February 1, 2023 • 39 mins
Danelle sneaks into a railyard with a hobo, and finds out what it really takes to hop a train. Riders show her what she’s missing, and Danelle finds out about a secret hobo guidebook that helps insiders get around. And Danelle gets a lead.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hilliards to turn right under my hills Ulimart. So I'm
navigating us to the Roseville Market, which has kind of
always been my head getting dropped off. I'm back in Roseville,
the place I suspect my daughter Ruby hopter first train
because I want to be on foot inside the yard
and see what it takes to hop out. Mike Brady
(00:32):
told me no one owned train hopping. Anyone could just
head over to Roseville and hop a train. But it
can't be that easy, can't it. Ye kind of a
blind turn here the road. Okay, that's enough. That shut up.
If I'd learned anything riding around the yard with Jonathan Esposito,
it was that I wouldn't get far on my own.
(00:55):
So I asked Ruby's friend Zoe, who'd hopped trains for
seven years, to try to get us into as well.
It's been a while since I've been here, and I
don't know where the indies and outs are anymore. All right,
we're turning right at the lake. This yard is so big.
I should have brought my crew change. Yea. Zoe's an
(01:18):
experienced writer. She even has a copy of the crew change.
This insider map to the rails made by hobos. But
here in Roseville, I'm relying on Zoe vision. Yep, here
we got we're rolling. We parked the car and I
realized we're at the same spot Jonathan pointed me to
when he was driving me around. Inside the yard, the
little park where hobos hop out. There's an old tanker
(01:41):
car painted white and standing on stilts turned into a
park sculpture. Oh, I see. We walk closer to get
a better view of it and of the fence around
the yard, And already there are signs that this is
a hop out spot for hobos. I'm already seeing a
ton of train tack. Yeah, nasty, sick, sober. Sorry Patricia's
(02:02):
first ride? Well, how are you doing? Patricia? Writers still
left messages letting people know they'd pass through and if
they had a hard time getting on a train. I'm
never where does it say that the yars are more
dangerous than I want to believe. And while it's some
comfort knowing Ruby's traveling family could protect her, I know
(02:25):
there's more to reckon with once you get on the train.
What are the risks inside the box car? And how
do hobos nowhere to go? And when to get off?
And what happens along the way. I'm Deil Morton and
this the city of the rail probably three grains from you.
(03:16):
So yeah, Actually, I think the last time I was
here hopping out, I remember sort of being down underneath
this tree. There was no fence here. After all my
travels running around the train yard talking to hobos and
yard workers, there was one last thing I wanted to know.
How do you hop a train? Ruby's friend Zoe is
the perfect person to help me try to figure this out.
(03:38):
She was experienced patients and even a little amused to
be taking her friend's mom to hop a train. Welcome
to train hopping with the world's oldest Google. When I
come to Roswell with Jonathan Esposito a few months earlier,
the place we entered didn't have any signs warning us away.
Here there were plenty saying warning danger a road property,
(04:00):
remote control trains in operation. Closer to the chain link fence,
I see the holes are too small to get a
foot in and climb over the top. But Zoe, she
saw the way through it. Yeah, we're talking. Oh there's
a hole. There's a hole just big enough to get
your body through. Okay, So there's like a a four
ft drop from here, and once inside the yard, were trespassing,
(04:24):
a crime that the railroads can take seriously. The rails
have a private police force they employed to protect the trains.
Hobos call them bulls, and in the yard, bulls can
do pretty much whatever they want. I've heard sometimes they
just wave you away and tell you they'll arrest you
if they ever see you again. But if they catch
you on the train and think you may have tampered
with it or the cargo, that's a felony. So as
(04:47):
much as I wanted to do this, I was getting
pretty anty. Right are there cameras everywhere? I don't know,
do see a camera? I do not see a place
where a camera. Yeah, I don't think that there are cameras. Okay,
I wouldn't recommend now for going through because there's a
(05:07):
locomotive with people in it right up there already. I'm questioning,
Mike Brodie, could anyone really do this? You had to
be fearless to move through the yard. We had to
cover the distance from the fence to the box car,
and the yard was a wide open space. Plus, as
we heard an episode two, the trains can sneak up
on you even as a worker. But after some waiting,
(05:31):
Zoe said, this was our movie. Get up. Okay, here's
the big moment, all right, and we're in We're in
now trespassing pass. Things were like, now we're in the
(05:52):
danger zone. About thirty ft past the fence. A train
rushes by on a nearby track. The train we should
get down. SI can still see us, I think if
they're looking looked right out of me. I want to hide,
but I can't, so I just hope the conductor doesn't
call the cops. I did not make eye contact. Even
(06:16):
if you didn't see us, I feel like I'm being watched.
So he spots the box car we want about a
hundred feet away. Oh, I see it now. Yeah. The
other things we're going to have to we're gonna have
to cross the main lines, so you definitely want to
look both ways. You definitely need to keep an eye out.
(06:41):
So we're across the tracks from the box car. I
can see into it, but I can't move, so I don't.
I think I'm not going to do it. I don't
think I can do it. I feel too exposed. I mean,
can you describe like what you're feeling? What's stopping you
from just walking closer to it. Uh I, uh, I'm
(07:07):
stick to my stomach and uh I'm I'm a little shaky,
and uh I don't feel strong. I'll be I'll be
here right with you. I won't go any faster or
slower than you. Z He is so decent. This adventure
with her reminds me of something Morgan told me that
people on the rails are kinder than you'd expect. Zoe
(07:30):
is proof of that. So we make our way to
the box car. All right, here we go. We're gonna
get arrested. We better not. We've better not. I gotta
go to work tomorrow. And finally we're here at the
box car. It's way bigger than I expected. You made
it past the first hurdle. Oh look, and this is
(07:52):
this is the lowest. I think this is about the
lowest that you'll ever get a box car. Really, yeah, Look,
it's about older length on me. Hello, Hello, This is
what it sounds like inside the box car. Wow, there's
no big space here, and it smells like lumber. Do
(08:17):
you smell that smell? I craned my head into the
big hollow space of the box car. There's a graffiti
on the inside. And I'm surprised by how high the
ceiling is. I didn't realize trains were this tall. When
you stand next to the train, it's to two stories
tall above you, right, it's high. Yea. So how do
(08:37):
you host yourself up into the box cars? It takes muscle.
I can't believe you guys did this all the time.
I mean, I have it from a distance. I feel
like I feel a sort of feeling of the freedom
of it. But the actual mechanics of getting into the
train are hard. This is really a tough thing. What
could I get up into the box car? I can
(09:00):
not gonna be the box car. And my friend who
CC rider, who's about your size, she carried a bucket
with her. Did you have a bucket? I was impressed.
I could see just how brave my daughter had to
be to climb onto one of these. And then what
so have you read into box cars like this? Sure?
Where do you sit? Ideally? You sit where if you're
(09:24):
traveling this direction, you want to sit on this side
to keep the wind out of your face. That's clean
face versus dirty face. So wherever the wind's not blowing,
the box goes are terrible, right, all right, we got
some sound it's here. If that means that it's airing up, well,
I don't know. I don't know where that came from.
