. Tattoos don't have to be earned or have a reason or deep meaning. Just do what you want.


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