my first train ride went like this...

[smellsea]

okay so this isn't my first ride but this is kinda fucked up, hah. i was in new castle, pa and we're walkin along trying to find a good hop out spot to chicago, well we can't really see the yard to well cause the brush is too thick and it's day time so we're on the road next to the yards service road... well we hit the csx mail box and realize we walked too far and sit down for a minute, it was september and it was pretty fucking hot. few days prior in cumberland it was over 100 degress. well the sun goes down and a train shows up so our dumb asses run the fuck down the main entrance to the yard make a sharp right turn and run behind a fence and a hole bunch of brush, at this point it seemed alot better then what we thought it was going to be like. there is 4 of us and we see two piggy backs, about 8 cars apart from eachother, so the two guys go to the furthur one and my friend and i take the closer one. well we're on it for about 3 or 4 minutes and it had just got there so i figured we had a minute or two... the two guys both have cells phones, we don't have one so i say okay just hold my pack and my dog, i'm gonna go run to get one of their phones, and don't you know i make it about 4 cars back and the whistle starts to blow. so i say to myself, shit, and it starts rolling. what is in front of me is single stacks on flat cars, it doesn't have a porch, but it has a grate. kinda looked like how it would be to ride the garbage train. so one goes by and i get nervous and i catch the back of the next one, no way in hell am i doing this shit dirty-faced. i'm like aw man, this fucking sucks, the sun went down of corse it got chilly. haha, every time we switched tracks i bounced a half a foot off the grate. i held on real tight, so after about 2-3 hours we start commin to a stop and there's a big bridge and i just figure we're commin up on cleveland, so i run my ass as fast as i can back to my best friend and my dog, and they calm down and we have a good laugh for a minute, and we start rolling, we fall asleep. we wake up in an IM port. fuck! i look around like this can't be fucking chicago, so we're commin up on the claw and we jump off and make a run for it, hiding behind whatever we can and, shit, fucker! she spots us! here comes the bull, so we run and duck behind a bunch of trailers and she goes right past us, and i see a trucker rolling threw the yard, we run up and start waving at him, he stops, opens the door. i say oh man! you gotta get us outta here, he says okay, i'm goin to pittsburg and i say yeah, sure whatever just get us outta the yard, so we climb in and he informs us we're in chambersburg. poop, that sucks, that bridge that i thought was cleveland was back threw pittsburg, just looked different cause it was at night. well next thing you know the bull practically t bones his truck! she jumps out, tells him she is lucky she isnt getting him in trouble and tells him to move on. we get out of his truck and she tells us to get in the back of her pick up. so she drives us up to the office, and says "wait right here, i'm calling the police" and she walks her porky ass into the office. well my friend and i start talking with a conductor thats hanging around the office, about riding and small talk you know. and he says " you know what? if i was you girls, i would run!" well luckily the office was right at the exit, so it was like she drove us to where we needed to be. we took off running! haha, went and hid inside of a subway, had lunch, used the phone to get in touch with the two guys we were with. it didnt turn out so bad, we convinced some one to drive us back to philly, and started over! hah.

 

[Mongo]

"wait right here, i'm calling the police" .

Hah, whenever someone says that, it's always the cue to run. I've had a couple of instances like that.

"I'm calling the police!"
"and I'm going to run!"

 

[RockerBilly]

Hah, whenever someone says that, it's always the cue to run. I've had a couple of instances like that.

"I'm calling the police!"
"and I'm going to run!"

Fuck yes! I love it when that happens. lol like they think they're gonna scare the shit out of you that you wouldn't dare run away. Great story

 

[mikefwt]

my first ride was NS 352, a turn from greensboro to raleigh, nc - about 80 miles. it was january of '10 and it was me and three others. they all knew what they were doing and i had not a clue to even the type of car we were riding. i was def a greenhorn and would not have been there if i didnt know these three personally. i was so excited that i was finally on a moving train even though we had not left the yard and were still doubling back picking up strings. when we started moving, i knew that it was something i wanted to continue doing. that thing was a junker and a half and we rode that gondola about 2 hours all the way to durham where we dropped about 3/4 of the train and then we all switched to an open boxcar (the only boxcar i would ride until riding on the west coast 2 years later). when we got to raleigh we walked to a nearby gas station and bought some beers and waited for our friend to come pick us up in her truck. we were filthy but i wore that train grease with pride. we went back to a not so secret tree house and drank our hearts out and sobered up with dumpster bagels. ive never slept better in my entire life.

