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Monthly Archives: July 2010
Rail cars that hoboes ride.
“BOXCARS” Boxcars are my favorite rides on freight trains. Boxcars haul almost anything and everything. From frozen orange juice to bagged concrete; the boxcar hauls it all. Me, inside the doorway of my boxcar when the outside temperature was 10 … Continue reading
Railroad defect detectors and signaling systems.
Automatic Block Signaling…(ABS) The basic concept of ABS is that the track is divided into Blocks; sections that are protected by Block Signals. A block is the section of line between two consecutive block signals. Trains operate by a track warrant … Continue reading
Wyoming boxcar ride with the delirium tremens.
It was the summer of 1998, and I was at my peak of alcohol consumption. I had ridden into the town of Keokuk, Iowa from Chicago on an empty boxcar. Right away, I found a day labor job tearing shingles from the roof … Continue reading
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My Maine freight train ride took me to Nova Scotia, Greenland and Iceland.
I had just hopped a freight train to Bangor, Maine, from the Framingham Conrail Railroad yards near Boston, Massachusetts. I was tired, thirsty and hungry! I bailed off my boxcar and walked to the fisherman’s docks along the Penobscot River. I started … Continue reading
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Deported from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Barrow, Alaska.
Barrow, Alaska airport I flew to & from. I had just been deported my second time from Newfoundland, Canada. I flew to Barrow with only the clothes on my back, a small backpack and no place to live. After getting off the plane … Continue reading
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Newfoundland, the smaller Alaska.
Newfoundland is located in Canada’s Maritime. It’s such a beautiful place! Newfoundland has the look and feel much like Alaska does. The island is roughly 600 miles long from east to west and perhaps 350 miles long from north to south at its longest … Continue reading
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My train ride into the Appalacian winter storm!
This is a “Marc” public transit train. I rode from King Street to downtown Washington DC. Also to get out to where the CSX yards are. I just got out of jail in Thomasville, Georgia where I had spent 16 days … Continue reading
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Grand Trunk Railway employees are good track people.
Grand Trunk Railroad locomotive Heading up to Chicago on this winter day was a frigid one indeed! I had hopped a freight train out of the Swift Yards in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, on the Union Pacific Railroad and was now heading … Continue reading
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Tagged hobo shoestring, hoboes, hoboing, hopping freight trains, riding freight trains
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After winning in Las Vegas, I lost big time on the tracks!
This is a Union Pacific coal train passing through Las Vegas, Nevada. I had been hopping freight trains in Southern California for about two weeks until I had gotten tired of the same old things, and I chose then to ride up … Continue reading
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Narcotics and freight trains, what went wrong?
CN train crew change at Sudbury, Ontario. I have now been sober since December 2nd of 2006. For nearly 17 years while hopping freight trains, I was drinking right at about 45 to 50 cans of beer a day, every … Continue reading
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