You know, a movie could be made out of an idea like that. Two kids in a freight yard, wondering what's in a box car painted "Acme Fountain Pens." The cops come, one gets away and the other one gets caught and goes to reform school. The one who didn't get away eventually becomes a gangster and goes to the electric chair and the one who got away becomes a priest and near the end says to the gang, "Let's all say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could."
Firelock76 Well it's about friggin' time! Twenty-six years old, old enough to know better and he doesn't. How pathetic.
Well it's about friggin' time!
Twenty-six years old, old enough to know better and he doesn't. How pathetic.
and had to call Mommy!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Euclid BaltACDWith the terrorists threats in today's world you can't take any trespasser for granted. I have heard that terrorists are posing as graffiti artists, so nobody will suspect them.
BaltACDWith the terrorists threats in today's world you can't take any trespasser for granted.
I have heard that terrorists are posing as graffiti artists, so nobody will suspect them.
Graffiti-painting suspect nabbedOnline Athens (Online) (GA)July 14, 2014Athens-Clarke police charged a Forsyth County man with illegally painting a CSX train Sunday, while a second man was able to elude capture, according to a police report.A passing motorist spotted the men about 11:30 a.m. spray-painting a parked train on the tracks near Jefferson Road at Homewood Drive, police said. When the officer arrived and called out to the two men, they began running down the tracks. The pursuing officer noticed that one of the men, described in the police report as overweight, slowed down as if worn out and veered into the woods, while the slender man kept running down the tracks, according to the report.As additional officers arrived, they saw the heavier suspect run across the Athens Perimeter, then slide down an embankment where an officer was waiting. The suspect, Erik Eliel Martinez, 26, of Cumming, begged police to let him call his mother. Martinez, who explained that he paints trains, complained that he "knew he should have stayed at home," according to the police report. He was charged with obstruction and damage to property.
I don’t think people who ride the freights fit into a neat category, although many seem to have something in common, including a deep commitment as if it were a cause.
I looked at a bunch of reference online about this topic, and am somewhat amazed at emotional depth, the stoic resignation, a quest for something beyond security, the glory moments, the commitment, the melancholy, and the deep sadness.
Some of these stories are very compelling writing, and maybe not exactly what you would expect:
http://www.northbankfred.com/index.html
Don’t know if such a record would exist, and if it did, unless it included the incidents where the railroad and plaintiff settled before court, which is normal, it would not be very representative.
Because it is often less expensive to pay the plaintiff a settlement than to continue in a court battle, and because it is easy for a fairly good plaintiff attorney to play the “little guy vs. the big bad railroad” routine, juries historically side with and reward the “victims” in the few suits that actually make court.
23 17 46 11
My question still stands. Anyone have some statistics on actual successful lawsuits by 'uninvited riders' against railroads or operating personnel and the awards paid out?
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Jack London rode the rails as drifter/hobo for some time, having travelled as far east as Ottawa, Ontario. I don't recall if he did that after he had already become famous as a writer or if this was right after his oyster pirate days in Oakland. I wish I could remember which of his 50+ books it was..
In the late 1960's I spent some months working in a homeless shelter. It was located close to a freight yard and many of the people who came to us had been riding freight trains. Generally, they were a quiet group of people who followed our rules. We had to have rules as we had a big room for them to eat and sleep in and after supper the tables had to be put away and cots set up and the process reversed in the morning for breakfast. Many had alcohol problems but as long as they were not drunk that was not a problem. Some were Vietnam vets with post traumatic stress disorder and similar impairments. We had a lot of beds close together; occasionally there would be quarrels we had to police and sometimes move people around. Aside from that there were few behavior problems. Some of the guys told interesting stories about their traveling although there was a sad part to it. They did get me interested in riding trains; when the job was over I had to cross the country to go to college. I saved my money and brought a ticket on the Empire Builder.
wanswheel: Thanks to you, I have the book on its way here!
Ulrich Hitchhiking and hoboing (ooops I said the bad word) both died in the 70s. Nobody in his/her right mind would do either today. Way too dangerous with all the nuts out there, never mind getting caught by police.
Hitchhiking and hoboing (ooops I said the bad word) both died in the 70s. Nobody in his/her right mind would do either today. Way too dangerous with all the nuts out there, never mind getting caught by police.
Semper Vaporo schlimm edblysard Because the “modern” bums do stupid stuff that puts my crew at risk, like kicking open the rear anglecock, or playing with the retainer valve, or closing the valves between cars, because they are bored, stupid or for whatever reason they think up. Keep in mind the train is my responsibility and anything that goes wrong is on me. If I know they are there riding my train, and I don’t stop, and one of them gets hurt, all it takes is for their attorney to prove in court I knew they were present and did nothing to “protect “ them, such as stopping, and my carrier and myself get sued, screwed, blued and tattooed. Thanks. Those are clear and understandable reasons. But even so, hardly justifies some of the vitriol of others on here. And is there a history of such lawsuits being won or settled for large amounts? Let's say you are on a trip to go camping by a big lake someplace, and so you are towing a camper and a boat. You stop for gas and 3 people climb into the boat, two on the top of the camper and 4 more break into the camper to ride inside. The people inside the camper use the toilet facility in it, but the folk in the boat and on top of the camper have the same needs, but not the same facilities... uh... I hope they hung far enough over the side so that it didn't splash back... Well... I hope they even tried to hang over the side! Now, let's say that the 2 on top of the camper are smoking pot and have a fight over it and, in the resulting melee, damage the air conditioner on the roof. And the three in the boat are leaving beer bottles all over the place, and, well, they really can't hold their liquor all that well and they just could not get to the rail in time... And since it is cold, they build a "Small" fire in the bottom of the boat to keep warm and cook up some stew, or "coke", or meth, or... Oh, and I forgot about the fellow sitting on the hitch between the camper and the boat. Uh, you know; the guy with the knife and a penchant to whittle on anything he can find... like the wires that control the brake and running lights (as well as the electronic brakes) on the trailer. And he can scratch/carve his "moniker" into the side of the boat or back door of the camper, can't he? Besides, he is quite an artist and has a couple of spray paint cans so he can 'decorate' the rear of the camper for you! Don't worry about any damages, after all, both the camper and boat are rental units from a big company that can easily absorb the expense. But, I do hope you have a CDL, (good for hauling passengers) to show the police to identify yourself when one of these gentle folk falls off or otherwise gets hurt (or murdered by another passenger). I am all for helping my fellow man, and I have done so many times; giving rides to stranded motorists to get them to where they need to be, or buying meals for people that need a helping hand. But I consider anyone as scum if they assume it is okay to be parasites on my charity. And I consider them as "worse than animals" if they TAKE as charity when it is not even mine to offer. Guess what I think of those that will destroy another's property just because they feel like it?
schlimm edblysard Because the “modern” bums do stupid stuff that puts my crew at risk, like kicking open the rear anglecock, or playing with the retainer valve, or closing the valves between cars, because they are bored, stupid or for whatever reason they think up. Keep in mind the train is my responsibility and anything that goes wrong is on me. If I know they are there riding my train, and I don’t stop, and one of them gets hurt, all it takes is for their attorney to prove in court I knew they were present and did nothing to “protect “ them, such as stopping, and my carrier and myself get sued, screwed, blued and tattooed. Thanks. Those are clear and understandable reasons. But even so, hardly justifies some of the vitriol of others on here. And is there a history of such lawsuits being won or settled for large amounts?
edblysard Because the “modern” bums do stupid stuff that puts my crew at risk, like kicking open the rear anglecock, or playing with the retainer valve, or closing the valves between cars, because they are bored, stupid or for whatever reason they think up. Keep in mind the train is my responsibility and anything that goes wrong is on me. If I know they are there riding my train, and I don’t stop, and one of them gets hurt, all it takes is for their attorney to prove in court I knew they were present and did nothing to “protect “ them, such as stopping, and my carrier and myself get sued, screwed, blued and tattooed.
