Rise 609
Well-known member
Well I guess this big mess all started in Tucson,AZ. I rode IM out of Tucson headed for East L.A. To give a little bit of background of what was going on I met two kids in Tucson, one being a guy who was from Tracy, CA and claimed to know alot about the rail lines in California and the other being a girl who had never ridden a train. Well off we went outta Tucson. About 100 miles west of Yuma we hit an INS checkpoint where they were checking trains with infared heat sensors. They found the 3 of us on the train looked at our id's and let us continue to ride. Well come morning we hit Colton and I wanted to bail there but thought the kid I was riding with new more then me and he said to stay on. Once we passed colton we rolled until we hit east LA. At LA he told me that he couldnt get off here because of warrents and it being hot around there. This is when I kicked myself in the ass for the first time not getting off in Colton. Well we stayed on through LA and ended up at the end of the line between inglewood and long beach. I'll skip a little farther as I hitch hiked from Long beach up to Bakersfield where the guy that was with us ditched out in the middle of the night. So now its just me and the greenhorn. We hitched to Sacramento where we were planning to head to West Oakland. I found some hop out spots by th help of a local kid that decided to join us( another person claiming to know abou the lines here in the west) and A really cool member on here IBRR hobo. So we waited a day and got in a Gondolla and rolled out heading west. This is where the problems started. Our Westbound cut out and headed North. I didnt know where we were at and it was dark. I didnt want to get off at a siding cause I didnt know when the next train would roll back the opposite way and we had limited supplies. So we rode it out, rolling right through Roseville.In the morning I gave a ring back to IBRR hobo and he hooked me up with a contact for Widerstand. The 2 of them definantly helped me alot. I rolled right through Dunsmir and sided out in Black Butte. The two of them told me I was in for a long cold ride on my way to K-falls, eugene and portland. So at this point I had enought and decided I'd get off in K-falls. So I got off and with some good help from IBRR and Wider they told me about a good IM catchout spot. I spent the night in K-falls waking up with 1/2 inch of ice on my sleeping bag. It got down to about 15 degrees that night and I wasnt geared for that cold so I decided I was gonna head back after hitting town to get my Spange on and get a few space bags. We headed back for the Catch out and waited a few hours where a UPS piggy back rolled through. Normally I wouldnt have ridden piggy back in this cold of weather but k-falls was supposed to be getting freezing rain in the next few hours and I wanted to outrun that. I got on with all intent of getting off in Roseville. Well it started good we hit dunsmir did a cc, and kept moving. When I knew we were getting close to Roseville I rolled up my bag and packed up. We didnt even stop in Roseville, we didnt stop in Sacramento and we ended up in Stockton at about 10pm. All in all I went hundreds of miles without even getting anywhere close to where I was trying to get in Oakland. I guess thats what happens sometimes. Well all I can say is thanks for the help from IBRR and Wider and hopefully I have some luck hitching outta here today. I need to take a few days off from riding trains.