 

[Oddman]

My first ride earns about as few punk points as possible, if we're measuring those.

I was a college student at the time. (That right there takes off about 90% of any possible points I could earn.) A UP shortline runs right through the middle of campus, and the Iowa Interstate (IAIS) intersects it at a diamond further south, in town. I started out just watching the trains and not knowing why they made me wistful; later on I realized they could be hopped, and like a true college student I compiled lots and lots of schedules and mental maps and information on both the lines while not doing much of anything in real life. I didn't have much free time because of homework and other stuff, so I was always just waiting for the perfect weekend when I could accidentally strand myself but still not miss any classes or commitments.

I had about three of those perfect weekends, and I screwed all of them up. The first time I had a friend with me; at 03:00 I drove us to the yard and we actually managed to get on a train. It didn't move until after sunrise. Then it jerked into action and we turned to each other and we were like, "Well, I guess we're really doing it." And then it stopped, backed up to where it'd been, and kept going back and forth for like an hour. Then we crossed a road and I saw a white pickup there, and I'd read that those are bulls' preferred trucks, and if we saw it then it could see us, so my friend and I decided that if the train didn't highball the next time forward, we were going to bail. And we did. Failure number one. (Although on that trip we did find some permanent marker graffiti, barely readable, from when I was a baby. The same hobo had ridden this car several times all up through my toddler years.)

Another time I went with a different friend and once we started getting to the spotlights of the yard he got really antsy about being seen, so we called it off. The other failures were just me getting there too late. Once I saw the FRED right there a hundred yards in front of me in the dark, but I couldn't seem to get any closer to it, and then I figured out that the train was actually silently leaving the yard at walking speed, but by then it had sped up and I couldn't catch it. Heartbreaking.

But I did finally succeed. I was on campus during a break. I was so afraid of anything unexpected that I even talked a friend into agreeing to pick me up if I got stranded. But nonetheless I got out there.

I drove to the yard in the neighboring town in the total darkness and isolation of 3:30 in the morning. All the glowing road signs brought ghosts to mind at this time of night. By 4:00 I was at the yard, which isn't actually in town but on the outskirts, next to a sad trailer park. I parked next to the trailer park office and crossed the town's desolate ring road to get to the yard. But I stopped cold. There was a white car—not a white pickup truck, but fucking close enough—parked on the gravel in the angle between the tracks and the road, next to a signal box, with the train's FRED just beyond it. I stood there for a good few minutes like a raccoon who's been spotted, then noticed that no one had come out of the car authoritatively with a big-ass flashlight saying, "Alright, boy, what are you doing here?". Moving around, I was able get where I could see the FRED shining through the inside of the car, and it turned out there was no one inside it at all. Problem solved. I hustled up to the train.

This being the Iowa Interstate, I didn't have much trouble finding a grainer I could use. No porch, disappointingly, but it was roomy and I was more than capable of craning my head out the cubbyhole. So I sat in a puddle of adrenaline, accompanied by some old dusty cardboard from a hobo long past, and waited. In just a few minutes my car aired up and then, without any preamble, the whole train up and left the yard, sparing me any of that back and forth nonsense that I'd dealt with the last time I was on it. No changing my mind now: I was outbound. The sun was only just rising.

I was giddy. I watched everything passing by me and I was thrilled by how real it all was, no chain restaurants or prefab houses, just farm after farm, and trees, and I could smell it all because there were no windows and I was right there in the middle of it. I decided immediately that this was the right way to see the country. When I went past cows, I couldn't contain myself and went "MwwooOOOOO" to them, even though I'm sure they couldn't hear me over the train. I ducked my head in and out of the cubbyhole, and eventually went through my college's town, and on.

