Rail Route

The young man knelt down on one knee by the track, picked up the flattened penny from the spot on the rail on which he had placed it half an hour before, and held it up to the westward setting sun. He squinted at the coin and noticed that its original copper had a more lightened tint to it now, even without solar assistance, and its edges practically curled.

“Eh,” he muttered. “Must’ve been goin’ at quite a clip,” he said, referring to the train’s speed as it rounded the bend from which it came. Now he looked at the train and its caboose as it made its way down the track, growing smaller and smaller with every few seconds.

“Now how the hell am I gonna jump the next one?” he wondered. He stood up and, making his way down the track, followed the train. He kicked at the large gravel and thought ” ’cause I’ll be damned if I’m gonna walk all the way to West Virginia!” Reconfiguring the duffel bag on his back, he set off on the walk which he had no idea how long would take.

He’d come across hard times since being laid off at the railways company. With every penny to his name and the most limited amount of clothing and gear he could bring along, he was determined to leave town, head out on his own, and find work and hopefully prosperity somewhere down the line. Maybe West Virginia was the final destination. Maybe not. But he had to figure out a way to jump a train and get there. And fast.

Hopping a train was not at all for the faint of heart. But if you wanted to get on one, chances are it had to be moving. Sitting cars in rail yards were typically watched and policed for trespassers and hobos trying to hitch a free ride. If caught, one could be fined and/or arrested and out of a trip. That would have been the preferred way to go, though, if you could pull it off, because jumping a moving train was at best extremely challenging and at worst physically debilitating and even deadly. Tales of lost limbs and crushed bodies were the rule rather than the exception when recalled and told in hobo lore.

However, this grim reminder did little to damper his determination as he accelerated his pace and moved on.

There were a couple of ways he knew about to hop a moving train, each of which took timing, agility, strength, and courage. First, if one was lucky enough to spot an open door of a boxcar, he could run along timing the speed of the car and with skill and precision, place his hands on the floor inside the opening and hoist himself on. Also, the same could be said of the steel ladders which might be found vertically aligned at the end or beginning of the car. Grab on to a bar with one or both hands, and pull with all your might. Both of these methods were gambits which involved a bit of luck, a bit of skill, a wing, and a prayer.

“Could there be another way?” he thought. “There has to be!”

He looked around at the terrain surrounding him. There were fields and crops and farmland to the left and right of him, and in the distance, the topography seemed to get gradually more wooded. He could make out trees which he knew to be mostly red maple and American beech trees native to this region of the country.

“It’s a stretch,” he thought, “but I wonder if any of these trees are tall enough to hang over the tracks!” A wild thought, indeed. But if so, might he be able to jump a train from above? “It’s possible,” he said out loud. “Possible,” he thought, “but crazier’n hell!” He let that proposition whirl around in his head as he trudged alongside the tracks and that made his hike go by a bit faster. He imagined how he could pull this off: How high or low should he be? What would the speed of the train need to be for him to safely land and remain atop the car? What type of railcar was the best on which to attempt the jump? And again, which car gave him the best chance of landing and staying? Was he plumb loco for even trying this, much less thinking bout it?

A few hours later, after much walking and a good while figuring out how to climb, he found himself perched on a long, sturdy limb of a birch tree. The limb was high enough to clear the train and yet low enough to pull off a landing. “Well, I guess I am plumb loco!” he thought. He had figured out this, the first part of the equation. He had estimated how far he had walked and how far the last train might have travelled from where he found his flattened penny, and so he figured the speed of the train would not be moving too fast to make the jump. The gondola car, built with low sides and an open top, figured to be a safe bet. He could land inside of the rail car and that would decrease the chances of falling out. After that, there were boxcars and hopper cars, both of which had flat tops on which to lie. The modus operandi for him on those cars would be to hold on! Tight! With his life! He needed to also be on constant lookout for tunnels. He had done his due diligence and had measured the height of tunnels and knew that, while lying down, he could safely clear a tunnel.

All these anxious thoughts were going through his head when he heard the lonesome whistle of a locomotive and, his head turning to meet the sound, saw a billow of dark smoke arise from far up the tracks. “Here it comes!!!” he exclaimed, a mixture of excitement and fear evident in his voice.

He surveyed the best he could what types of railcars were on the train. No gondola cars! His strategy shifted to a lone one of car-top travel. He saw that the train, while traveling relatively slowly, was obviously picking up speed. He must, if possible, make his leap on to one the first cars to arrive so as to increase his chances of timing a good fall and safe landing. As the train approached, he was careful to hide behind the tree the best way possible so as to avoid being seen.

And then, before he knew it, it was there!

He quickly moved from the behind the trunk of the tree and crawled with the length of his torso on the limb, assisted by his knees and elbows. All the while he clung tightly on to his belongings in his bag. Looking out and slightly below him, he realized that the first series of cars were hoppers.

“Here goes!!!” he thought, and he fell, landing on his hands and knees, and somehow managed to remain one with his duffel. He looked around quickly to grab on to one of the handles that he knew were on each of the lids of the hoppers. Grabbing on to a handle, he continued to lie down flat on his stomach. He looked around, the wind whipping at and around his face, and managed a smile. “I made it!!” he thought and exhaled with relief. “Now where should I get off?”

This proved to be his last optimistic and positive thought as the lid of the car swung open and toward him with amazing force and velocity, for no other reason than sheer bad luck! He lost his grip on the handle and his duffel bag simultaneously. His bag flew a long distance off the top of the car as if shot out of a cannon. It felt as if he had been shot out of one as well, except for a much shorter distance.

Once horizontal just a few seconds earlier, he found himself hanging vertically from the side of the car gripping mightily on to the curved edge of the hopper. “I didn’t think this would happen!!!” he screamed in his head in absolute terror.

His eyes grew wide open in fright as he grimaced and tried to hold on.

“Our Father. Who art in Heaven!” he prayed as fast as he possibly could. He looked to his right and saw a tunnel approaching. “OH NO!!!”

“Hallowed by thy name!”

He looked up at the blue sky and his whole life flashed before his eyes in an instant: parents, siblings, friends, childhood, home. Home! Home!! Home!!!

“Thy Kingdom come!”

His head swiveled to the right again and he saw the tunnel approaching much, much faster than he had imagined and way, way, way sooner than he wanted it to.

He had not planned on the narrow width of the tunnel….

THE END