# Real hobo camps are almost a thing of the past.



## Shoestring

*




These are two MRL locomotive units.*

*Riding into Laurel, Montana, last winter was cold and lonely.*
*I had ridden in on a pusher locomotive unit on a coal train and got off at rail mile-marker 11 on Montana Rail Link property just east of town. (MRL is short for Montana Rail Link).*
*I walked to an old FTRA camp that I used to catch out in years past. Since most FTRA camps have been empty since the late-1990's, I really did not have to worry about any type of confrontation happening at the camp.*

*The FTRA had been blamed for countless murders, robberies, property damage and deadly assaults during their existence. The FTRA I have met in the past had always kept their cool with me, and I can't say if I believe they are personally responsible for any bad things, they just seemed to have gotten the blame for most of it. There were ones who thought they were FTRA, but they were not! They had been ragged and tagged by the wrong crews of wannabe's! Even I had offers to join their click many times, but always found a way to change the subject to avoid getting "initiated"!*

*As I approached the jungle, I called out, "Tramp Walking"! *
*No reply was given, as most camps now are cold and empty, with grass growing up high alongside rusted chili cans and logo-less glass beer bottles. *
*I still, one slow step at a time, walked into the FTRA camp where the BNSF right-of-way meets the MRL right-of-way. This is where you catch out and go to Great Falls at the diamond east of MRL's yard. *


*The quietness leaked through the distilled breeze as stout as BBQ beef on your neighbor's backyard grill! I was all alone once again just begging in my mind to run across another hobo!*
*I looked around camp for a possible bush-beater or two. After not seeing any, I hid my backpack nearby then left the frigid camp toward town. *

*There is a small truck stop across the irrigation-canal on the south side of MRL's mainline, it was just too much of a hassle to try to balance across a LPG pipe-line that crossed the canal to make it to the other side, so I decided to limp into town walking alongside Business 212's shoulder. *

*I reached town two miles further and checked the local thrift store for an aluminum coffee pot. With no luck, I walked the irrigation canal bridge that ran through town. I reached Laurel's main grocery store to the west end of the MRL yard. *


*I had seen several railroad monikers of previous hoboes, tramps, and hitchhikers that were severely faded from Montana's relentless wind, dust, rain, and sun. I took out my paint pen and freshly tagged, "Shoestring", where I had the year before. I walked into the store, took my beanie cap, gloves and coat off. As I strolled down the isles, I grabbed bacon, pork sausage, six pack eggs, paid for the items and walked back outside the store where I warmly dressed again.*

*On my walk back to camp, I crossed the MRL mainline near the town's park. I ran into big, fat ass "Lock 'em down Bill"! MRL has a "Rent-a-bull" who stays at the old Great Northern Motel, where railroad employees used to spend their crew change nights before being put back on another freight train. He remembered me, having caught me countless times over the years before. Lock 'em down Bill is a very large, but gentle man. He asked how I got into town. I told him the truth, knowing he already knew. He gave me a warning ticket and let me go about my way once again.*

*After getting back to camp and eating a hot meal next to my warm fire, Bill drove up to my camp. He then got out and shot the breeze with me for a few minutes.*
*He asked, who, if and when I had ran into other train riders. I told him this time of year, as he knew, there were not too many travelers here during winter's wrath. I was getting ready to bed down and go to sleep and also wanted to be alone, so I told him if that's all he wanted to know, then I would try and sleep some and goodbye. He then told me he wanted for me to keep an eye out and to be safe. He knew he couldn't ask me to leave, because my camp was on BNSF property which was out of his jurisdiction. He then squeezed his fat ass between the steering wheel and the seat-back and into his truck and left. I had often felt sorry for Bill, being that he always seemed so lonely, after all, he was nice enough to want to talk to me out of curiosity. I was able to fall to sleep soon afterward. *

*I had only been asleep for about two hours when a mixed freight train bound for Great Falls slugged its way out of the yard. My hands and fingers were so cold! It took me two whole minutes to get my bed roll back inside my duffel bag! A grain car came rolling around the curve at 10 mph. The adrenalin started warming the arteries in my neck! I ran as fast as I could next to the train! I grasped the second slat on the grainer ladder then pulled myself up, then placed my knees on the bottom slat! I was on.*

