(With Photos)---Rail Life-- What It's Like To Live On the Rails

[John317]

Hopping freights and living by your wits may sound thrilling, but those who know the hobo way say its perils keep growing.

By Ben Goad

The Press-Enterprise

In a place where discarded couches line the road like dozens of battered carcasses, hobos are in evidence.

Crumpled and faded beer cans found near train tracks in Colton, Rialto and Indio serve as proof they still exist.

Yet the loosely knit community of people who jump freight trains for adventure, transportation or habit is largely invisible to most people. This band of misfits, nonconformists, drunks, social outcasts and lonely souls instinctively stays hidden or gets confused with garden-variety tramps and homeless folks. They are rolling nowhere.

But the sight of steel tracks disappearing over a dusty Southern California hillside holds enough promise, hope or nostalgia for some to brave a lifestyle that hobos and transportation officials agree is increasingly dangerous.

"I've been in some fights, and I've seen guys get their arms cut off or their legs cut off by falling under the train," said Michael Ross, a hobo for 18 years. "But I'd rather live life by my own rules."

Gone are the Great Depression and Dust Bowl days, when men jumped freights to Southern California with hopes of finding a day or two of hard labor. Faded into history is the era when so-called beatniks, inspired by the published adventures of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, began seeing the country from freight cars.

Nowadays, it is tales of men crushed by steel pipes that shifted without warning in a train car that are traded in hobo camps. Or of hobos sliced in two after missing a jump aboard. Or of the latest victim of the mysterious, and notorious, Freight Train Riders of America.

Each year, about 500 people die accidentally while trespassing on freights and in rail yards around the country, according to statistics kept by the Federal Railroad Administration, an arm of the Transportation Department. Twice as many are injured, the statistics show.

Many more trespassers are slain on freights, alongside the tracks or in hobo camps, but the railroad administration doesn't keep homicide figures.

For the fourth straight year, California ranked first in such deaths in 1999, the statistics show. The 86 accidental fatalities involving trespassers here last year more than doubled those of Texas, which was second with 42.

In San Bernardino County, railroad yards, train tracks and freight cars have been the sites of 13 homicides and accidental deaths involving apparent hobos since 1995, county coroner's statistics show.

The Riverside County Sheriff/Coroner's Office could not provide corresponding figures, but Sgt. Mark Lohman, the department's spokesman, said there were fewer fatalities during the same period.

"We have the guys who fall off the trains while trying to break locks on the cars for theft purposes," Lohman said. "We also have homicides and transient deaths, but not as many as in San Bernardino (County)," he said.

Blood on the tracks

In grisly detail, coroner's records recount the deaths of these men and women, many of whom remain unidentified.

Some died in falls from moving cars, as Richard Trescarates Jr., a 20-year-old man from Arizona, did in February in Needles.

Others were fatally crushed or sliced by fast-moving steel wheels, like John Doe 32-99, who was found mangled on the tracks in Fontana.

Others were shot, stabbed or -- like transient Roberto Castro -- beaten to death alongside the tracks.

Some have perished alone from hypothermia. That was the fate of Heriberto Hernandez, who jumped into the bottom of a freight car and couldn't escape. His body was found in Trona in June.

"I've seen some terrible things -- everything from a boxcar full of illegal aliens who died trying to get into the States to hundreds of accidents and homicides of all kinds," said Mike Furtney, spokesman for the Union Pacific Railroad. "Hoboing is a risky business and one I wouldn't advise anyone to try."

Jorge Pineda, 30, a native of Jalisco, Mexico, spoke last month of the perils of riding freight trains. A thin, youthful-looking man with a three-day growth of beard, Pineda was wandering near the Union Pacific Depot in Indio last month.

A couple of years ago, he jumped a freight in Yuma, Ariz., bound for Los Angeles, he said. But the train shot past LA and whipped up the coast, traveling at 50 or 60 mph, he recalled.

The cold became unbearable. He huddled from a bitter wind in an open car illuminated by a full moon reflecting off the Pacific.

"I was helpless and pretty sure I was going to die, curled up into the corner of the car," Pineda said, smiling even as he spoke of his fear.

The train carried him past the Bay Area, eventually slowing to what he estimated was 35 mph in a small industrial town in Northen California.

Pineda jumped, landing on his back on the frozen earth, and then ran to a nearby factory, where he found shelter in an unlocked storage building.

The inherent danger of having no control over one's destination always has been part of the hobo life, he said. But violence between hobos has increased over the years, he said.

"It seems like nobody fights (with) fists no more," Pineda said. "Some guys have knives, some have guns, some have rocks, but they all got something. When you're homeless, you meet a lot of desperate people."

An unknown quantity

The Freight Train Riders of America is said to have been born one night almost two decades ago inside a tavern in a Montana logging town.

A gang of 30 to 40 men, mostly wanderers and freight-jumpers, vowed to take over America's rails, said retired Spokane, Wash., police Officer Bob Grandenetti.

Grandenetti, who spent about 20 of his 31 years on the force researching the Freight Train Riders of America and interviewing its members, estimates its membership at 15,000 to 20,000.

Most people who ride the rails these days are either members or associates of the group, he said.

"If you have a major, or even medium line runnin' through your town, then you got the FTRA," Grandenetti said. "They're right there -- under your bridges, panhandling at your freeway exits and drinking in your train yards."

The group's lack of organization has made it difficult for authorities to track its size. But Furtney, the Union Pacific spokesman, said he thinks reports of the group's size and deeds are exaggerated.