Now I prepared myself for the trickiest stage of the whole operation, getting off this train in the next yard, which is right in the middle of a town and has lots of bridges over it and houses around it, so I could switch to the train going back to where I came from. But before I could worry about it much, my train slowed down on a doubletrack and another train appeared coming the other direction. Both of them stopped. I was in a tiny town that probably had no traffic light. I got off and walked on the ballast between the trains to look for a grainer on my new train. None were in evidence. Then my new train started moving. At first this worried me, but then I realized the train was just doing the work for me, so I didn't have to walk it. And just as I'd hoped, a grainer came by me while the train was still going at a slow walk, and I executed my first hop on the fly.

The countryside rewound, but I was still full of the same feeling. This time it was lighter out and I could see more. I started looking forward to when this wouldn't be just practice and I could start seeing new places instead of the same place twice in a day. When I got back to the original town, the train stopped a few hundred yards short of the switchyard itself, next to a house with a playground in the yard and a farm next door, and I climbed up to the top of the grainer and looked out. I felt invincible—not like the king of the world, maybe, but like the king of myself.

Finally it went through the yard and stopped. I got off and avoided walking right past the cab by bushwacking through sharp leaves and pricker bushes to get to a soaked cornfield. I got back in the car feeling accomplished, but as I went past the front end of the stopped train, I wished I could keep on going with it.

Sadly that's also the last ride I've done. Not too long after that, college started again, and then I finished and went to a country where there basically are no freight trains. I can't wait to get back to the US, though. I'll be traveling long and hard, everywhere, and it'll be the time of my life.

 

[chaosfactorxx]

My first ride was on a junk riding south out of Philly. I'd been on the road for about a week I think, and it was freezing cause my dumb ass left in February after a horrible winter. Luckily my roaddog had been doing this for a while, so we found the hop out along with a kid we'd met the night before and waited for a few days before our train came through. We finally watched it stop and scrambled to pack our shit. Now, let me tell you, from far away, it looked like the ladder reached pretty low to the ground, which I thought was awesome cause I'm a lazy fuck with no upper body strength. I heard the hiss of the breaks as we ran up to it and it started moving. Holy fuck, i thought i was going to die. Now, my roaddog was already on the ladder, but he wouldn't move onto the porch cause he was still calling the train in...like i was going to get on and then off it if it was the wrong one? So i went for the ladder on the car behind it. Took me like 5 minutes to get on the goddamn ladder. And then, i notice that this car doesn't have a porch! Fuck me. And on top of it all, I'm holding my friend's cat in it's carrying bag. Anthony had finally gotten on the porch and so had Kai. I handed them my shit and the cat and hopped the knuckle, not knowing that it was retarded to do. But the grainer I ended up being on was a Cadillac grainer so we rode all the way to just outside Richmond in comfort. And that's the story of my first train.

 

[Mei]

My first time getting on a train (not really riding it anywhere), I was with my super oogley ex boyfriend who kept telling me "oh I've been riding the rails since I was 14 I know what I'm doing"....nothing could have been further from the truth. So we end up waiting in the yard for daaaays because this one kid kept getting really drunk and passing out right before trains would stop. Finally one stops while we're all lucid enough to get on it and we get on one of the units. We get situated and moments later the train starts moving...backwards. It goes backwards into the yard and starts building for 3 hours before finally going the direction we wanted it to go. It then stops exactly where it did when we got on, stays there for a minute, and then started going backwards again. At this point, we bailed, and it being my first time hopping off on the fly, I ate shit.

 

[wokofshame]

On about my 5th ride ever i made the mistake of hopping out of Newcastle PA on the B&P shortline, ending up in Butler, PA.
On my 6th "ride" I tried to get out of Butler and hopped on the 4th unit (this was January in PA and it was drenching freezing rain). little did I know this was the AK Steel Job which proceeded to back up into the steel mill thru the gates and switch for the next few hours while I hid in the hold (an old-school unit with no stairwell bathroom).
The hogger came in a few time to fuck with shit and I could smell him thru the steel trap door, he smelled line nastily strong microwave popcorn in a really bad way.
Finally I worked up the nerve to get out and ran up to the road while he watched, walked to the guard booth at the gates of mill property, where a bunch of security guards, one my age with a huge cold sore on his lip, proceeded to hassle me because they couldn't figure out what I was doing on steel mill property.
A nice lady bought me a 98$ room at the Holiday Inn, and I hitched out of PA (fuck PA) the next day. We all start out making dumb mistakes.