*After riding the frigid steel for 45 minutes without rolling out my bed roll, we stopped in the hold to wait on another southbound train. Skipping like a jittery high-paced crack head down the tracks, I made my way toward the locomotive units. I was eight rail cars from the rear locomotive unit! I saw the southbound train's headlight heading south toward me, so I crawled up onto a front facing grainer and hid until the train passed. We aired up and took off before I had the chance to make it further toward the warm rear locomotive unit! *

*What a freezing ride! Riding frontward for about ten minutes, I could not take the cold any more! I crawled up the ladder to the top of the grainer then walked down the cat-walk to the next rail car in front! I jumped to the next grainer in front of the one before, then again, and again, and again, until I reached the very first rail car on the lead end of the train! Looking through every foggy breath I exhaled and watery tear-stained eyes, I crawled down the ladder, hopped over onto the rear locomotive unit then opened the door and got inside its warm cab!*

*It was warm inside, even though the heat was off. I opened the control panel to the circuit breakers and popped open all four heater breaker switches and viola! Heat at last! I now had two helpers heaters blasting as well as two auxilliary sidewall heaters!*

*After thawing out, I was nearing city limits of Great Falls. I got off at the south end of the yards and made camp again at another old FTRA campsite. It too had been abandoned for quite some time. *


*That's just the thing, the FTRA that I knew in the late 1980's and early 1990's have either gone to prison, died of old age, or had passed on from complications of liver failure due to excessive alcohol consumption. *
*One thing you absolutely can count on while out on the rails is change. Things are good in some way or another for a while, they then change, and you either change yourself to meet that change, or stay the same and miss the way things were.*

*What I'm trying to say is, places, like people, change. You really miss the way things were. I wish I could go back and ride trains when there were no less than a dozen people at one said camp waiting to catch out. You sat by your camp fire telling stories, sharing experiences all while gazing over the stars in the beautiful night sky, while wondering where your next freight train would bring you, and where your next camp full of real true hoboes would be.*


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## Rise 609

That was a good story shoestring. Hope all is well.


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## shua

awesome story dude


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## bote

Although I never saw those times (I've only been riding trains about 10 years), I've been in some pretty good camps, and it's an amazing feeling to be there by the fire, thinking that it used to be like this all over the place. I really like what you say about keeping up with the times, or they go by you. It's also true that a lot of kids don't know what they're missing, when they walk past the camp and the old guys.


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## dirty_rotten_squatter

Wouldnt it alert the conductor if the heat was turned on?


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## jabbyscabby

Great story.....
I hate being alone this story has inspired me to write a thread!


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## Shoestring

*No. The only thing in the unit that truely will alert the lead crew is the "Attendant Call" button. The newer SD 80MAC-90MAC-70MAC, etc.. units all have this little round black button right below the heater/airconditioning knob. I accedentally hit it with my pack every once and a great while when I set it down next to it being it's only like 3 or 4 inches off the floor itself!*
*(Well the horn too would allert them)! lol! *
*The older units have this button just below the console deck on the left.*
*When it gets pushed, a ringing bell goes off in "ALL" units. (Used to call the conductor back up to the lead unit if he fertah be needed back up there should he be in another unit for whatever reason).*


dirty_rotten_squatter said:


> Wouldnt it alert the conductor if the heat was turned on?


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## stove

Good to know Shoestring, thanks!


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## Shoestring

*Yousah welcome!*
*This "Attendant Call" button also has a label that strickly says Attendant Call too. (So it's not hard to see once you get way down near the floor-level areas). The size of the button is roughly the size of a red reset button on a "strip-cord" that your PC may be plugged into. (Except this attd't call button is black)! You'll surely hear it go off when it gets touched! haha!*


stove said:


> Good to know Shoestring, thanks!


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## JahDucky

This story is epic as all hell. Like wow...just, "Wow".


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## Shoestring

*Thanks for your super comment "JahDucky"!*


JahDucky said:


> This story is epic as all hell. Like wow...just, "Wow".


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## fluxofpurplediarea

this just seems sad to me:flush:


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## RideMoreTrains

clean hobo camps are a thing of the past... people these days don't know how to clean there trash or something. i keep a "no trace" mentality the whole time. basically i don't shit in my backyard and blow up hop out spots by trashing it.