(09:45):
So if that train was leaving, it was time for
us to go. I could have to work my way
up to the box cars getting in it. We did
this the tame way, sneaking up to a stationary car
and even and it was too much for me. But
in most stories I had heard people ran after moving
trains and caught them on the fly. That sounded ridiculous
(10:08):
to me. Catching on the fly could kill you. It
was much safer to get on a stationary train. But
just like that train writer and Mike Brodie's photo running
to catch a train with a guitar sling on his back,
sometimes you gotta grab your ship and go. I didn't
understand the full sequence of actions until Alexei would, the
hobo who described his first ride through the Houston Skyline
(10:31):
told me how he caught a moving train. I mean,
if it wasn't moving, you're fine, But if it's moving,
then it's definitely a whole another. And like I know
exactly how high those things are. It's like it's I
have to throw my bag up and give a good
leap and use my upper body strength to get up
in there. I'm six wall in I have a very
(10:51):
athletic bill, but you know, I was some pretty good health.
I would just, you know, you just run next to it.
You grab the ladder and just run with it until
you get your balance, and then you just kind of
like swing on so you just kind of jump on
it and kind of lunge, kind of land on the
top of it with your belly and then lift yourself up.
(11:23):
That's literally how people lose their legs is because they
can't necessarily stay up, you know, so they kind of
slide down and then they just kind of help into
the tracks. I know two people who have lost their
legs from box cars. Such a grizzly image. Plenty of
(11:47):
other writers told tales of people losing their fingers or
their limbs hopping trains, and after walking the yard with Zoe,
I don't think I agree with Mike. Not just anyone
could do this. I couldn't even get into one that
wasn't moving. But after cowering next to the box car,
I had more respect for Ruby. I had always known
she was a badass, but in the yard I realized
(12:08):
just how much. But badasses aren't invincible, and for a traveler,
getting on the train is just the first hurdle. So
(12:34):
you've made it past the fence and avoided the yard workers, drones,
and rail cops. But once you're on the train, so
many things can happen along the ride. Talking with veteran
writers like Ceci and Cherry led me to Thomas Wolfe,
who had written all over America and had tons of
stories and a lot of near death experiences too. Those
are the kinds of stories and mother loves to hear
(12:56):
going to die. Right. We're all destiny. It's just just
no exception to that rule. So the thing to do
is just it's important. What's not not important while you're alive,
because you only got one chance at it. Lots of
hub As adopted ship happens mentality as a way of
accepting how things go wrong. For wolf the risks were
(13:16):
just a part of the ride, and the danger enhanced
the beauty. Wolf even found something beautiful about the day
he almost died in Montana. Wont through one of those
tunnels out there, and uh, the invention the universe should
and it just filled up with diesel fuels. We couldn't
(13:38):
see anything but the little light on the console. It's like,
you know, getting light headed, odes of water and I
think we're gonna get gas to death. It seemed like
forever at that dead we could he trying to hold
your bath. Yeah, yeah, we're just holding hands because we're
(13:59):
sure we both gonna die. But then it came out
of the tunnel opened, all the air gone out, all
the teams die out. It was a close call. But
moments like these are why some Hobos told me they
(14:21):
learned more about their companions in one week on the
rails than they knew about some members of their families.
Many Hobos see their near death experiences this way with
a sense of romance. For Wolf, as long as he
didn't die, it was a good experience and a good story,
the story of making it through the story of nearly dying.
(14:43):
But once you're on the train, the danger inside the
box car isn't the only hazard. You could still get
caught on the train by the cops. And it's not
just bulls outside the yard. A lot of local police
don't like writers either, and some cops have reputations because
of the rough way they handled writers, and every writer
has a cop story. I met Danny Dean through Morgan.
(15:04):
He's the boyfriend she mentioned traveling with last episode. When
Danny and I talked, he told me about an encounter
he had in Roosevelt with one of those notorious cops.
I wasn't even doing nothing, honestly except taking a nap.
He decided to wake me up. And they also didn't
warn me about Officer Flood. A lot of other writers
(15:26):
had stories to tell about Officer David Flood. It was
pretty tough on the travelers he found around the train yard.
What happened with you in Flood? I mean, I've actually
been trying to get Fled to talk to me. He's
such a famous figure in that yard. You know who
Flood is? Yeah, oh man. I wasn't even doing nothing,
(15:47):
honestly except taking a nap from the bridge, and he
decided to wake me up. He was being a little
fucking handy with me, you know, like rough. He like
twitched my handback and put in handcuffs. I was like,
that's I noticed you's in that glove song. He's trying
to go through my pockets. But I'm a traveler, so
I have like a hundred pockets and giving time. Danny
(16:09):
was sick of this treatment and he'd been minding his
own business, so he decided to fight dirty. So I
pissed myself. Yes, I was basically trying to piss on
his hands, and I was like, hey, hey, you feel that,
And yeah, he got mad and he put my head
in the back of this fucking control car and it
(16:32):
took me to jail. Get Another place where the cops
are infamous is New Orleans. According to writers, the cops
there could arrest you for just about anything, and if
there wasn't a law in the books, they could make
what up. This could lead to all kinds of inventive charges.
Morgan encountered some of those traveling kids all knew this,
(16:54):
these little stories about how the cops in New Orleans,
so if they think you're doing something wrong, they can
write a ticket for whatever they want. One of them
was the obstruction of the flight path of a pigeon,
and which was heard that Yeah, one was the molestation
of a chief burger. But the one that I heard
also was leading it with intent to fall. Getting caught
(17:18):
on the train could mean much moorse than a ticket.
Or a night in jail. You could get pulled off
in the wrong place, and that could lead to a
lot more trouble. Zoe told me about a time she
got pulled off in the desert. She was already dealing
with the heat when things took a turn for the worse.
Gotten on a on a train and sat on it,
(17:39):
and the train just didn't move until the sun was
just beating down on me. It was a hot, hot
day in New Mexico, and I'm just roasting in the sun,
like praying that all these workers are zipping by on
a t v s, just praying that they don't see
me as being so hot and thirsty. But he didn't
(18:00):
have any water. I had water, but you know, I
can't really like sit up to drink it. Zoe knew
if she sat up to get a drink of water,
those passing workers might call the bulls on her. On
that train, we did end up getting out of the
yard without being seen, and just for like twenty minutes
(18:20):
later to go past an elevated work camp and have
a bunch of workers see us and call the cops.
And we got left in the middle of nowhere in
the desert. But when the cop pulled Zoe and her
friends off the train. He didn't arrest them, he stranded
them in the desert, and just before he left he
tried to scare them off the rails for good. And
(18:40):
the cop that had taken us off the train was saying,
like trying to say all this like mean nasty stuff
about how we'd probably like die of exposure out there,
and we were in such a hostile environment. There's like,
you know, all sorts of snakes and squa rampeans, and
(19:00):
then like local people like we could be on res
land and they could shoot us, like some horrible things.