 

[wizehop]

We all start out making dumb mistakes.

Dumb train hopping mistakes are all great in hindsight. I miss all mine...well most of them.

 

[DregeDE]

My first train ride was with another noob outta north central Florida; TomFool we met in Philly, we had no idea what we were doing 'cept what some crusties told us about trains and what I learned about it here on what I refer to as the OLD STP. We missed the first juicer for some reason, think we got to damn drunk and fell asleep or something. second (or maybe third night) we got the whitesnake, Riding like retards dirty faced front of a container/well car end deck, we tried as best as we could to stuff our shit and our selves under the steel grate and be out of sight. We celebrated with a bottle of yuppie wine and the sunrise then slept the better part of the way through maryland - I remember waking up in what I now surmise as having been the camera riddled Baltimore, or maybe the capitol corridor. The operator woke us in Richmond, VA sometime around early afternoon, told us to get lost, someone had seen us and the free ride was over. No bulls no bullshit - just get the fuck off HIS train. We had a drunken bonfire night on Bell Island next to downtown Richmond, FUCK PHILLY!!! place is a shithole.
Only mistake was not riding a reefer deck, but then again woulda been alot more exposed and would have probably not made it through Maryland without seeing cuffs . . . .

 

[NoahScape]

I guess I was just always fascinated with the idea of hopping trains. I was homeless in Omaha getting drunk under a bridge and I saw a train go by real slow. So I got on. The train sped up and went through the spot I was going to hop off at, but stopped just on the other side of state lines so I got off there and started walking back into Omaha.

 

[Doc Road]

Catching-out of Oakland, I told myself, today,today, today the first fucking train, I'm out TODAY! I was somewhere between my ex's place and the spot that on Google earth, looked perfect to catch out of (one mile or so north of the Oakland yard), when I was rethinking every thing. Then I heard the whistle blow (just like Johnny Cash) two blocks from the tracks, I started runing, but stopped, my feet were done, blisted and taped up from toting all my gear, all around Oakland it seemed like.

The previous week had been spent researching (all in vain, online), buying gear (70 or so lbs), and rideing my bike in berkly talking to vaggabonds, asking for tips (giving them some too). I had talked to my buddy in Texas, he told me of some online website that had it all, train stops, distinations, times the works (he was full off shit still looking for that dam website). I was heading out too Texas anyways, so I thought, fuck it if its that simple ill hop fright. I never before even fathumed such a way to travel but a good idea is a good idea. So it was on, spent most of my cash buying gear and stocking tons of road food(I regreted every pound).

The day before I cought out was spent hikeing to that park. When I got there my feet were already feeling it(too much gear, I had a shotgun for fuck sake). The spot was nice, right next to the tracks. I just relaxed under the trees, a few random fellows were real frindly and interested in me and what I was doing. Wanted to no where I was sleeping...Thats why I got the fuck back to my girls place that night and consequently shot myself in the foot as they say(the park turned out to be a gay's hook up spot) I had tried hopping a dobble stack that day. I was so fucking jacked, held on with my left arm, like flood water manifested into solid steel, I went with it, running faster now dispite the load on my shoulders and the hartatack I was having. In that instant I imagined huling ass all the way to Denver then to Texas, I had fucking done it! But I let go, chocked! And watched as the whole train went on to who knows whare. Next one, Ill catch the next one shure as shit. But I didnt, left my spot with shame and rediculus pack on my shoulders, Im no fucking hobo. Tomarrow, tommarow Ill catch-out I kept telling myself.