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## Shoestring

*I hear you!*
*I have been in camps over the last few years and seen used needles and end-caps lying all over, vomit piles where you used to lay your head, and Dairy Queen twist-cone piles of shit 14 inches high "next" to the piles of vomit as well!!!*
*No respect! No respect at all!!!*
*Lot of times, the local homeguards will use these camps and just trash the Hell out of them as well lately, being some of these camps are dwindling in real hobo visits!*




RideMoreTrains said:


> clean hobo camps are a thing of the past... people these days don't know how to clean there trash or something. i keep a "no trace" mentality the whole time. basically i don't shit in my backyard and blow up hop out spots by trashing it.


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## wizehop

Those stories never get old, keep em coming! So would you say less people are hopping these days, or there just going about it differently?


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## Shoestring

*I can easily say there are about, on average, 75% less folks hopping trains then where 10-12 years ago.*



wizehop said:


> Those stories never get old, keep em coming! So would you say less people are hopping these days, or there just going about it differently?


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## wokofshame

hey shoe iwas just in laurel (and rode a slave on that wyoming-deltaport BC coal train out of there) . saw your tag, put mine down, had a securitas rent-a-cop kick me out from under the bridge (thin guy though), checked out the jungle but it is long gone memories for sure, empty even in early may. i scared off a turtle sunning himself -splash!- and picked some wild -growing watercress from the ditch. lady at the trukstop kicked me dwon some coffee and told me about"gypsy" (hobo)


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## Avon Drunquist

The whole experience of telling stories around the campfires and whatnot seems to be gone. Whenever I come upon 10 kids at a camp waiting for a train I always say hi, but they're normally getting wasted, trashing everything, shooting dope, and sometimes asking me and whoever I'm riding with questions like how to spot a ridable 48. Last summer at Midway in St. Paul I ran across a group of 7 or so folks drinking a spacebag, we caught out around 5 in the morning and when some friends of mine showed up a few days later they were still there and basically followed my friends onto the train. I always enjoy meeting genuine riders out there who are down to swap stories and mayeb ride the same train without having to worry about someone eating shit and loosing a hand or something.


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## Mogwai

Avon Drunquist said:


> The whole experience of telling stories around the campfires and whatnot seems to be gone. Whenever I come upon 10 kids at a camp waiting for a train I always say hi, but they're normally getting wasted, trashing everything, shooting dope, and sometimes asking me and whoever I'm riding with questions like how to spot a ridable 48. Last summer at Midway in St. Paul I ran across a group of 7 or so folks drinking a spacebag, we caught out around 5 in the morning and when some friends of mine showed up a few days later they were still there and basically followed my friends onto the train. I always enjoy meeting genuine riders out there who are down to swap stories and mayeb ride the same train without having to worry about someone eating shit and loosing a hand or something.



This kinda shit is really disappointing to me.


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## CholoMcScumbag

kids jsut dont think about shit like this and its sad. if they kept the camps nice and the squats then these great parties and places would not be things of the past. i think kids jsut dont think past the next bottle of sherry anymore. all they want to do is be rowdy and drunk. i was sad when i went out this summer and the old camp outside of Moosejaw was gone. there were still a bunch of graffiti all over but no old bus full of train tags, and no firepit. there were however a large amount of mattresses which were dope.


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## wokofshame

yeah it's a sign of disrespect to trash a camp and leave glass around for dogs to step on. when there was lots of old schoolers sure there were d-bags that did that shit back then too but there was enforcement when respectable riders were around


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## Smallredbox

Love your stories Shoestring! :cheers:

PS: Have you finished working on your book?


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## Morganna

Avon Drunquist said:


> The whole experience of telling stories around the campfires and whatnot seems to be gone. Whenever I come upon 10 kids at a camp waiting for a train I always say hi, but they're normally getting wasted, trashing everything, shooting dope, and sometimes asking me and whoever I'm riding with questions like how to spot a ridable 48. Last summer at Midway in St. Paul I ran across a group of 7 or so folks drinking a spacebag, we caught out around 5 in the morning and when some friends of mine showed up a few days later they were still there and basically followed my friends onto the train. I always enjoy meeting genuine riders out there who are down to swap stories and mayeb ride the same train without having to worry about someone eating shit and loosing a hand or something.



