But we probably aren't gonna ride any boxcars. If we get in an empty boxcar, make sure you stick a railroad spike in the door to hold it open, because if that door closes with you in it, they might not find you for months. And always throw your bag off first when you get off. The freight tends to shift, and it can squish you like a bug. Don't get in a gondola that's carrying anything. There might be some grainers, which are good to ride in, but try and pick a double-holed grainer over a single. It'll be loaded with mixed freight: car carriers, piggybacks, gondolas, forty-eights. That's gonna take us four days non-stop, except for crew changes every eight hours or so. 'What we want is a hotshot, high priority freight that's going express from the coast to Toronto. Even with a tip from a friendly worker about when the train is pulling out, you are a nonpaying customer and on the railroad's schedule. It is a truism with riding freight that you spend as much time sitting around and waiting for the train as you do actually riding it. We find a hidden spot in the trees about twenty yards from the tracks to sit and wait.

We're catching out to go all the way home. The Canadian Pacific line shadows the Trans-Canada Highway, the main artery running 3,000 miles from Vancouver to St John's, Newfoundland, in more or less a straight shot. Although Canada is the second largest country in the world (after Russia), it is remarkably linear 90 percent of the population lives within 200 miles of the US border, and freight lines only run where they are needed. The trains from this yard, according to my rough notes, are only going one way. We walk several miles to the yard, and the long low sound of a train whistle grabs our attention. We stock up on supplies for what could be a five-day ride: trail mix, granola bars, dried fruit and as much water as we can carry. But greater journeys have been undertaken with less.Īfter packing up our gear, we ride a bus to the eastern edge of the city where the yard of the CP lies hidden behind a row of warehouses. All we have to guide us are a few notes cribbed from some trainhoppers in Eugene, Oregon, and a diner placemat printed with a rough map of Canada. Neither of us has ever been on this line, and aren't really sure what we're in for. Pike is a much more experienced trainhopper, who I hope will serve as a fitting guide for our a trip. He's from Clearwater, Florida, with a bushy beard that doesn't hide a babyface. I wake up Pike, my traveling companion since we met several weeks before in Southern Colorado. A mist rises off the Georgia Strait revealing Vancouver Island in the distance. I wake up to a gray dawn on Wreck Beach at the western edge of Vancouver, wrapped up in a tent fly that has kept out none of the night's drizzle. The plan, hatched around a campfire on the beach a week previous, is to ride the Canadian Pacific rail line 3,000 miles east, across half a dozen mountain ranges and the vast wheat ocean of the great plains. It's early August, but this far north the summer is waning fast, and I am ready to begin the long trip from Vancouver to New York City. The wealth of knowledge is endless and very important.Īll that said, welcome, you found the right place, and safe travels.Day One: Mile 0, Vancouver, British Columbia Take the advice of experienced riders (I, myself, am still pretty much a greenhorn) on this website. It is dirty, difficult, extremely dangerous (not just because of the trains) and illegal. Riding trains is not a glorified lifestyle. Try picking up some books, a railroad atlas, and hitting up some railfan websites and assign yourself some homework before you consider this. I literally read every single thread on this website before I caught out my first time.

Try reading the stickys in the train hopping section first, then read the threads with people talking about their first time riding. This website has a wealth of knowledge to dive into, as well as outside resources to consult WAY before you grab your first ladder. Stobe had been riding for quite a while, and as with many veterans of any activity, I believe he became complacent, hence trying to walk across a narrow trestle that is know to be frequented by Amtrak.ĭo not rush into this. When I say I disagree with it was mainly because those stobe videos have a wealth of knowledge to be learned from. I hold the man in high Snack welcome to StP. Although many of his habits in riding safety were subpar, the guy basically is the one who got me to start riding.

Stobe the hobo