I had spent that last Sunday in Oakland nursing my feet, doing more research online, taking Epsom salt baths, and burning grass. I had the place to myself, girl was in Europe, and had no one to share my failure with. Monday woke early, lifted the hammer of throe on my shoulders, locked up and headed out. Today.....today.....today, I kept drilling it in my skull. I could see the train now that one was mine, I had been limping along for two blocks, hearing the whistle, I wanted it bad. It was going slow, completely empty, deep-well cars, three units no pushers(had no idea what i was looking at the time). Just grabbed a latter pulled myself up hoped down in the well, like a real hobo. That felt awesome! I made sure my pack was safe, this car was the kind with big round holes at the bottom so there's plenty of space between the straight lines of the well walls and the circle holes at the bottom (that are great to do yr business in, the plus of the day before was being able to distinguish these and the kind that don't provide ''safe'' place to park it). Looking out to the west was the bay (great fucking picture taking, nothing quite like the bay) the tracks follow it all the way north towards the hills that encompass the bay area (thanks Google earth I was on the right line). Its cold in the bay and this car started to pick up (empty hot-shot) so I zipped up the hide and put on my bandanna to the main in its place. You can hear the train bank one way or the other before Its the car your on that follows, then the g-force and hold on. That beat all around you (flat spots on the wheels) intensifies with the speed the subsides when the breaks kick-in. Still the funnest ride yet! Took me back to my days riding cross country on my bike. Then the beast gets to the straight a ways out side the hills of the bay, holy shit can they move. Just when you think it ain't ganna go no faster, it gives you a whole other gear, really fucking fly-in no. Sitting on my ass, one arm on an air line, other on to my pack, holding on for dear life, with the deafening sound of wheel on tracks all the way to my bones. I put on Mars Volta, the craziest shit on my iPod (no good death metal too bad), In attempts to cancel out the noise, to no real affect with ear buds. All wile trying not to vibrate of the dame crazy train. This shit is real I thought, then something started deep down, I started banging my head, ya know? Just truly started letting go of anxieties of falling off and worries of where I was heading, that didn't fucking matter anymore. FUCKING A RIGHT, I was borne for this! Like the my first fuck, good high, or wide open throttle, motorcycle ride, I knew I was falling for a new addiction! My cherry was being taken and I loved every moment, (randomly getting up yellingNbanging my head from time to time). Taking in every second, there's only one first time. Closeing my eyes thinking of home, be there soon I thought. Texas bound, happy as a hobo, what a memory. I text my boyz back home, ''ON TRAIN HEADING NORTH HAULING BALLS''. It would slow down too 45mph when it hit small towns, whose names(cant remember) I kept looking out for on road sings, water towers, whatever, to know ware the FUCK I was on my atlas. Then repeat, back to 65-70mph(felt more like 100, Id swear if I wasn't lying). Truly an exaggerated, balls out, behemoth of a roller coaster ride, next time I need some shrooms! Platonic orgasm no doubt...
A big city is up ahead now, breaking out the atlas It can only be one city dah, but whait, whats the next towns, arround Sacramento, gatta be shure to know what direction this fucking beast is powerhousing twards, memorize it. Now im grinding my teeth again, moving slow in the city limmits of Sac. At the yard, dumps air, the monster takes a big break(cruw change fo shure). should I get off? stay on? I dabated in my head, then the beast began to breath, building up air now, it made my mind for me. Fuck it! This was too much fun and the thought of walking was too fucking far. so I chance it in hope that it would go east now (obvious now, empty deep well cars from oakland go north to portland or seattle). Stopping to let another train go by once more than that was it, full throttle north, fuuuuck..... I gatta hitch back now. Didn't let me get off till I was in some hills out side of Redding CA. I dipd out, knowing Redding wasnt that far back.

Looking back at her (the train), as it broke air and began to snake up into the hills, a bitter sweet moment. Miss. Robbinson and I were parting ways, much like my first fuck, I wasn't going all the way home with this one. But like that first time she gave me what I needed, the confidence, the thrill, the experience, baptism of the rails. I was no longer the the same. I wasn't thinking or even walking the way I once did, like I had seen a thing or two... I had changed... Now when I hear the whistle, much like when a confidant women across the room walks towards, eyes locked, knowing what the outcome will be, cowboy up.
I am I rail-rider...

 

[Doc Road]

I've read a couple stories of first train rides from my fellow Squatties. I searched and didn't find where a thread was made where anybody who wanted to share their story could.
Here's your chance. Just to keep it going; if you feel compelled to comment on somebody else's story go ahead, but maybe you can also share your own.

This took to long, enjoy

 

[astr0]

Awesome story Doc

 

[Doc Road]

Awesome story Doc

Thanks man, Its good to share it.