Stuck in the desert, Zoe was forced to face another
major challenge of train hopping, having enough supplies, the group
was running out of water. In that situation, well, first
we spent a night by the tracks because we thought
(19:21):
maybe something else would stop, but trains rolled past too
fast to get on all night long. And then the
next day we're like, well we just have to walk
until we see something. And how many whiles did you
have to walk? I don't remember. I mean, the people
are traveling with weren't super great, but we were like
running out of water at that point. We finally, like,
(19:44):
I saw a farmhouse in the distance, and uh, everybody
was too scared to go ask them for water. They
made me go do it because that was the girl.
Of course, as the only woman in the group, Zoe
(20:05):
was the one that did the work of begging for water.
So alone, Zoe approached the house. I knocked on the
door and the person that opened the door was a
Mennonite woman and she didn't say a word to me.
I was like, hey, I need some water, and I'm
like filthy and look crazy, and it was a wordless transaction.
(20:25):
She like motioned for me to come into the house.
She grabbed my water jug, she filled it up, She
gave me some pamphlets on being a Mennonite, and then
closed the door behind me. Set me on my wife.
Even if you calculated the right amount of water to bring,
if people you were traveling with aren't smart about it
(20:47):
or experienced enough, you would pay the price. The rails
are a small world, and in this tiny society, Google's
could make everything worse. Morgan told me last episode about
how hobos would ditch Google's whenever they could, and getting
left behind could have big consequences, especially when the weather
(21:09):
starts turning cold. Four months after Ruby left, she called
and asked if I could send her some of her sweaters.
Ruby was in Tennessee and it was cold. Of course
I could. I'd do it right away. She'd never ask
for anything while she was on the road, so here
I had a chance to do something for her. I
(21:31):
gathered up her sweaters and jackets, thinking about everything else
I wanted to stuff into that box. New underwear, socks, chapstick,
face wipes, shampoo and conditioner, hand sanitizer, long John's sunblock,
fingerless gloves, homemade chockat chip cookies, and an envelope full
of cash. I was grinning at the post office, imagining
(21:52):
her cozy in these sweaters, hams warmed in these gloves,
passing around her favorite cookies, a little touch of love
from home. By the time I was done, the box
costs a hundred dollars to ship. I would have spent
more than that for the chance to be her mom again.
(22:12):
A week later, Ruby called from a friend's phone, ecstatic
and grateful. She loved everything in the box. She and
her friends sat around as she unpacked layer after layer.
Now they were enjoying the chocol ship cookies. Later they
were going to get all suited up and go to
the grocery store and have a feast, and everyone would
be warm. Because she had given away most of the box.
(22:35):
I was stunned. I had meant those things for her,
all of them. When I was picking through the thrift
store and racing around the aisles of Old Navy, I
wasn't thinking of clothing every hobo in Tennessee. It took
me until the next day to understand how wrong I was.
Ruby carried just as much as she needed, not five
(22:55):
sweaters and four jackets playing that would be a burden.
Now everyone was warm. This world was pushing me to
rethink all sorts of things. Sure, I used to think
I was generous giving dinner to anyone who showed up
at my doorstep. But that was a formal kind of
generosity where I risked very little. When we gave away
(23:16):
these warm clothes. Her generosity was more intimate. She put
herself at risk so that everyone could be comfortable, and
of course it was only a little bit of comfort,
because riding trains was never all that comfortable. Then maybe
I had to rethink my idea about comfort too. You know,
I has known people that how could people do this
(23:37):
for years, even trying to get to sleep in a
box car. Thomas Wolfe explained it to me. So see
you continue like when you're riding, can you sleep in
that box because I hear it is people told me
it is like super noisy. Right. Oh, it's another one
of those really beautiful things. As you'r dozing off, all
these sounds of it makes it's almost like sings to you.
(24:03):
What what kind of a song is it sing? Yeah,
I mean it's it's not really anything discernible. You know,
it's point where you're just about to fall off, you're
not really asleep, and then all those creaking sounds and
the talk of talking poka all that, it's just like
it's singing. As some piece it's called the Hopo was older.
You know that clack clack clack on the railroad text
(24:24):
it's called the Hogo is lullaby. Yeah right, it's one
of the best, one of my favorite songs. Every Dalbo
love as beautiful as Thomas makes it sound. Chain hopping
(24:55):
isn't easy. You really have to want it to go
through the gauntlet of this world, getting caught by the cops,
running out of food or water, traveling with Google's who
slowed you down, or being stuck in a car with
a gas leak. These were just some of the risk
you could face once you got in the box car.
But getting on the train and surviving the trip are
just steps one and two. The final step was knowing
(25:18):
when and where to get off. Experienced writers have insider
dollars that helps them navigate and time their journeys just right.
There's a guide, a document passed from hand to hand
among veteran riders, and I really wanted to copy. Wog's
like me are not supposed to be let in on
those secrets, but hell, I'm going to try. Hey, I'm
(25:56):
getting back stuff out of the trunk, I'm gonna go
in there. And after my trip to Roosevelt with Zoe,
it was clear I wasn't cut out for the hobo life.
And even if I had gotten up in the box car,
my conversations with travelers like Thomas Wolfe showed me just
(26:17):
how difficult it was to survive. Most of the time,
I just walk past the mailbox right say it's a
lucky there when I think the chances that are it
is in there. But there was a book only held
by a few that could give me that insider knowledge.
(26:38):
It was the secret map to the City of the Rails.
Lucky recipient. A copy it would be elusive, the much desired.
For a week, I've been checking my mailbox waiting for
the package to arrive. I'm hoping it in my head.
(27:09):
Finally I had it, The Crew Change Guide. I can't
open it here in the bobby. It's a suit of
the moment. M M. I suppose how small it is.
(27:30):
On my way up to my apartment, I anticipated what
I'd find in the pages of this guy. The Crew Changes,
a sacred document, both cherished and scoffed at. Many of
the hoboes I've spoken to had strong opinions about it
one way or the other, and certainly that's something an
outsider like me often gets to say. But here I was.
It's got to stab if I holding a beat up
(27:52):
old copy. Wow is that really tiny? Type? Wow? YEA.
From what I've been told, the Crew Change contained practical advice.
For example, Morgan told me about a time she used
the Crew Change to figure out where to jump off
before her train entered the yard. I've never felt something
(28:13):
the way I felt when I completed my first train ride,
and I was a little nervous because I had to
jump off on the fly, which means while it's still going,
then you're supposed to run right when your feet in
the ground with the direction of the train. So I
remember throwing my pack and I just knew right in
that moment I had to go right then, and I jumped,
(28:36):
and it's it's like I knew I was supposed to run,
but I couldn't, and I just tumbled, tumbled, tumble, tumble,
tumble down, and it was all bruised up. What happened
next felt like a scene straight out of a movie.
I remember going and it's in the crew change, and
this was the magical. This is just one of those
(28:57):
little magical things in the crew change. If you read
where you get off at the spot, it talks about
a peanut man and how there's if you walk down
this road and through the trees and there's there's you know,
trees on either side of you, and you you'll get
(29:17):
to this corner and there'll be a peanut man, a
man selling peanuts, and you'll go up to him and
he'll know that you're a train hopper and he'll give
you some peanuts and then you go here to wash up,
and then and then onto the next stop. And I
remember seeing that peanut man and it being like, holy shit,
it feels like Lord of the Rings. Yeah, it was no, seriously,
(29:41):
like that's what it feels like. I was on this
grand adventure to nowhere. I had no actual from Morgan.
