The $285 Freight Train Hopping Experience

I ducked down and walked slowly toward the freight train as it rolled to a stop. Concentrate, I thought, trying to mute the sound of the gravel under my feet. I stopped three feet in front of the railway car, and saw it was the one I wanted. It was basically half of a box platform for a bigger transport container (the same as transport trucks haul) and there was a five by six foot empty space behind the giant box. Perfect.

I took a quick look around and threw my guitar bag over the rim. I pushed myself up by my arms and toppled in head first, my shoe catching on a metal hinge that jutted out.

I loved the adrenaline rush that I always got when I climbed onto a train, and today was no different.

It was hour five and I hadn’t had much success. I had hopped on four trains in the hopes that they were going somewhere, but just as soon as we’d start moving, the string of cars would stop and roll backwards into a different waiting slot. Maybe I should have taken that as a bad omen.

To my surprise, the train I was on started moving, and picked up speed as it left the train yard, headed in the vague direction of Truro. Or Cape Breton. Quite possibly Montreal. I didn’t care — at least it was moving, and I was on it.

I was dressed in all black clothes, and was carrying a soft-shell guitar case which held my clothes, a few sandwiches, a headlamp, a wool blanket and a poncho in case it rained. No guitar this trip.

As the train picked up momentum, the sound of the metal on metal and the wind rushing by on either side of me was deafening. Against my better judgement, I stood up and peered over the rim of the car. To my left, the Bedford Highway; to my right, the sun setting over Bedford Basin.

This was my cliché moment. Wind in my hair, sun setting over the water. I felt alive. Jack Kerouac’s ghost lives! I thought. Followed quickly by, Mike, you corny motherfucker.

A flash of sun glare off a car windshield on my left suddenly grabbed my attention and brought me back to reality. I was in a train, illegally; I should probably be hiding. In the back seat of the car a kid was waving at me. I gave a quick smile and wave back, then ducked into my hiding place again. Hopefully the kid won’t tell his parents, I thought. Then I dismissed the thought as being overly paranoid. I decide to stay down until I was well out of city limits, just to be safe.

20 minutes later, the train stopped. I stood up and looked around. The sun had almost disappeared behind the trees and we were on a section of the rail line with only one set of tracks, a place where trains don’t normally stop. Strange, I thought. We were also almost directly across from my old high school.

Then, as soon as we had stopped, we were going again, but this time much slower. I heard voices, and suddenly looked up overhead to see an overpass full of cop cars and a floodlight shining directly down on me.
One of the cops yelled. “Stop the train! We found him!”

My adrenaline instantly started pumping. Shit, what am I going to do? And why the hell are all those cops out here looking for a hobo on a train? Gears in my brain crunching. There must be someone else on the train, I thought. Maybe they were looking for a real criminal that had escaped custody of the police and they suspected he had hopped this train.

The train screeched forward another 100 feet until it stopped, and I jumped out, behind the cover of the container. I walked slowly towards the bushes as I watched a few of the cops navigate the overpass slope to get to the tracks. The flashing lights almost paralyzed me, but I kept walking away from the lights, into the bushes. Escape? I thought. Possibly.

Then I noticed a man with two dogs walking near the police car, I made up my mind. I didn’t want to be that guy you see on Cops, chased down by police dogs… (although at least I wouldn’t be yelling, “but she was askin’ for it…”)

I calmly walked over to the three officers with the cliché phrase “Is there a problem, officer?” (What the fuck? Did I just say that? Goddamn, I watch too many movies…)

“Oh, hey, where did you come from?”

“Uh, what do you mean?” I said, trying to avoid the obvious.

“Were you on the train?” He asked, and his look turned to severe.

I immediately broke down crying, asking them to let me go. “I don’t want to go to prison… I’m just a kid…” I whimpered. Just kidding – no whimpering. I did, however, confess that I was on the train.

I spun a story around the fact that my grandfather had hopped trains from town to town during the depression looking for work (which was true) and I just wanted to try it once to see what it was like (not so true). I played the innocent young teenager card and tried to befriend the officers. Unfortunately, the young policeman in charge was new to the job and couldn’t let it slide without at least a ticket or else he would look like a softy (or so one of the other officers told me).

I was given a fine of $285 for trespassing on railway property and a court date should I wish to argue it. In the end, I had made it a grand total of about 30 kilometers from Halifax by train, but hadn’t yet passed the town my parents lived and had started that morning. Not a great return on my investment of time and money (I could have bought a return train ticket to Montreal for that much… although it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun), but I did learn a few valuable lessons. Like to sneak away before they let the police dogs loose. Or to forgoe carrying ID and use a fake name when you do get caught. These are all things that you learn as you get older, you see. Next time I’ll know better…

The young officer obviously felt bad about giving me the ticket, and offered to drive me home. “No thanks.” I said. “But you can drive me to the highway. Hitchhiking isn’t illegal, is it?” I asked (in fact, he told me, it is). They drove me to a nearby exit on the 102 highway (I lied and said my friend would pick me up at a gas station nearby), but it was dark by now and no good for hitchhiking. Not wanting to go home without an adventure under my belt (or at least a few miles away from my hometown), I slept a chilly night under the overpass and hitched a ride to New Brunswick in the early morning.

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Update: Found the original ticket packed into an old journal. And apparently my memory has not served me correct — the amount was $215 not $285.

I “Did unlawfully commit the offence: Entering on premises that apparently (sic) a railway line within the meaning of the Railway Act except to cross the railway line at a legally recognized crossing;”

Clear as mud, officer.

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