sevedemanos
Well-known member
Austin Tx, new years eveRoad some bnsf coal south out of denver. Thinking it'd get me to trinidad or amarillo.. When I woke the next morning we were in pueblo and went slinkin through it straight south to the refinery. I didn't even know what'd happened until I realized we were circling back almost in the other direction and stood up and saw it, the refinery just a mile down where the line ended. We were spiraling in on it. Way out there in the praries, pueblo co maybe 5 maybe 10 miles to the north.
Getting out again wasn't so bad. Took work and a bit of luck, but it's an alright little town. Like Witchita Falls. Not all unfriendly. Amarillo though, that was different. Amarillo was some of the most run down garbage for it's size I ever had the pleasure of leaving.
Yd was 100% visibility and nowhere to hide at all as for as the daytime went. But that's when you know lingerin around anyplace or walkin around it all too frequent is going to be as likely attracting attention from the locals as being seen on property itself, so as soon as I found an entrypoint I saw a geo eastbound ds pull in on the main and I thought 'well, better not hang around... here goes nothing... cross my heart, hail mary... hope I don't die!' I hadn't been there a full day but was so anxious to get out of there, purely out of revulsion, that I'd have taken my chances blindfolded. And I guess I may as well been, cause there was no way nobody saw me walkin on up to that thing through the lot. I think it might've been a sunday.. but I ran up and down that thing twice. First the back half, then the front.. and all I could find was suicide wells. There wasn't shit else. 'Well.. cross my heart, hope to die then. Fuck it.'
So I gingerly tucked my groceries and my case of beer up underneath inside the track, threw my bags over and dove in. Catching a brief glimpse of the bull or somebody in a big white truck pulling through a few strings over, as I dropped down into the well. I thought maybe they'd seen me and I got scared as hell for a little while. Expecting them to work their way back around my way. They didn't. But we didn't get moving again until the sky started dying on me and my beers down to just three.
Alright, fort worth. Here I come, fort worth. Gonna make it to austin by christmas, fort worth!
Fun fact. Amarillo's all bnsf trackage and they will take you five different directions. Northwest to denver, northeast to tulsa and kansas, east to dfw, south to lubbock, slaton, brownwood and temple.. And southwest to clovis and albuquerque.. new mexico. Not so fun fact: discerning between eastbound, southbound, and southwestbound trains might be a little difficult. And the south track doesn't even wye off to the west until you're well down it.
Six hours later I was somewhere out by the new mexico border, barrelling through the pitch darkness and freezing rain.. and barreling straight through clovis. Ffffffffffffffff. That means another six hours.
Standing up. Afraid I might fall asleep or else loosen my grip long enough for a jolt to throw me off the by then iced-over crossbeams.. I felt lucky I'd at least brains enough to be geared up for the winter weather, insulated coveralls and face mask etc the way I had, or I'd have had no choice but pull out the bivy and strap myself and all my gear to the rigging up on the porch.
Was soaked to the bones like an old scarecrow when we reached belen, finally, 8 or 10 hours later. But I was so glad to get off that thing I didn't even care anymore. I was so glad to be in belen I didn't even care it was the wrong direction. I was so glad to see lights that weren't headlights or highway billboards I didn't care anymore.
There was so much ice layered over the rocks, walking up the length of that thing for the second time.. trying not to break an ankle after all that anyhow was like pulling teeth. So tired. So, so damn tired.
Ft. Worth I didn't spend more than 10 hours either. It wasn't as desolate as amarillo or dark as clovis though. I walked through most of it in the early morning then got bored and wandered south of downtown to hit the coal again. It was weirdly empty, downtown and south of it. Ghostly. A lot of gutted shops and pavement that didn't look hardly driveable anymore. Even the bum I encountered under the bridge at the hopout north of the abandoned plant, rider paraphanilia and discarded junk everywhere, was weirdly despondent. He'd showed up a little after to smoke something.. and he was still standing there staring off into space an hour later when my southbound came through.
On the way down it was mostly just a lot of pasture land and a country route running right along. Sun still out, clear skies and thunderheads towering up to the east, setting up to rip ass on all ten country cunts and cows out there somewhere.
As soon as I sit up to snap some pictures of all this, there's another train holed up on the oncoming siding and before ducking down I see them standing out next to the head counting cars and I looked at the engineer and the engineer looked at me... Oh, shit. Somebody must've called me in, a passing car on the highway maybe.
I pulled out the scanner and dialed in the rail channels.. chatter.. noise.. chatter.. stop.. go back.. what's that.. there it is. They were saying they spotted me and askin my crew to pull into the next siding and they'd have em waiting for me. Ohh, shit. Oh, shit.
I throw all my things together and zip up. Kick the coal around a little bit and dig in a little deeper and huddle down against the corner. For what. For coal? You're tellin me you're gonna arrest me for riding your fuckin coal..
Ten minutes and we're stopped. A couple of doors slam fifty feet off somewhere and I can hear a couple of them talking and walking the ballast. I hear their radio. Somebody climbs up the ladder of some car nearby.. nothing.. climbs back down..
ballast.. rungs on the car directly ahead of mine.. they get to the top.. quiet.. I hold my breath.
The only thing I can hear is the little plastic bag full of food, deep in the corner of the container, moving slightly in the breeze. Somebody might as well have been ripping open a bag of chips for how loud it was to me and I thought that was it. But it was really windy, and for how I dug myself down against the wall, they might not've seen or heard anything. I'll never know for sure.. But I almost feel like maybe they were just feeling generous that day.. cause they just climbed on back down without a word and were gone.
Maybe they checked the next container, but they didn't stay long because the train kicked forward again right away.
Mixed feelings. Bewildered.. stupified.. Didn't know what to think. But that I made damn sure and stay the fuck down the rest of the way.