The crew change was magical. It was great luck that
she had it with her, especially when she was first
starting out. But Mike Bradie explained that it was actually
more practical than magical. Explains to the crew change where too,
(30:03):
how to get that train yard and naviget that train
yard and what trains are going where. However, it's just
a guide, so tons of people take it as like
a freaking like accurate bible. So it's like weird. So
it's like this cultural thing where people just like really
think it's like fact. But people have just collectively put
that information together for decades. The hobos who contribute to
(30:24):
the Crew Change report changes in the layout of yards
and increases in yard security. Before the Internet, hobos communicated
through symbols scrawled on the undersides of bridges, warnings that
there were mean cops in the yard, or a tip
for a house close by where you could get some
food or use the telephone. My favorite is the one
that let other writers know sad story will get you dinner.
(30:46):
That's me. Some of those marketings still exist on the
edges of train yards, like the graffiti tanker I saw
with Zoe, but the Crew Change is much more specific,
and national writers like Mike send these yard updates to
the Crew Chage List ser a digital version of the
same network. But even though he's contributed to the crew Change,
Mike says he's outgrown it. I have the new change
(31:10):
guid yea because I contributed to it. Oh wow, I'd
love to see it. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do
a video though, where I light it on fire. So
I don't because next time I go train hopping, I'm
not bringing it. I don't need it. You can probably
tell where this is going. We'll give you send me
a copy of it. I'll make you a copy. Okay, okay.
(31:31):
If the Royal Road name is underlined, it indicates a mainline.
But holding it in my hands, the crew change didn't
look how I expected. If the railroad name is not underlining,
I suppose Morgan's peanut Man had me imagining a booklet
with mystical creatures drawed in the margins, or a steampunk
aesthetic with old Western type. But the crew change is
all business. How do you live things up in here?
(31:56):
Major long distance routs with crew change points from I
understood how valuable the crew change could be to a
new writer, But a veteran writer like Mike didn't need it.
And there are things the crew change could never teach you.
Even experienced writers might spend a few months with the
older writers to pick up some tricks. Terry introduced me
to another experienced writer, her ex boyfriend, whose train name
(32:19):
was Cheddar. Cheddar told me that after more than a
decade of writing, he agreed to travel with the notorious
hobo Dirty Mike to see what else he could learn.
You know, he actually no ship you. He did definitely
show me some hop out spots and showed me some
(32:41):
good sign flying spots to make money throughout the country.
You know what I mean that I was not aware
of before I had traveled with him. So yeah, he
definitely took me to a few of his own super
secret spots, you know, like showed like good spots to
get a kicked down, good spots to make a buck,
good spots to catch a train. You know, Cheddar saw
Mike's experience firsthand when they hopped off a train. We
(33:04):
get to the spot and we jump off our train,
and he's like, I'll be right back, and he be
lines off into the bushes and I kind of just
meandered after him a little bit, and uh, he's off
frummaging around in the bushes and he procures like a
barbecue grill and and it chugg of water and he's like,
all right, now, we gotta go up the street. And uh.
We went to this like dumpster and we dumpstered all
(33:26):
this food and came back and we had like a
flat out like started a little wood fire and his
little webbard grilling at and had a little barbecue right
there next to the railroad tracks and drink beer. It
was fun. It was It was a cool It was
a cool impression that I got from. I was like, Wow,
I see that stuff stashed all over the country, right,
and he could roll into all these different spots. And
(33:50):
that was my thought on the matter. I'm like, wow, man,
I wonder if this guy's got it like this everywhere
you know. This was a lead level Oboeing Durning my head,
a network so deep and well organized that he had
barbecue stashed and major train yards across the country, but
those wouldn't be in the crew change. Only Jurning, Mike
and those he traveled with would know. My journey into
(34:17):
the rail yard started out as a search for my daughter.
I was trying to understand the life that Ruby chose
and her odds of surviving. Because I learned what it
takes and got to know the people on both sides
of the tracks, I felt myself getting pulled in. Every
question I asked led me to another question, to another
unforgettable character, and to another train yard full of secrets.
(34:41):
My constant worry about Ruby didn't go away. But there
was something else motivating me now, six months after she left,
A curiosity about the city of the Rails, a curiosity
that was quickly growing into an obsession. This search had
revealed a world hiding in plain sight, and if I
was going to really understand it, I knew where I
(35:03):
had to go next. Here's Alaska, So if I could
find California, Colton, Colton West, Colton Yard is it. A
lot of the hobo's I met kept bringing up Colton,
like Colton, Like who gives the funk about Colton, California? Right?
Like like what the fund is West Colton? But to
(35:27):
a train rider, West Colton is the capital city, you
know through West Colton is a capital city for tramps.
It is. There's a capital city for tramps. I've got
to know more. There's so many big railroad cities like
Chicago and Minneapolis. Why was Colton the capital? Pretty much
(35:50):
every hobo I met had some crazy story about Colton.
From what I was hearing, it sounded more like the
Wild West. The bullet passed in and out of my
hat twice and grazed my head and the other one
went through my back, Like you're a girl by yourself,
what you're gonna do about it? And I was like,
oh yeah, I'm And I yelled dirty my name. She
comes growning up. So David Colton, he's the proof of
(36:12):
the adage to live outside the law, you must be honest,
at least with each other department. No suspects were contacted.
So there's a lot that's missing here. There's a lot
that's redacted. What exactly is going on in Colton and
why on earth is this the capital city for tramps.
I've never heard that in the years I've been here.
Um doubt. Does South Side Colton Gang exist? Yes, that's
(36:40):
next episode on City of the Rails as well be
(37:08):
drinking gastle, Look what you've done. The City of the
Rails is hosted and written by me Daniel Morton and
developed in partnership between Flip Turn Studios and I Heart Podcasts.
I think we got it all wrong? Call in and
(37:28):
tell us at seven oh seven six three oh three,
three nine and leave a message. That's also the place
for questions, comments, criticisms, original songs. Whatever you think we
should know, we might use it on the show at
I Heart. Our team is executive producer and showrunner Julian Weller,
Senior producer and editing master Abouza far and our excellent
(37:51):
producers Emily maronof Shina Ozaki and Zoey Denkla, with production
support from Marci to Pina. Excellent original music every episode
by Aaron Kaufman. Our theme music is Wayfaring Stranger, performed
by Profane Sass thanks to Scott Michaud at Flail Records.
Our logo is by Lucy Quingtonia and uses a photograph
by Mike Brody. Thanks to Thomas Wolfe for your stoicism
(38:15):
and for your poetry, and to Danny Dean for quite
a colorful story. Zoe. I couldn't have done it without you,
and I didn't even do it, Alexei. You're right, there's
got to be something better than this garbage. Our executive
producer at flip turn is Mark Healey at I Heart.
Thanks to Nikki Tore and Deathann Michalouso. If you want
(38:36):
to follow along, find us on Instagram at flip turn Pods.
We'll be back next week in Colton, California, The Hobo
Capital on the City of the Rails, the story of
making it through the story of nearly dying. Okay, I
(38:57):
think that's enough choices, Julian, or you can Frankenstein it
and say, well, hey, these two words from over here
and this pause from here and this inhalation from here
and call it a day.
