Hobos??

There is the National Hobo Museum in Britt,Iowa.Their website address is www.hobo.com

Here ya go:

http://cnnphotos.blogs.cnn.com...ng/?hpt=hp_c3#update

I was in Whitefish, MT in 1991, walked to the western end of the yard, and, lurking behind a signal box, was a shadowy figure. I engaged him in conversation and it turned out he was an old school, authentic hobo. He maintained small bank accounts across the "high line" (the old Great Northern main, which runs across the top of the country), picked up odd jobs here and there, and had been 'boing for some 30+ years. He had grown up in a railroad family,as his father was a Rock Island switchman. He seemed pretty stable, but I could not help but muse over what a desperately lonely and miserable lifestyle he was pursuing. He advised that 'boing is a dangerous trade as, at that time, at least, there was a group riding the rails named the "Freight Train Riders Association", which were essentially the Hells Angels of the rails and who were predators on legitimate hobos.

       The next morning I was at the Whitefish Depot which has some huge pine trees adjacent. Camped under the trees were three of the meanest looking dudes + two German Shepherds, I have seen, in my sheltered middle-class lifestyle! They certainly looked like FTRA members! I pity the poor railroad police who have to deal with such characters.

         So, yes, hobos do exist nowadays.

By two weird coincidences, "60 Minutes" last night on CBS reran their story about the

Mexican trainrider who attacked women and others.  I had forgotten that he got his,

and that two of the victims were students at my alma mater, maybe 20 years after I

was there.  Also don't remember any RR tracks close to the university, but students

lived all over the place, including me.

I sure wouldn't call them "Hobos" anymore. You haven't lived until you have walked through a consist of units in the middle of the night, and find two transients "camping" in the cab of the last SD70MAC! The smell would knock you out. I only got one foot in the rear cab door and quickly realized what was going on. I headed back up to the lead unit, and had the Engineer call the Dispatcher, and we locked our rear cab door from the inside, prior to departing Trinidad, CO.. The special agents met us farther north.

When was the last time that tramp character appeared in the "Blondie" comic strip?

Ask if any hobo knows "Big Rock Candy Mountain"?

In 1973, a friend and I spent a good portion of the summer... up in Revelstoke, B.C. One afternoon, while I was waiting, watching as a big freight, from the east, pull into CP's yard, I noticed a guy and his dog jump off one of the incoming freight cars; the guy was filthy, covered in soot; his dog was... too.

The train they hitched a rid on... had just finished passing through the, approximately, five mile long, Connaught tunnel. I don't think that was a pleasant experience...

Rick

Although not qualifying as true "Hobos", three teenagers hopped an NS train in New Haven, IN. this past weekend and rode east on the former Nickel Plate Road towards Bellevue. They got off at Findlay, OH. and according to local news reports today, started walking back west towards Fort Wayne. One of them chose to "fall asleep on the tracks" and was struck and killed by a train. The two friends were not struck. You have to wonder where the two friends were when the third friend was "sleeping" on the tracks.

"Although not qualifying as true hobos", three fellows in my west suburban Chicago high school sophomore class decided to pursue a "truly excellent" spring break. They found their way over to the CB&Q Clyde Yard in Cicero and entered an empty boxcar in the yard, expecting to ride a short distance to Aurora. Well, they unfortunately hopped a real hotshot and ended up "trapped" in that boxcar all the way to Minot, ND, where railroad special agents intercepted them and put them under arrest. Their none-to-pleased parents had to fly out to Minot to bail them out and bring 'em home! That was in 1961.

       On a less-pleasant note, another railfan friend from the same high school hired on with the Q as a Switchman at Clyde. In his 6 month tenure, they found one man trapped and frozen to death in the ice bunker of a reefer and another gent crushed by a shifted load in a gon. Clearly these were not professional "bo's", as they were unaquainted with safe train hopping practices.

Guys and Gals,

Although the hobo lifestyle seems carefree and easy, from what you all have said here it CLEARLY is risky business!!!!! Makes you wonder what kind of desperation was back in the 30's and early 40's, doesn't it? It was called the Great Depression.

Back then America didn't have the love affair with the car and highway that we now have. We were largely traveling by rail.

Needless to say there are a great many homeless hobos still around.

Mike Maurice

Yep hopping RR cars is asking for it.

Here is a couple that was killed buried in a hopper car:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/si...-coal-162959769.html

Recall a wonderful article in the old Railroad Magazine in 1958, titled "Dollar a Division", by George Milburn. It described how some hard-bitten trainmen would extract pay for riding their train.......a dollar a division! And how they would toss the non-payers off moving trains! 

       Re the Great Depression and 'bo's, it was said that 2 million men were "on the road", riding freight trains, seeking work. And recall, that was with a population of something like 85 million in the '30's.

      ......and there was a blues singer named Sleepy John Estes, who was from Tennessee, who recorded a tune in the late '30's, titled "Special Agent", wherein he was riding an Illinois Central freight northbound, but gets snagged by a Special Agent in Centralia, IL. He beseaches the Special Agent, "Please don't put me off on some dogggone branch; I gotta be in Chicago to do some recording!"  "Man, them Special Agents sure are hard on a man!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0134dt6Mc5c

My mom is a "Depression Baby" and can tell all sorts of stories about that terrible era in American history.  When I was in high school, I made the mistake one time of asking her if she ever saw hobos during the Depression.  Her response was a five minute rant ranging from the hobos' conduct, the families left behind when they took off on the rails, their filthy camps near the railroad yards, etc."  I can still hear it in my mind today:  "Bums, nothing but bums, leaving families behind with nothing...".   My dad just listened and gave me a look like, "Stand there and listen; you asked for it." Of course, because I asked, the rant was aimed directly at me...like I was to blame for how hobos conducted themselves during the Depression. 

Evidently my mom knew some hobos who had abandoned their families in Massachusetts during the Depression .  She did not share the romantic view of hobos so many people seem to possess.

After that little lecture, I received a second one immediately afterwards on why my Uncle Bill, a Railway Express "armed messenger", carried a billy club whenever he traveled in the express cars or moved around the railroad yards in New England and NYC during the 1950s and early 1960s.  (He could shoot if there was a robbery, but not if it there was an intruder like a hobo, so he had to carry the billy club.)  Of course, several of his close calls had to be explained to me in vivid detail by my mom.  (Yes, the expression "don't ask the question if you can't stand the answer" fit perfectly here.)  When I was a teenager, my uncle showed me the billy club, so I know that wasn't just a rant from my mom.

I should ask her about hobos again when I call her this week; it might be entertaining to hear her opinion on them again. 

I had a friend a number of years ago who told me about how he and a friend, while in college, spend several months one summer riding the rails. They met a fair number of other people who were doing the same thing. He said several times train crews would find them and, seeing they were just college kids, tell them to hop in the rear engine cab and ride there. Against the rules, no doubt, but..... 

Back in the Depression days things were a lot different as to views toward transient men. There were so many of them, and people understood, given the tough times everyone was facing. Things weren't so violent, either. My grandparents told me about many times in those years when men would stop by their farm and ask if they could sleep in the barn and maybe get something to eat. These things were not unusual then. Men traveling the railroads looking for work was a common thing as well.

All kinds of people rode the trains. Several years ago a very prominent businessman here in Dallas passed away. Among other things, he owned a number of large car dealerships, and was a multi-multi-millionaire. In his obit, it mentioned that he originally came to Dallas in the 30's, riding on a boxcar into the old Texas & Pacific yard near downtown. He decided to get off there, and eventually went into business and became one of the city's most prominent citizens.  

Suitable closing for this thread...

Once I built a railroad, made it run,

Made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad, but now its done.

Brother, can you spare a dime?