I had the same experience when I was hopping out of Pig's Eye in St. Paul earlier this year. There were like 17 kids altogether. Luckly I decided to wait til the next day, all like 13 of the kids ran at once to catch a Everngreen train heading to PDX, most got caught by the bulls. 

But anyways, yeah, I came back the next day and there were needles and empty bottles everywhere. It was disgusting, I tried cleaning up the hop out as best I could, but still, I'm honestly getting sick of kids trashing shit.


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## RenegadeGypsy

wow, very nicely written :]

I wish i could have been a part of those times. Problem with today is there is too much prevention to help everyone "live" that we cant "live" at all...its a horrible ending to happiness...but we strong ones will pick up and find the new road, like we always do


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## RenegadeGypsy

Morganna said:


> I had the same experience when I was hopping out of Pig's Eye in St. Paul earlier this year. There were like 17 kids altogether. Luckly I decided to wait til the next day, all like 13 of the kids ran at once to catch a Everngreen train heading to PDX, most got caught by the bulls.
> 
> But anyways, yeah, I came back the next day and there were needles and empty bottles everywhere. It was disgusting, I tried cleaning up the hop out as best I could, but still, I'm honestly getting sick of kids trashing shit.



Now, this will sound funny because im a kid...but i hate these kids that have NO respect for the squat (seeing as though it belongs to everyone) or other travelers. It disgusts me...not to mention many long timers take one look at me a lump me in with them. I, unlike some, have tons of respect for the road and its people.

Pift...stupid kids. (haha, still funny seeing as how young I am)


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## logan714

the bridge camp in tucson is still going The one out willmount is still there and used but there not too menny riders out at willmount 

logan


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## Livingpastense

great story man i always love seeing old camps. I like the fact that old hobo graffiti usually means a great waiting spot too (Tho not all the time).


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## Mogwai

Livingpastense said:


> great story man i always love seeing old camps. I like the fact that old hobo graffiti usually means a great waiting spot too (Tho not all the time).



Yeah, just depending on the hobo sign.


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## Apples

Great story. Its so true about missing the way things were.


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## Grasshopper

Bravo Shoestring! Beautiful post, thanks for sharing.


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## Pretzel

Shoestring said:


> *I hear you!*
> *I have been in camps over the last few years and seen used needles and end-caps lying all over, vomit piles where you used to lay your head, and Dairy Queen twist-cone piles of shit 14 inches high "next" to the piles of vomit as well!!!*
> *No respect! No respect at all!!!*
> *Lot of times, the local homeguards will use these camps and just trash the Hell out of them as well lately, being some of these camps are dwindling in real hobo visits!*



Thats sad as fuck  I feel like were coming back though


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## Hottboxx

you should publish tis short story


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## Ironweed

CholoMcScumbag said:


> kids jsut dont think about shit like this and its sad. if they kept the camps nice and the squats then these great parties and places would not be things of the past. I think kids just don't think past the next bottle of sherry anymore. all they want to do is be rowdy and drunk. i was sad when i went out this summer and the old camp outside of Moosejaw was gone. there were still a bunch of graffiti all over but no old bus full of train tags, and no firepit. there were however a large amount of mattresses which were dope.



I was over at Reddit Vagabond complaining about this, and I got reamed for it. That site seems to be oogle central... I am an old school guy. Back in the day, if you were acting like this in a jungle, you would have had your ass kicked in. There were unspoken rules in the jungle and on the road. Maybe it has to do with the fact that these younger kids never had anyone to teach them the ropes. 

I am still trying to carry the banner with our official Ogden Hobo jungle. Sure would be nice to meet more like minded people such as yourselves.


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## Ratchet

About 20 years ago i was about 21... I lived in Palmer MA... There was a clearing by the tracks behind the center-most package store... Most of the people i knew would drink there... This old train-hopper (probably not much older than me now) showed up one day... Pretty sure his name was Charlie... Dont remember anything he said but he was well liked by everyone... Somehow an easy chair manifested itself and he used to sleep in it at night and sit in it during the day and hang with everyone. Dont remember how long he stayed or know what happened to him... I was busy working n drinking at the bar mostly then... Eventually the spot was shut down... And exists only in my memories i believe. I miss the community I knew in Palmer... Large circle of friends n everybody knew n partied with everyone.
Hope you enjoyed my rambling.


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