Hilliards to turn right under my hills Ulimart. So I'm
navigating us to the Roseville Market, which has kind of
always been my head getting dropped off. I'm back in Roseville,
the place I suspect my daughter Ruby hopter first train
because I want to be on foot inside the yard
and see what it takes to hop out. Mike Brady
(00:32):
told me no one owned train hopping. Anyone could just
head over to Roseville and hop a train. But it
can't be that easy, can't it. Ye kind of a
blind turn here the road. Okay, that's enough. That shut up.
If I'd learned anything riding around the yard with Jonathan Esposito,
it was that I wouldn't get far on my own.
(00:55):
So I asked Ruby's friend Zoe, who'd hopped trains for
seven years, to try to get us into as well.
It's been a while since I've been here, and I
don't know where the indies and outs are anymore. All right,
we're turning right at the lake. This yard is so big.
I should have brought my crew change. Yea. Zoe's an
(01:18):
experienced writer. She even has a copy of the crew change.
This insider map to the rails made by hobos. But
here in Roseville, I'm relying on Zoe vision. Yep, here
we got we're rolling. We parked the car and I
realized we're at the same spot Jonathan pointed me to
when he was driving me around. Inside the yard, the
little park where hobos hop out. There's an old tanker
(01:41):
car painted white and standing on stilts turned into a
park sculpture. Oh, I see. We walk closer to get
a better view of it and of the fence around
the yard, And already there are signs that this is
a hop out spot for hobos. I'm already seeing a
ton of train tack. Yeah, nasty, sick, sober. Sorry Patricia's
(02:02):
first ride? Well, how are you doing? Patricia? Writers still
left messages letting people know they'd pass through and if
they had a hard time getting on a train. I'm
never where does it say that the yars are more
dangerous than I want to believe. And while it's some
comfort knowing Ruby's traveling family could protect her, I know
(02:25):
there's more to reckon with once you get on the train.
What are the risks inside the box car? And how
do hobos nowhere to go? And when to get off?
And what happens along the way. I'm Deil Morton and
this the city of the rail probably three grains from you.
(03:16):
So yeah, Actually, I think the last time I was
here hopping out, I remember sort of being down underneath
this tree. There was no fence here. After all my
travels running around the train yard talking to hobos and
yard workers, there was one last thing I wanted to know.
How do you hop a train? Ruby's friend Zoe is
the perfect person to help me try to figure this out.
(03:38):
She was experienced patients and even a little amused to
be taking her friend's mom to hop a train. Welcome
to train hopping with the world's oldest Google. When I
come to Roswell with Jonathan Esposito a few months earlier,
the place we entered didn't have any signs warning us away.
Here there were plenty saying warning danger a road property,
(04:00):
remote control trains in operation. Closer to the chain link fence,
I see the holes are too small to get a
foot in and climb over the top. But Zoe, she
saw the way through it. Yeah, we're talking. Oh there's
a hole. There's a hole just big enough to get
your body through. Okay, So there's like a a four
ft drop from here, and once inside the yard, were trespassing,
(04:24):
a crime that the railroads can take seriously. The rails
have a private police force they employed to protect the trains.
Hobos call them bulls, and in the yard, bulls can
do pretty much whatever they want. I've heard sometimes they
just wave you away and tell you they'll arrest you
if they ever see you again. But if they catch
you on the train and think you may have tampered
with it or the cargo, that's a felony. So as
(04:47):
much as I wanted to do this, I was getting
pretty anty. Right are there cameras everywhere? I don't know,
do see a camera? I do not see a place
where a camera. Yeah, I don't think that there are cameras. Okay,
I wouldn't recommend now for going through because there's a
(05:07):
locomotive with people in it right up there already. I'm questioning,
Mike Brodie, could anyone really do this? You had to
be fearless to move through the yard. We had to
cover the distance from the fence to the box car,
and the yard was a wide open space. Plus, as
we heard an episode two, the trains can sneak up
on you even as a worker. But after some waiting,
(05:31):
Zoe said, this was our movie. Get up. Okay, here's
the big moment, all right, and we're in We're in
now trespassing pass. Things were like, now we're in the
(05:52):
danger zone. About thirty ft past the fence. A train
rushes by on a nearby track. The train we should
get down. SI can still see us, I think if
they're looking looked right out of me. I want to hide,
but I can't, so I just hope the conductor doesn't
call the cops. I did not make eye contact. Even
(06:16):
if you didn't see us, I feel like I'm being watched.
So he spots the box car we want about a
hundred feet away. Oh, I see it now. Yeah. The
other things we're going to have to we're gonna have
to cross the main lines, so you definitely want to
look both ways. You definitely need to keep an eye out.
(06:41):
So we're across the tracks from the box car. I
can see into it, but I can't move, so I don't.
I think I'm not going to do it. I don't
think I can do it. I feel too exposed. I mean,
can you describe like what you're feeling? What's stopping you
from just walking closer to it. Uh I, uh, I'm
(07:07):
stick to my stomach and uh I'm I'm a little shaky,
and uh I don't feel strong. I'll be I'll be
here right with you. I won't go any faster or
slower than you. Z He is so decent. This adventure
with her reminds me of something Morgan told me that
people on the rails are kinder than you'd expect. Zoe
(07:30):
is proof of that. So we make our way to
the box car. All right, here we go. We're gonna
get arrested. We better not. We've better not. I gotta
go to work tomorrow. And finally we're here at the
box car. It's way bigger than I expected. You made
it past the first hurdle. Oh look, and this is
(07:52):
this is the lowest. I think this is about the
lowest that you'll ever get a box car. Really, yeah, Look,
it's about older length on me. Hello, Hello, This is
what it sounds like inside the box car. Wow, there's
no big space here, and it smells like lumber. Do
(08:17):
you smell that smell? I craned my head into the
big hollow space of the box car. There's a graffiti
on the inside. And I'm surprised by how high the
ceiling is. I didn't realize trains were this tall. When
you stand next to the train, it's to two stories
tall above you, right, it's high. Yea. So how do
(08:37):
you host yourself up into the box cars? It takes muscle.
I can't believe you guys did this all the time.
I mean, I have it from a distance. I feel
like I feel a sort of feeling of the freedom
of it. But the actual mechanics of getting into the
train are hard. This is really a tough thing. What
could I get up into the box car? I can
(09:00):
not gonna be the box car. And my friend who
CC rider, who's about your size, she carried a bucket
with her. Did you have a bucket? I was impressed.
I could see just how brave my daughter had to
be to climb onto one of these. And then what
so have you read into box cars like this? Sure?
Where do you sit? Ideally? You sit where if you're
(09:24):
traveling this direction, you want to sit on this side
to keep the wind out of your face. That's clean
face versus dirty face. So wherever the wind's not blowing,
the box goes are terrible, right, all right, we got
some sound it's here. If that means that it's airing up, well,
I don't know. I don't know where that came from.
(09:45):
So if that train was leaving, it was time for
us to go. I could have to work my way
up to the box cars getting in it. We did
this the tame way, sneaking up to a stationary car
and even and it was too much for me. But
in most stories I had heard people ran after moving
trains and caught them on the fly. That sounded ridiculous
(10:08):
to me. Catching on the fly could kill you. It
was much safer to get on a stationary train. But
just like that train writer and Mike Brodie's photo running
to catch a train with a guitar sling on his back,
sometimes you gotta grab your ship and go. I didn't
understand the full sequence of actions until Alexei would, the
hobo who described his first ride through the Houston Skyline
(10:31):
told me how he caught a moving train. I mean,
if it wasn't moving, you're fine, But if it's moving,
then it's definitely a whole another. And like I know
exactly how high those things are. It's like it's I
have to throw my bag up and give a good
leap and use my upper body strength to get up
in there. I'm six wall in I have a very
(10:51):
athletic bill, but you know, I was some pretty good health.
I would just, you know, you just run next to it.
You grab the ladder and just run with it until
you get your balance, and then you just kind of
like swing on so you just kind of jump on
it and kind of lunge, kind of land on the
top of it with your belly and then lift yourself up.
(11:23):
That's literally how people lose their legs is because they
can't necessarily stay up, you know, so they kind of
slide down and then they just kind of help into
the tracks. I know two people who have lost their
legs from box cars. Such a grizzly image. Plenty of
(11:47):
other writers told tales of people losing their fingers or
their limbs hopping trains, and after walking the yard with Zoe,
I don't think I agree with Mike. Not just anyone
could do this. I couldn't even get into one that
wasn't moving. But after cowering next to the box car,
I had more respect for Ruby. I had always known
she was a badass, but in the yard I realized
(12:08):
just how much. But badasses aren't invincible, and for a traveler,
getting on the train is just the first hurdle. So
(12:34):
you've made it past the fence and avoided the yard workers, drones,
and rail cops. But once you're on the train, so
many things can happen along the ride. Talking with veteran
writers like Ceci and Cherry led me to Thomas Wolfe,
who had written all over America and had tons of
stories and a lot of near death experiences too. Those
are the kinds of stories and mother loves to hear
(12:56):
going to die. Right. We're all destiny. It's just just
no exception to that rule. So the thing to do
is just it's important. What's not not important while you're alive,
because you only got one chance at it. Lots of
hub As adopted ship happens mentality as a way of
accepting how things go wrong. For wolf the risks were
(13:16):
just a part of the ride, and the danger enhanced
the beauty. Wolf even found something beautiful about the day
he almost died in Montana. Wont through one of those
tunnels out there, and uh, the invention the universe should
and it just filled up with diesel fuels. We couldn't
(13:38):
see anything but the little light on the console. It's like,
you know, getting light headed, odes of water and I
think we're gonna get gas to death. It seemed like
forever at that dead we could he trying to hold
your bath. Yeah, yeah, we're just holding hands because we're
(13:59):
sure we both gonna die. But then it came out
of the tunnel opened, all the air gone out, all
the teams die out. It was a close call. But
moments like these are why some Hobos told me they
(14:21):
learned more about their companions in one week on the
rails than they knew about some members of their families.
Many Hobos see their near death experiences this way with
a sense of romance. For Wolf, as long as he
didn't die, it was a good experience and a good story,
the story of making it through the story of nearly dying.
(14:43):
But once you're on the train, the danger inside the
box car isn't the only hazard. You could still get
caught on the train by the cops. And it's not
just bulls outside the yard. A lot of local police
don't like writers either, and some cops have reputations because
of the rough way they handled writers, and every writer
has a cop story. I met Danny Dean through Morgan.
(15:04):
He's the boyfriend she mentioned traveling with last episode. When
Danny and I talked, he told me about an encounter
he had in Roosevelt with one of those notorious cops.
I wasn't even doing nothing, honestly except taking a nap.
He decided to wake me up. And they also didn't
warn me about Officer Flood. A lot of other writers
(15:26):
had stories to tell about Officer David Flood. It was
pretty tough on the travelers he found around the train yard.
What happened with you in Flood? I mean, I've actually
been trying to get Fled to talk to me. He's
such a famous figure in that yard. You know who
Flood is? Yeah, oh man. I wasn't even doing nothing,
(15:47):
honestly except taking a nap from the bridge, and he
decided to wake me up. He was being a little
fucking handy with me, you know, like rough. He like
twitched my handback and put in handcuffs. I was like,
that's I noticed you's in that glove song. He's trying
to go through my pockets. But I'm a traveler, so
I have like a hundred pockets and giving time. Danny
(16:09):
was sick of this treatment and he'd been minding his
own business, so he decided to fight dirty. So I
pissed myself. Yes, I was basically trying to piss on
his hands, and I was like, hey, hey, you feel that,
And yeah, he got mad and he put my head
in the back of this fucking control car and it
(16:32):
took me to jail. Get Another place where the cops
are infamous is New Orleans. According to writers, the cops
there could arrest you for just about anything, and if
there wasn't a law in the books, they could make
what up. This could lead to all kinds of inventive charges.
Morgan encountered some of those traveling kids all knew this,
(16:54):
these little stories about how the cops in New Orleans,
so if they think you're doing something wrong, they can
write a ticket for whatever they want. One of them
was the obstruction of the flight path of a pigeon,
and which was heard that Yeah, one was the molestation
of a chief burger. But the one that I heard
also was leading it with intent to fall. Getting caught
(17:18):
on the train could mean much moorse than a ticket.
Or a night in jail. You could get pulled off
in the wrong place, and that could lead to a
lot more trouble. Zoe told me about a time she
got pulled off in the desert. She was already dealing
with the heat when things took a turn for the worse.
Gotten on a on a train and sat on it,
(17:39):
and the train just didn't move until the sun was
just beating down on me. It was a hot, hot
day in New Mexico, and I'm just roasting in the sun,
like praying that all these workers are zipping by on
a t v s, just praying that they don't see
me as being so hot and thirsty. But he didn't
(18:00):
have any water. I had water, but you know, I
can't really like sit up to drink it. Zoe knew
if she sat up to get a drink of water,
those passing workers might call the bulls on her. On
that train, we did end up getting out of the
yard without being seen, and just for like twenty minutes
(18:20):
later to go past an elevated work camp and have
a bunch of workers see us and call the cops.
And we got left in the middle of nowhere in
the desert. But when the cop pulled Zoe and her
friends off the train. He didn't arrest them, he stranded
them in the desert, and just before he left he
tried to scare them off the rails for good. And
(18:40):
the cop that had taken us off the train was saying,
like trying to say all this like mean nasty stuff
about how we'd probably like die of exposure out there,
and we were in such a hostile environment. There's like,
you know, all sorts of snakes and squa rampeans, and
(19:00):
then like local people like we could be on res
land and they could shoot us, like some horrible things.
Stuck in the desert, Zoe was forced to face another
major challenge of train hopping, having enough supplies, the group
was running out of water. In that situation, well, first
we spent a night by the tracks because we thought
(19:21):
maybe something else would stop, but trains rolled past too
fast to get on all night long. And then the
next day we're like, well we just have to walk
until we see something. And how many whiles did you
have to walk? I don't remember. I mean, the people
are traveling with weren't super great, but we were like
running out of water at that point. We finally, like,
(19:44):
I saw a farmhouse in the distance, and uh, everybody
was too scared to go ask them for water. They
made me go do it because that was the girl.
Of course, as the only woman in the group, Zoe
(20:05):
was the one that did the work of begging for water.
So alone, Zoe approached the house. I knocked on the
door and the person that opened the door was a
Mennonite woman and she didn't say a word to me.
I was like, hey, I need some water, and I'm
like filthy and look crazy, and it was a wordless transaction.
(20:25):
She like motioned for me to come into the house.
She grabbed my water jug, she filled it up, She
gave me some pamphlets on being a Mennonite, and then
closed the door behind me. Set me on my wife.
Even if you calculated the right amount of water to bring,
if people you were traveling with aren't smart about it
(20:47):
or experienced enough, you would pay the price. The rails
are a small world, and in this tiny society, Google's
could make everything worse. Morgan told me last episode about
how hobos would ditch Google's whenever they could, and getting
left behind could have big consequences, especially when the weather
(21:09):
starts turning cold. Four months after Ruby left, she called
and asked if I could send her some of her sweaters.
Ruby was in Tennessee and it was cold. Of course
I could. I'd do it right away. She'd never ask
for anything while she was on the road, so here
I had a chance to do something for her. I
(21:31):
gathered up her sweaters and jackets, thinking about everything else
I wanted to stuff into that box. New underwear, socks, chapstick,
face wipes, shampoo and conditioner, hand sanitizer, long John's sunblock,
fingerless gloves, homemade chockat chip cookies, and an envelope full
of cash. I was grinning at the post office, imagining
(21:52):
her cozy in these sweaters, hams warmed in these gloves,
passing around her favorite cookies, a little touch of love
from home. By the time I was done, the box
costs a hundred dollars to ship. I would have spent
more than that for the chance to be her mom again.
(22:12):
A week later, Ruby called from a friend's phone, ecstatic
and grateful. She loved everything in the box. She and
her friends sat around as she unpacked layer after layer.
Now they were enjoying the chocol ship cookies. Later they
were going to get all suited up and go to
the grocery store and have a feast, and everyone would
be warm. Because she had given away most of the box.
(22:35):
I was stunned. I had meant those things for her,
all of them. When I was picking through the thrift
store and racing around the aisles of Old Navy, I
wasn't thinking of clothing every hobo in Tennessee. It took
me until the next day to understand how wrong I was.
Ruby carried just as much as she needed, not five
(22:55):
sweaters and four jackets playing that would be a burden.
Now everyone was warm. This world was pushing me to
rethink all sorts of things. Sure, I used to think
I was generous giving dinner to anyone who showed up
at my doorstep. But that was a formal kind of
generosity where I risked very little. When we gave away
(23:16):
these warm clothes. Her generosity was more intimate. She put
herself at risk so that everyone could be comfortable, and
of course it was only a little bit of comfort,
because riding trains was never all that comfortable. Then maybe
I had to rethink my idea about comfort too. You know,
I has known people that how could people do this
(23:37):
for years, even trying to get to sleep in a
box car. Thomas Wolfe explained it to me. So see
you continue like when you're riding, can you sleep in
that box because I hear it is people told me
it is like super noisy. Right. Oh, it's another one
of those really beautiful things. As you'r dozing off, all
these sounds of it makes it's almost like sings to you.
(24:03):
What what kind of a song is it sing? Yeah,
I mean it's it's not really anything discernible. You know,
it's point where you're just about to fall off, you're
not really asleep, and then all those creaking sounds and
the talk of talking poka all that, it's just like
it's singing. As some piece it's called the Hopo was older.
You know that clack clack clack on the railroad text
(24:24):
it's called the Hogo is lullaby. Yeah right, it's one
of the best, one of my favorite songs. Every Dalbo
love as beautiful as Thomas makes it sound. Chain hopping
(24:55):
isn't easy. You really have to want it to go
through the gauntlet of this world, getting caught by the cops,
running out of food or water, traveling with Google's who
slowed you down, or being stuck in a car with
a gas leak. These were just some of the risk
you could face once you got in the box car.
But getting on the train and surviving the trip are
just steps one and two. The final step was knowing
(25:18):
when and where to get off. Experienced writers have insider
dollars that helps them navigate and time their journeys just right.
There's a guide, a document passed from hand to hand
among veteran riders, and I really wanted to copy. Wog's
like me are not supposed to be let in on
those secrets, but hell, I'm going to try. Hey, I'm
(25:56):
getting back stuff out of the trunk, I'm gonna go
in there. And after my trip to Roosevelt with Zoe,
it was clear I wasn't cut out for the hobo life.
And even if I had gotten up in the box car,
my conversations with travelers like Thomas Wolfe showed me just
(26:17):
how difficult it was to survive. Most of the time,
I just walk past the mailbox right say it's a
lucky there when I think the chances that are it
is in there. But there was a book only held
by a few that could give me that insider knowledge.
(26:38):
It was the secret map to the City of the Rails.
Lucky recipient. A copy it would be elusive, the much desired.
For a week, I've been checking my mailbox waiting for
the package to arrive. I'm hoping it in my head.
(27:09):
Finally I had it, The Crew Change Guide. I can't
open it here in the bobby. It's a suit of
the moment. M M. I suppose how small it is.
(27:30):
On my way up to my apartment, I anticipated what
I'd find in the pages of this guy. The Crew Changes,
a sacred document, both cherished and scoffed at. Many of
the hoboes I've spoken to had strong opinions about it
one way or the other, and certainly that's something an
outsider like me often gets to say. But here I was.
It's got to stab if I holding a beat up
(27:52):
old copy. Wow is that really tiny? Type? Wow? YEA.
From what I've been told, the Crew Change contained practical advice.
For example, Morgan told me about a time she used
the Crew Change to figure out where to jump off
before her train entered the yard. I've never felt something
(28:13):
the way I felt when I completed my first train ride,
and I was a little nervous because I had to
jump off on the fly, which means while it's still going,
then you're supposed to run right when your feet in
the ground with the direction of the train. So I
remember throwing my pack and I just knew right in
that moment I had to go right then, and I jumped,
(28:36):
and it's it's like I knew I was supposed to run,
but I couldn't, and I just tumbled, tumbled, tumble, tumble,
tumble down, and it was all bruised up. What happened
next felt like a scene straight out of a movie.
I remember going and it's in the crew change, and
this was the magical. This is just one of those
(28:57):
little magical things in the crew change. If you read
where you get off at the spot, it talks about
a peanut man and how there's if you walk down
this road and through the trees and there's there's you know,
trees on either side of you, and you you'll get
(29:17):
to this corner and there'll be a peanut man, a
man selling peanuts, and you'll go up to him and
he'll know that you're a train hopper and he'll give
you some peanuts and then you go here to wash up,
and then and then onto the next stop. And I
remember seeing that peanut man and it being like, holy shit,
it feels like Lord of the Rings. Yeah, it was no, seriously,
(29:41):
like that's what it feels like. I was on this
grand adventure to nowhere. I had no actual from Morgan.