"We're certainly not suggesting they don't exist," he said. "We haven't seen evidence that it's as big or scary as some people would have us believe."

The group, like most gangs, is turf-oriented, Grandenetti said. Its turf is the rails, and its members will defend it at all costs, he said.

"If you're not FTRA and you're in a yard or on a freight, you better watch out, because they don't hold back," he said. "They'll rob you and jump a freight. They'll kill someone and jump another one. They'll party together all night, jump nine different freights and disappear into the general population."

Many members are marked with railroad-track tattoos. Cloth bandanas, long associated with the American hobo, carry particular significance for Freight Train Riders members, Grandenetti said.

The meaning lies in the color: Blue for members from the Midwest, red for those who travel in the South and black for those on the West Coast.

When initiating a new recruit, members take turns urinating on the man's bandana, Grandenetti said. The recruit must then wear it for five days to show his toughness, the police officer added.

Grandenetti said that most of the group's founding members whom he has interviewed identified a man called Daniel Boone as their leader, he said. Whether myth or reality, stories of Boone and another man, known as "Dog Man," have spread everywhere the rails will take them.

The two are said to have killed more than 65 men. FBI officials in Washington declined to say whether they think Boone and Dog Man exist.

Grandenetti said he has spoken to both men and fears them still, even in his retirement. While tracking them as an officer about five years ago, Grandenetti learned through informants that Dog Man had killed a military veteran somewhere in the Northwest, he said.

"He murdered him, robbed him of his identity, checked into a VA hospital, had back surgery and then disappeared again," Grandenetti said. "This is the kind of risks these guys will take; it's the reason I'm still at their mercy."

An endangered species

Jim Newton is among a dying breed.

A true Okie, the 66-year-old has lived much of his life on the rails and has witnessed a worsening climate for hobos over the years.

As he recalled his childhood, Newton's fingers traced the deep wrinkles on his face, the product of years under the sun, toiling in Southern California fields as a migrant worker.

"It's like train tracks," he said, following the worn grooves. "They have no start or end."

Newton was a young boy when his father, like so many others, lost the family's farm in Checotah, Okla. Leaving the Dust Bowl behind, Newton and his family made their way to California, he said.

"During that time, I picked every kind of fruit I ever heard of," Newton said, sitting on a flat stone a few feet from the tracks in central Indio earlier this month. "That's also when I started jumping freights."

Though Newton found rail-riding frightening at first, he soon became proficient at eluding authorities and making the jumps unscathed.

"It was scary at first, but once you learn the basics and learn how to get in and out of train yards, it's fine," he said. "It's a good way to get around if you don't have a buck to your name."

About 20 years ago, Newton began noticing a new element on the rails, especially in Southern California, he said. More and more, he ran into menacing characters, he said. No more did hobos rely on one another, united against the railroad police.

While he hadn't heard of the Freight Train Riders of America, he was aware of a growing gang presence on the rails.

"Every year, there's more young guys raisin' hell and going after each other," he said. "I try to stick to the Greyhound (buses) these days, but if I was more physical, I'd probably jump one tomorrow."

Still rolling

The scar that runs from Scottie Miller's left jaw to his collarbone is tangible evidence of the trouble that can be found on the rails. Miller, 38, originally from Chicago, said he was knifed in a hobo-camp brawl a few years back.

He has ridden the rails on and off his whole life and agrees that the danger has increased. Still, he isn't likely to quit any time soon, he said.

About 50 yards from the tracks, near the Indio train yard last month, Miller made camp in a thicket at the base of a short palm tree, seeking protection from the nearly 100-degree heat.

He and a woman sat on two mattresses and played with her tiny kitten as another man walked up. All three were homeless, but Miller is the only one who jumps trains, he said.

"It's free," he said, putting the kitten into the pocket of a coat laid across the woman's lap. "It's a thing you start doing just for a way to get somewhere, but you get used to it.

"You meet a lot of people while you're looking for a day's work," he said. "But it's not how it used to be, with guys all sittin' together in an empty car."

Miller said he has met men who claim to be members of the Freight Train Riders of America but has found that the risks of hoboing are outweighed by his longing to see the country.

"You meet people who are looking for violence. You run into it a lot," he said. "I try to keep within myself and out of trouble.

In Colton, hobos frequent the railroad yards as well as an area near Slover Avenue that is strewn with tattered couches and garbage. Because there is little traffic, the spot is an ideal hobo camp, police say.

"I come here whenever I'm around these parts, said Michael Ross, 37, of Southern California. He has been riding the rails for 18 years, he said.

Ross wore a dirty red shirt and dirty red beard and carried a "tallboy" beer in a brown paper bag. He's seen every state and Mexico for free, but he has led an uncomfortable and sad life, he said.

Like Miller, Pineda and Newton, Ross knows no better existence.

"A bad day is lonely -- you don't know who to trust, or who is going to be mean to you. Most everybody is mean to you," he said. "A good day is being around other people, talking, maybe getting a meal or some beer. I try to get a day's work whenever I can, but that's not as easy as it used to be."

One Monday last month, Ross camped alone alongside the tracks beneath the La Cadena Drive overpass. As the sun went down, he settled into a homemade sleeping bag and drank his beer.

Source: http://www.press-enterprise.com/newsarchive/2000/11/26/

Photographs from the time when I used to ride the rails:

[John317]

Pictures of Rail Life: