I've been trying to write a decent story about my first train riding trip but it's been hard. Mostly because my head is cloudy and whenever I start writing about the whole thing, it makes me miss it all and I get enveloped in thoughts of being out there instead of in here.
Anyway, here are some of the first few parts that I wrote. This chronicles getting to Colton and catching my first train ever, so bear with me if you find yourself reading this and sighing or groaning or saying things like, "jesus, what a noob!"
----------------------------
colton.
There I was, under a gray bridge lined with tags, trash, and the tears shared by a recessed nation. The morning air was cool and sent nervous chills down my spine as I sat alone on a piece of furniture forgotten by time. As a Union Pacific work truck drove past me without a second glance (as if I didn’t exist anymore) I thought to myself: “this is it; everything is about to change.”
I tried keeping the morning normal, as if it were just a new day at school: eating breakfast, showering, using all those typical amenities that upper middle class living provides. But nothing could prepare me, your typical upper middle class offspring (who had rarely seen adventure), for this trip that was about to kick my doors of perception off of their rusted, twenty-one year old hinges.
waiting.
Matt Pist, in his travel journal, said that 90% of train riding is waiting. I thought about this a lot that day in Colton: waiting for everyone to arrive, waiting for people to get their things together, waiting for our train to come. “Matt’s wrong,” I thought to myself while lying down in the cool San Bernardino county gravel, looking into the yard – waiting, of course, for the northbound train. “100% of train riding is waiting.” I was with the illustrious NickCofphee - who I had gone to Slab City with just the week before - his brother, Tad, and his friend, Joe. It was past midnight, and our train had yet to make an appearance, as if it were an unconscious rock star lying half-alive on a sofa backstage somewhere, and we were eager, restless fans wondering what was going on. There was nothing fashionable about the lateness, though, and after a while, the anxiety dissolved into something kind of like boredom, though I wouldn’t quite call it that because it’s impossible to be bored when something new is on the verge of happening.
From time to time, trains would taunt us with those optimistic whistles that cut through the subconscious like hot knives through even hotter butter, but every time, they would turn away from us and speed off in a different direction. More waiting. I looked into the twinkling lights of nearby buildings and the I-10 freeway and the world I remembered growing up in suddenly felt very foreign, as if I were watching a Discovery Channel special about some exotic land many miles away. I started thinking about the past few months: my friends, strewn out across the nation. My mother, alone in a bed of sadness. My father, in the bed of his new life. I thought about ex-girlfriends and girlfriends to come. Lastly, I thought about the old me, who never would have done any of this…
Then finally, at 2 or 3 AM, it happened. Three Union Pacific units crawled out of the yard. I stood next to Nick, who seemed to be willing the train toward us with a concrete stare. We had been let down just an hour earlier, so we were apprehensive as the train continued toward the switch that sent them westbound to LA. Would we be let down again, or was this our ride?
get on!
The early morning had suddenly gone from slow to lightning fast all at once. “This is it, this is our train!” Nick yelled out as he hoisted his pack over his shoulders. The rest of us were quick to do the same. Everything had suddenly become very real. My blood was pumping, my breath was pounding, and my nerves were rattling like the ball inside a can of spray paint, while my mind was a sandstorm of paranoia as I strapped on my pack. What if we didn’t all make it on? What if we get caught? What if I get hurt? What if I fucking die! Then, a letter my friend had sent me the night before popped into my head: he asked me if I was making the right choice with my life, if I was just trying to escape reality because I couldn’t deal with it as well as he had (just weeks earlier, he received his B.A. from the University of San Diego after years of hard scholastic work). His words burned into my memory and for a split second, the question felt more poignant than anything else in the world. Was I making the right decision? I took another quick look of my homeland, and everything became silent. I had run out of time for the twisted, entropic mess that was my thought process. It was time to go.
The silence quickly transformed into an Earth-shaking rush of white noise, then disintegrated into a mechanical roar. What happened next is fuzzy, the way that memories from dreams sometimes are: we all stood up and took what felt like (to me at least) a collective breath. And as I stood in some form of shell shock, the words: “this one, get on!” rippled through the air like a gunshot on a quiet summer night, and I found myself running alongside the outer wall of a gondola. In one instant, I was at the top of the ladder, looking down at bundles of rebar. Before I dropped into its belly, I froze, stealing one final glance at everything I knew, or thought I knew. Then I looked at Joe, who was climbing into the gondola behind me, and after seconds that felt like drunken minutes, I disappeared into the darkness lined with question marks that is freight train riding.
finally.
“I’ve done it!” I thought as I watched the massive clumps of rebar in front of me quiver. But just as soon as I finished my micro-celebration, the train slowed down. I peered over the back panel and saw Joe. We both had those, “what should we do?” looks on our faces, and as the train came to a stop, Joe suggested we find an empty gondola. I didn’t hesitate to agree – the thought of the rebar shifting mid-ride was terrifying.