The crew change was magical. It was great luck that
she had it with her, especially when she was first
starting out. But Mike Bradie explained that it was actually
more practical than magical. Explains to the crew change where too,
(30:03):
how to get that train yard and naviget that train
yard and what trains are going where. However, it's just
a guide, so tons of people take it as like
a freaking like accurate bible. So it's like weird. So
it's like this cultural thing where people just like really
think it's like fact. But people have just collectively put
that information together for decades. The hobos who contribute to
(30:24):
the Crew Change report changes in the layout of yards
and increases in yard security. Before the Internet, hobos communicated
through symbols scrawled on the undersides of bridges, warnings that
there were mean cops in the yard, or a tip
for a house close by where you could get some
food or use the telephone. My favorite is the one
that let other writers know sad story will get you dinner.
(30:46):
That's me. Some of those marketings still exist on the
edges of train yards, like the graffiti tanker I saw
with Zoe, but the Crew Change is much more specific,
and national writers like Mike send these yard updates to
the Crew Chage List ser a digital version of the
same network. But even though he's contributed to the crew Change,
Mike says he's outgrown it. I have the new change
(31:10):
guid yea because I contributed to it. Oh wow, I'd
love to see it. I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do
a video though, where I light it on fire. So
I don't because next time I go train hopping, I'm
not bringing it. I don't need it. You can probably
tell where this is going. We'll give you send me
a copy of it. I'll make you a copy. Okay, okay.
(31:31):
If the Royal Road name is underlined, it indicates a mainline.
But holding it in my hands, the crew change didn't
look how I expected. If the railroad name is not underlining,
I suppose Morgan's peanut Man had me imagining a booklet
with mystical creatures drawed in the margins, or a steampunk
aesthetic with old Western type. But the crew change is
all business. How do you live things up in here?
(31:56):
Major long distance routs with crew change points from I
understood how valuable the crew change could be to a
new writer, But a veteran writer like Mike didn't need it.
And there are things the crew change could never teach you.
Even experienced writers might spend a few months with the
older writers to pick up some tricks. Terry introduced me
to another experienced writer, her ex boyfriend, whose train name
(32:19):
was Cheddar. Cheddar told me that after more than a
decade of writing, he agreed to travel with the notorious
hobo Dirty Mike to see what else he could learn.
You know, he actually no ship you. He did definitely
show me some hop out spots and showed me some
(32:41):
good sign flying spots to make money throughout the country.
You know what I mean that I was not aware
of before I had traveled with him. So yeah, he
definitely took me to a few of his own super
secret spots, you know, like showed like good spots to
get a kicked down, good spots to make a buck,
good spots to catch a train. You know, Cheddar saw
Mike's experience firsthand when they hopped off a train. We
(33:04):
get to the spot and we jump off our train,
and he's like, I'll be right back, and he be
lines off into the bushes and I kind of just
meandered after him a little bit, and uh, he's off
frummaging around in the bushes and he procures like a
barbecue grill and and it chugg of water and he's like,
all right, now, we gotta go up the street. And uh.
We went to this like dumpster and we dumpstered all
(33:26):
this food and came back and we had like a
flat out like started a little wood fire and his
little webbard grilling at and had a little barbecue right
there next to the railroad tracks and drink beer. It
was fun. It was It was a cool It was
a cool impression that I got from. I was like, Wow,
I see that stuff stashed all over the country, right,
and he could roll into all these different spots. And
(33:50):
that was my thought on the matter. I'm like, wow, man,
I wonder if this guy's got it like this everywhere
you know. This was a lead level Oboeing Durning my head,
a network so deep and well organized that he had
barbecue stashed and major train yards across the country, but
those wouldn't be in the crew change. Only Jurning, Mike
and those he traveled with would know. My journey into
(34:17):
the rail yard started out as a search for my daughter.
I was trying to understand the life that Ruby chose
and her odds of surviving. Because I learned what it
takes and got to know the people on both sides
of the tracks, I felt myself getting pulled in. Every
question I asked led me to another question, to another
unforgettable character, and to another train yard full of secrets.
(34:41):
My constant worry about Ruby didn't go away. But there
was something else motivating me now, six months after she left,
A curiosity about the city of the Rails, a curiosity
that was quickly growing into an obsession. This search had
revealed a world hiding in plain sight, and if I
was going to really understand it, I knew where I
(35:03):
had to go next. Here's Alaska, So if I could
find California, Colton, Colton West, Colton Yard is it. A
lot of the hobo's I met kept bringing up Colton,
like Colton, Like who gives the funk about Colton, California? Right?
Like like what the fund is West Colton? But to
(35:27):
a train rider, West Colton is the capital city, you
know through West Colton is a capital city for tramps.
It is. There's a capital city for tramps. I've got
to know more. There's so many big railroad cities like
Chicago and Minneapolis. Why was Colton the capital? Pretty much
(35:50):
every hobo I met had some crazy story about Colton.
From what I was hearing, it sounded more like the
Wild West. The bullet passed in and out of my
hat twice and grazed my head and the other one
went through my back, Like you're a girl by yourself,
what you're gonna do about it? And I was like,
oh yeah, I'm And I yelled dirty my name. She
comes growning up. So David Colton, he's the proof of
(36:12):
the adage to live outside the law, you must be honest,
at least with each other department. No suspects were contacted.
So there's a lot that's missing here. There's a lot
that's redacted. What exactly is going on in Colton and
why on earth is this the capital city for tramps.
I've never heard that in the years I've been here.
Um doubt. Does South Side Colton Gang exist? Yes, that's
(36:40):
next episode on City of the Rails as well be
(37:08):
drinking gastle, Look what you've done. The City of the
Rails is hosted and written by me Daniel Morton and
developed in partnership between Flip Turn Studios and I Heart Podcasts.
I think we got it all wrong? Call in and
(37:28):
tell us at seven oh seven six three oh three,
three nine and leave a message. That's also the place
for questions, comments, criticisms, original songs. Whatever you think we
should know, we might use it on the show at
I Heart. Our team is executive producer and showrunner Julian Weller,
Senior producer and editing master Abouza far and our excellent
(37:51):
producers Emily maronof Shina Ozaki and Zoey Denkla, with production
support from Marci to Pina. Excellent original music every episode
by Aaron Kaufman. Our theme music is Wayfaring Stranger, performed
by Profane Sass thanks to Scott Michaud at Flail Records.
Our logo is by Lucy Quingtonia and uses a photograph
by Mike Brody. Thanks to Thomas Wolfe for your stoicism
(38:15):
and for your poetry, and to Danny Dean for quite
a colorful story. Zoe. I couldn't have done it without you,
and I didn't even do it, Alexei. You're right, there's
got to be something better than this garbage. Our executive
producer at flip turn is Mark Healey at I Heart.
Thanks to Nikki Tore and Deathann Michalouso. If you want
(38:36):
to follow along, find us on Instagram at flip turn Pods.
We'll be back next week in Colton, California, The Hobo
Capital on the City of the Rails, the story of
making it through the story of nearly dying. Okay, I
(38:57):
think that's enough choices, Julian, or you can Frankenstein it
and say, well, hey, these two words from over here
and this pause from here and this inhalation from here
and call it a day.
Host
Danelle Morton
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