Because the “modern” bums do stupid stuff that puts my crew at risk, like kicking open the rear anglecock, or playing with the retainer valve, or closing the valves between cars, because they are bored, stupid or for whatever reason they think up.
Keep in mind the train is my responsibility and anything that goes wrong is on me.
If I know they are there riding my train, and I don’t stop, and one of them gets hurt, all it takes is for their attorney to prove in court I knew they were present and did nothing to “protect “ them, such as stopping, and my carrier and myself get sued, screwed, blued and tattooed.
Thanks. Those are clear and understandable reasons. But even so, hardly justifies some of the vitriol of others on here. And is there a history of such lawsuits being won or settled for large amounts?
A CDL (for passengers) applies only when operating a bus with a designed seating capacity for passengers. So I don't think the lack of a CDL in this case would to be to the driver's detriment. It would be like me hauling 50 people in a dump trailer... and getting charged for not having a bus license ( I have one but that's beside the point). The vehicle in question was not designed to transport passengers so any hangers on would not obligate the unsuspecting driver to hold a bus license..
Overall the law does work to protect the innocent; usually the bums,savages, barbarians, and neer do wells can't afford the best legal representation anyway, so that would work in your favor. Diddo for the poor "kid" who lost a limb because he wasn't bright enough to stay off of a live rail line. Undoubtedly the railroad in question has some top gun lawyers at its disposal who will make short work of any litigation brought against it for such silliness.
I was going to explain my harsh use of the words "savages" and "barbarians", but Mr. Blysard has explained it far better than I ever could.
This is a case where I'll defer to the professional with more than good grace.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Well,
Imagine you’re a MOW super, you park your tamper and under cutter in a siding, lock em up, lock the switches at both ends, pop on the portable derails and head home.
Come back tomorrow morning to find…
Both pieces of equipment have been broken into the cabs are destroyed, every accessible piece of wiring is gone, the hydraulic tanks have holes punched in them or the hoses slashed.
The track jack has been used to try and lift and flip one of the machines, and is now destroyed, plus it is jammed under the equipment.
Someone took a spike maul left in the tamper and busted every window in both pieces of equipment, the A/C unit on the roof of the tamper is gone, someone put dirt in the diesel tanks, and the hydraulic tanks too, your portable derail is laying in the ditch, someone tried to break the locks on the switches, every gauge in the cabs have their faces smashed.
You’re a conductor on an over the road job…you tie up in boonies city, get your rest, and report to the train swapped out in the siding to head back home….on inspection, you find that the third unit has been vandalized….someone put every paper towel they could find in the toilet and pumped the flush handle as much as they can….then they took a dump on the engineers seat, after busting every gauge face, pulling every fuse they could find in the electrical cabinet, flipping every switch they could find on the back wall, slashing the seats, firing off the fire extinguisher in the cab, and that crap gets in every single crevice, crack and crease….you know, all the fun stuff….
After the third or fourth time you have to deal with this stuff, your perspective gets a little skewed.
What really chaps you is that you’re pretty sure they rode out there with the train and are hanging out nearby, waiting for you to pull out, so they can hop back on and keep riding.
And yes, my carrier is currently in court, a kid decided to try and hop one of our trains to joy ride, ended up losing a foot/leg just under the knee.
The neighborhood he lives in is between a pair of refineries, Valero and Marathon, it was built on both sides of our tracks to house plant workers back in the 40s….
Part of the prosecutions arguments is that we should have cabooses on our trains, and that if we had one on this train, the rear rider would have seen the boy slip and could have stopped the train, the second part of their argument is that because it is summer and school is out, we should know the kids in this “depressed” neighborhood have nothing to do and should have taken precautions to keep the bored kids away from our trains.
Never mind the “kid” is 17, and he hopped the train at 3am in the morning.
Thanks for the history lesson. I might ask some of the commentaters on more recent train riders why it is necessary to demonize them to such a degree as to regard them as lower than animals? You may well not like them, but such contempt seems out of place.
The authors of the book talked for an hour on C-Span in 2005, at link.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?185825-1/book-discussion-bonus-army-american-epic
Walter W. Waters, leader of the Bonus Army, also wrote a book. Two chapters are online at link.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Cu3oAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA5&dq=%22w+w+waters+as+told+to+william+c+white%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NyDEU5CABZHhsAT46YDQBg&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=%22w%20w%20waters%20as%20told%20to%20william%20c%20white%22&f=true
Had a train tonight reported with 10 non-revenue riders - when it got to the stopping point to meet the local authorities - no riders were found. However, we received a report that the train had 'struck' someone at a point 10 mile prior to the stopping point. Once authorities began to question the individual that was 'struck' it was determined that he had been riding the train and dismounted at speed, with less than optimum consequences.
We seem to see alot of young drifters from time to time traveling primarily north-south on the I95 corridor. Philadelphia is apparently a popular point of embarcation for these folks, most of whom appear to be in their early 20s. They frequently travel with dogs! How they manage to get Fido up on a piggyback flat, let alone ride there at 60mph is beyond me. Observing these "drifters", both male and female, they do not appear to be truley poor. Often their clothes and backpacks are high quality and none seem malnorished. My guess is this type of rider is in it more for the thrill and the counterculture brownie points.
From a railroaders point of view, I really never cared if they rode my train, as long as they remained invisable. Of course, they do not. And next thing you know, someone is calling us to report a rider on our train. With the ball squarely in our court, we, as a crew must now endeavor to have the individual(s) removed, as to continue on raises the spector of one of these clowns getting hurt and suddenly calling on that very culture they were thumbing their noses at, to award them with a huge liability settlement because we didn't safely remove them from their self-imposed peril. Nowdays, we have the dispatcher call the railroad police to meet us and escort the riders off the property. My understanding is that most of the time, they just check to see if they have any outstanding warrents, and if not, they turn them loose.
I don't like to call "them" animals, it's not fair to the animals, the real animals that is.
Savages, barbarians, some other unprintables my cop friends used to call them, but not animals.
edblysard Murphy Siding When a non-revenue passenger is *de-trained* by railroad personal, what usually comes next? If you are not a member of my crew, or work for my carrier, or happen to be someone we decided to give a cab ride to, you have no business riding anywhere on my train.
Murphy Siding When a non-revenue passenger is *de-trained* by railroad personal, what usually comes next?
When a non-revenue passenger is *de-trained* by railroad personal, what usually comes next?
If you are not a member of my crew, or work for my carrier, or happen to be someone we decided to give a cab ride to, you have no business riding anywhere on my train.
dehusman Being caught in an auto on an autorack is a pretty much guaranteed way to get arrested.
Being caught in an auto on an autorack is a pretty much guaranteed way to get arrested.
"Uh, gee officer, I was too drunk to drive, I had to get the car home SOMEHOW!"
Wanswheel, thank you for that. Makes me want to listen to Woody Guthrie music and I'm not trying to make a joke.
Without knowing the date of the book that Murphy linked to the first post, it is hard to know whether the author is credible. If the book was written any time say in the last ten years, it sounds completely clueless. In this era, it is as if train crews have accepted the role of security police in addition to their normal work.
However, in the 1970s for instance, that was hardly the case. Unions would have wanted extra pay for the extra work of acting as a police force. So, in that era, what the book is said to describe is quite true. Of course there were always exceptions. But in that era, train crews were known to treat unauthorized riders as though they had purchased a ticket. And there were indeed a lot of adventurers out to see the world in addition to the regular complement of seasonal workers and people actually seeking free transportation.
One of the greatest perils for novice riders was riding in the small gap between a bulkhead and a lumber load on a bulkhead flatcar. Depending on how the load was secured, it could slide with a slack run-in and instantly crush someone occupying the gap.
Obviously times change. In the 70s and 80s, it was not at all unusual to hear anecdotes of young folks riding the rails in the West. One of the attractions some told me about was the ability to get to places, such as national wilderness areas, inaccessible by passenger rail and more difficult to reach by road. They exercised caution and had no problems, but actual cooperation from crews of that era.
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