 

[Peanut butter]

after a year or so of homebumming oceanside ca, i took a bus into denver to spend some time with the folks, but after a drunken night was expelled from the house with only a runaway pack. met a mister joe desaster who told me to come to texas and join sdk and the flying thumbs, our first train ride was in a back unit with some dead transexual hookers backpack and weed, also got a nice tarot deck from the deceased, which i lost. someone gave us close to a few hundred packets of salami and they were thrown all around the car, two half gallons into the ride and we basically all pass out, then the door opens and the engineer looks absolutly mortified, considering the condition of the unit he ad a right to be, cops pull us out with guns drawn and take us to the station were we sat for an hour and i got to watch some movie on my dvd player, which was in the prostitues bag, we stayed in springfield for a few days then started hitching getting picked up by some drunk mexican and stealing some tequila from a restaurant

 

[urbanflow]

well, i did weeks worth of reading before i ever even went to the tracks with the idea of catching out. luckily for me i already knew what cars were good for riding and knew that staying low key and safe were of the utmost importance. i always grew up but, a few blocks from the abrams yard. after a bit of google maps research i found a small part of the woods to creep through on the east bound side of the yard.

i got pretty lucky and a train pulled up right in front of me after an hour and some change in a light rain. a beautiful grainer pulled right up in front of me with the engine about 200 yards ahead. it was going pretty slow, probably no more than 2 mph, so i jumped up onto the ladder of the front end of the grainer and stuck my pack in the hole. not a minute later the train stops and starts going backwards into the yard and from what i read you ALWAYS get off when that shit happens. so i jump off with my pack and go straight for my little ditch and get out of the rain.

then it stops again and starts pulling forward real slow. this time i remember to get on the back end of the car to help stay out of sight. so again i throw my pack in the hole and sit down waiting to depart. the train starts to take off. i only meant to go three towns over to my buddies place but, as we all know whenever thats your goal it never happens.

long story short, i ended up going from norristown PA all the way to north east philly just outside the hood. thank god i had a place to stay because the sun had gone down and it was raining still.

not a disaster but, not the best ride in the world.

 

[Hobo Huck]

August 2002 - Bellingham, WA -----> Everret, WA -----> Spokane, WA

Got accepted a job offer in Spokane by a friend that owned a large family farm. Started off hitchhiking, but cops kept running us off the ramps and it had been raining nearly the entire day. I had wasted nearly 4 hours getting absolutely nowhere except chased by cops. One cop was such an asshole that he promised to write me a citation if he caught me one more time. I started heading back to my squat in utter defeat, following a line of railroad tracks that led to a factory. On my walk, I discover a man Red, a young construction that worker that had been riding the rails and working odd-jobs where ever he went. I had some herb, he had a pipe, so we sat down and discussed our travels. I found out that Red was a hobo, the first hobo I had ever met!

I told Red about my disastrous hitchhiking attempt earlier that day, and he told me that he was headed to Everret on the rails, and could tell me how to get to Spokane from there. And even better, Red was leaving tonight! Although I was little nervous about hopping freight, I knew it was better than risk getting searched and harassed by that same cop tomorrow.

That night, me and Red found a train in the outskirts of the yard. It was a dream come true for a tenderfoot like me. No security around, stopped train with a powered unit, and best of all, an open boxcar! It was only a few minutes after hopping on that the air brakes started making all these new and unfamiliar noises, and the train started jerking and chugging alone. I literally had chill bumps, and almost felt like a kid again. It was an overwhelming experience that almost made me high.

In a matter of no time, our train pulled into Everret, and me and Red pulled off as soon it slowed down enough. We met some other hobo's at the local food shelter. We all discovered it had JUST closed, and so decided to throw all our money together for hamburger meat and beer.. We all scraped our change together and had enough money so that each of us could have one hamburger, and 3 beers piece. We built a fire, sat down on 5 gallon buckets, and everyone talked about life on the rails. Stories like "and then I accidentally woke up in the middle of Bailey Yard!"...and "Fuck the FTRA! Those guys aren't even real anymore!!". At that time, I knew very little about what they were talking about, but now I look back on those days and cherish them more than almost any other.

Needless to say, Red hooked me with a BNSF intermodal the next day, and I hit the eastbound to my farm in Spokane. 10 years later, still riding!