We jumped out onto the gravel and walked as clandestinely as possible down the string, looking for anything else that was rideable and not full. I could see the catch-out spot just beyond the end of the train and it made me a bit angry. We could have just waited for it to stop, walked over, and casually got on, I thought to myself as dogs barked and the freeway hummed. But what fun would that have been?
Suddenly, a hissing noise shot out from the train, a sound that I thought I recognized but wasn’t sure. Joe hurried his walk into a jog, then into a run, and I was quick to follow. Was the train about to take off?
We found a gondola that was empty and jumped in. But just seconds later, Joe’s cell phone rang. It was Nick. “He said there’s an empty boxcar. They’re a few cars back,” Joe explained. And just like that, we were outside again, running down the string. I looked over at the rows of houses and already felt entirely different. As society slept, I was trying to find a good freight car to ride.
Nick and Tad were standing in front of a boxcar when we arrived, seemingly relaxed. The train - we soon realized - wasn’t about to leave. The sound was either a hissing hose or our minds playing some kind of cruel trick on us. I took a series of deep breaths while everyone decided what to do next. The decision was unanimous: hop in the boxcar. Nick spiked the door, we all climbed in, and finally: off we went.
Once we passed the rows of houses and streets and businesses that make up San Bernardino, we sat out in the open doorway. I grabbed my bottle of Ancient Age and passed it around, watching my homeland pass by in front of me. It was a beautiful, communal experience. A close friend of mine said it best: boxcars are like big screen TV’s, and he was right. We passed the 215 freeway, the FedEx shipping plant, the Hyundai Pavilion, and then slipped into the Cajon Pass. I went through the Cajon Pass at least ten times a month (it linked my mother and father's respective residences), but I had never seen it before from this angle. I saw all the places that stood out in my memory: the veiled creek I’d sit at alone on the days I cut class, the concrete blocks where I’d watch trains go by, the spot I explored with Megan (an ex-girlfriend) once to just get away from everything. All at once, every emotion inside of me wanted to pour out onto the ground like jelly.
“Thank you,” I said to Max as we watched a BNSF double stack snake its way through the parallel tracks. I could have died right there, I remember thinking, and felt good about myself.
By the time we passed the Shell station at the corner of the I-15 and Highway 138, the whisky had coaxed its sweet hands around all of us. Tiredness, which had been so elusive in Colton, finally caught up. I fell asleep that night as the train rocketed through the High Desert, the part of Southern California that eventually led me to train riding. “Goodbye,” my last thought was before shutting my eyes.
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I have more of this. It all documents my trip up to Seattle and back. It's fairly long right now (about ten pages in Word), but I'll post the rest in here if you all want to read it
Anyway, here are some of the first few parts that I wrote. This chronicles getting to Colton and catching my first train ever, so bear with me if you find yourself reading this and sighing or groaning or saying things like, "jesus, what a noob!"
----------------------------
colton.
There I was, under a gray bridge lined with tags, trash, and the tears shared by a recessed nation. The morning air was cool and sent nervous chills down my spine as I sat alone on a piece of furniture forgotten by time. As a Union Pacific work truck drove past me without a second glance (as if I didn’t exist anymore) I thought to myself: “this is it; everything is about to change.”
I tried keeping the morning normal, as if it were just a new day at school: eating breakfast, showering, using all those typical amenities that upper middle class living provides. But nothing could prepare me, your typical upper middle class offspring (who had rarely seen adventure), for this trip that was about to kick my doors of perception off of their rusted, twenty-one year old hinges.
waiting.
Matt Pist, in his travel journal, said that 90% of train riding is waiting. I thought about this a lot that day in Colton: waiting for everyone to arrive, waiting for people to get their things together, waiting for our train to come. “Matt’s wrong,” I thought to myself while lying down in the cool San Bernardino county gravel, looking into the yard – waiting, of course, for the northbound train. “100% of train riding is waiting.” I was with the illustrious NickCofphee - who I had gone to Slab City with just the week before - his brother, Tad, and his friend, Joe. It was past midnight, and our train had yet to make an appearance, as if it were an unconscious rock star lying half-alive on a sofa backstage somewhere, and we were eager, restless fans wondering what was going on. There was nothing fashionable about the lateness, though, and after a while, the anxiety dissolved into something kind of like boredom, though I wouldn’t quite call it that because it’s impossible to be bored when something new is on the verge of happening.
From time to time, trains would taunt us with those optimistic whistles that cut through the subconscious like hot knives through even hotter butter, but every time, they would turn away from us and speed off in a different direction. More waiting. I looked into the twinkling lights of nearby buildings and the I-10 freeway and the world I remembered growing up in suddenly felt very foreign, as if I were watching a Discovery Channel special about some exotic land many miles away. I started thinking about the past few months: my friends, strewn out across the nation. My mother, alone in a bed of sadness. My father, in the bed of his new life. I thought about ex-girlfriends and girlfriends to come. Lastly, I thought about the old me, who never would have done any of this…
Then finally, at 2 or 3 AM, it happened. Three Union Pacific units crawled out of the yard. I stood next to Nick, who seemed to be willing the train toward us with a concrete stare. We had been let down just an hour earlier, so we were apprehensive as the train continued toward the switch that sent them westbound to LA. Would we be let down again, or was this our ride?
get on!
The early morning had suddenly gone from slow to lightning fast all at once. “This is it, this is our train!” Nick yelled out as he hoisted his pack over his shoulders. The rest of us were quick to do the same. Everything had suddenly become very real. My blood was pumping, my breath was pounding, and my nerves were rattling like the ball inside a can of spray paint, while my mind was a sandstorm of paranoia as I strapped on my pack. What if we didn’t all make it on? What if we get caught? What if I get hurt? What if I fucking die! Then, a letter my friend had sent me the night before popped into my head: he asked me if I was making the right choice with my life, if I was just trying to escape reality because I couldn’t deal with it as well as he had (just weeks earlier, he received his B.A. from the University of San Diego after years of hard scholastic work). His words burned into my memory and for a split second, the question felt more poignant than anything else in the world. Was I making the right decision? I took another quick look of my homeland, and everything became silent. I had run out of time for the twisted, entropic mess that was my thought process. It was time to go.
The silence quickly transformed into an Earth-shaking rush of white noise, then disintegrated into a mechanical roar. What happened next is fuzzy, the way that memories from dreams sometimes are: we all stood up and took what felt like (to me at least) a collective breath. And as I stood in some form of shell shock, the words: “this one, get on!” rippled through the air like a gunshot on a quiet summer night, and I found myself running alongside the outer wall of a gondola. In one instant, I was at the top of the ladder, looking down at bundles of rebar. Before I dropped into its belly, I froze, stealing one final glance at everything I knew, or thought I knew. Then I looked at Joe, who was climbing into the gondola behind me, and after seconds that felt like drunken minutes, I disappeared into the darkness lined with question marks that is freight train riding.
finally.
“I’ve done it!” I thought as I watched the massive clumps of rebar in front of me quiver. But just as soon as I finished my micro-celebration, the train slowed down. I peered over the back panel and saw Joe. We both had those, “what should we do?” looks on our faces, and as the train came to a stop, Joe suggested we find an empty gondola. I didn’t hesitate to agree – the thought of the rebar shifting mid-ride was terrifying.
We jumped out onto the gravel and walked as clandestinely as possible down the string, looking for anything else that was rideable and not full. I could see the catch-out spot just beyond the end of the train and it made me a bit angry. We could have just waited for it to stop, walked over, and casually got on, I thought to myself as dogs barked and the freeway hummed. But what fun would that have been?
Suddenly, a hissing noise shot out from the train, a sound that I thought I recognized but wasn’t sure. Joe hurried his walk into a jog, then into a run, and I was quick to follow. Was the train about to take off?
We found a gondola that was empty and jumped in. But just seconds later, Joe’s cell phone rang. It was Nick. “He said there’s an empty boxcar. They’re a few cars back,” Joe explained. And just like that, we were outside again, running down the string. I looked over at the rows of houses and already felt entirely different. As society slept, I was trying to find a good freight car to ride.
Nick and Tad were standing in front of a boxcar when we arrived, seemingly relaxed. The train - we soon realized - wasn’t about to leave. The sound was either a hissing hose or our minds playing some kind of cruel trick on us. I took a series of deep breaths while everyone decided what to do next. The decision was unanimous: hop in the boxcar. Nick spiked the door, we all climbed in, and finally: off we went.
Once we passed the rows of houses and streets and businesses that make up San Bernardino, we sat out in the open doorway. I grabbed my bottle of Ancient Age and passed it around, watching my homeland pass by in front of me. It was a beautiful, communal experience. A close friend of mine said it best: boxcars are like big screen TV’s, and he was right. We passed the 215 freeway, the FedEx shipping plant, the Hyundai Pavilion, and then slipped into the Cajon Pass. I went through the Cajon Pass at least ten times a month (it linked my mother and father's respective residences), but I had never seen it before from this angle. I saw all the places that stood out in my memory: the veiled creek I’d sit at alone on the days I cut class, the concrete blocks where I’d watch trains go by, the spot I explored with Megan (an ex-girlfriend) once to just get away from everything. All at once, every emotion inside of me wanted to pour out onto the ground like jelly.
“Thank you,” I said to Max as we watched a BNSF double stack snake its way through the parallel tracks. I could have died right there, I remember thinking, and felt good about myself.
By the time we passed the Shell station at the corner of the I-15 and Highway 138, the whisky had coaxed its sweet hands around all of us. Tiredness, which had been so elusive in Colton, finally caught up. I fell asleep that night as the train rocketed through the High Desert, the part of Southern California that eventually led me to train riding. “Goodbye,” my last thought was before shutting my eyes.
----------------------------------
I have more of this. It all documents my trip up to Seattle and back. It's fairly long right now (about ten pages in Word), but I'll post the rest in here if you all want to read it
