The Big Steel Rails
The road no longer traveled
I did my fair share of traveling when I was young, hitchhiking and riding freight trains around America back in times when those sorts of things were still possible. It was before video surveillance and facial recognition software came along, before government databases held every possible fact about our lives. It was back when you could still get away with stuff.
Sometimes I traveled with my friend Bird, who was a musician and songwriter like me. Sometimes I rode the trains alone. They didn’t have fancy lightweight backpacking equipment then. I carried a small duffle bag that contained my worldly belongings — an old sleeping bag bought at a surplus store for three dollars; family sized jars of peanut butter and jelly; a butter knife; a loaf of cheap white bread; extra pair of pants and shirt; a book or two to read; a logbook to write stuff down in. I also kept my guitar with me in its beat up case.
The most important item that a rider carries is drinking water, so I had a small canteen. You never know when or where the train will sidetrack or stop, and it might be many hours, or even days before drinking water is available, so carrying water is essential. Meals can be missed, but water can’t.
Boxcars were strange beasts. They became temporary rolling stock homes to the traveling kind who lived their lives on the move. They were natural havens to the men who lived rough and traveled in a parallel universe not directly connected to our own. And yes, they were almost entirely men. I remember seeing only two women riding freight trains, and one was a young Mexican woman, pregnant, and riding into America with her husband in search of a better life.
An empty boxcar is a barren thing to most people, a dead weight, vacant and hollow, evacuated of purpose, attached to a train to be deadheaded back to its place of origin so that it may again become useful. Despite its apparent lack of purpose the empty car had assets that were helpful — lifesaving, even — to a hobo on the bum. Most obvious is the shelter it provided against the weather, a shaded place to keep out of the wind and rain and snow.
With that shelter came space, and there was enough space in a boxcar for a lot of people (though hobos usually traveled singly or in pairs), and enough space for some of them to have their own space within that space. A loner could still be alone in a boxcar full of people. He only had to retire to the far end of the car.
You had to prop the doors open on a boxcar. If left to themselves they would slide shut as the freight train rattled along. Once shut, they were impossible to open from the inside, so it was imperative that you placed a wedge — a piece of cardboard or wood, a rock, a stick, anything — into the slide mechanism so that the door could not shut. It was best to prop both doors open so that views could be had out both sides, but it wasn’t necessary. The doors might be propped all the way open, or sometimes only partially (mostly in winter).
There were often pieces of cardboard on the boxcar floor, remnants left over from shipping crates. These could be gathered from other cars and piled up inside the car you chose to ride in. They made for a softer bed and a much smoother ride. They protected from the cold wind that found its way up through the floorboards, and they could serve as backrests while you sat with your back to the wall.
Most experienced hobos occupied the front part of the boxcar. It was generally less prone to bouncing and rattling, and the same went for the train itself — the farther forward the car was, the less it would rattle and bounce. Riding in the front of the car protected you from from the wind, but if it was very hot inside then the back of the car was the place to be.
If a small cook fire was made, the smoke would be pulled easily out the doors from the front. But a fire in the rear of the car caused the smoke to bunch up and billow out in great puffs, and it was cause for alarm to the engineer or brakeman on the train. Riding in the front of the car created a lower profile, and that was something all hobos tried to maintain.
Sometimes you got lucky and were able to climb up into a brand new automobile that was being transported to a new car dealership somewhere. You had to be extra careful when riding in an auto because if the railroad bulls caught you you’d end up in jail. They always left the key stuck up under the front bumper, so you could get in and start the engine and have heat or air conditioning, and maybe you could find a good FM radio station to listen to.
To make a cooking fire in a boxcar you needed materials to burn. Gathering wood wasn’t practical. The cardboard you used for your bed didn’t burn very well. There was no obvious place to find fire materials, yet the boxcar itself provided them. At the end of each axle, between the wheels, there was a small container called a “hotbox”. Inside this box were rags or cotton “pillows” that were soaked with fuel oil. They served to keep the axle bearings from overheating.
Before each train left the yard, a crew member walked its length, down both sides, and checked every hotbox to make sure these rags were in place and were wet with fuel oil. Missing rags were replaced before the train left the yard, so a hobo needed to take one before starting out. Fuel oil is much like kerosene and burns slowly, so that these rags were perfect for heating up a small can of beans or Polish sausages without creating a fire hazard in the car.
Boxcars have given way to Well Cars, Spine Cars, and Intermodal Container Cars, modern contraptions that are used to haul shipping containers. I guess it makes more sense to be able to move a box straight onto a semi-truck, and then onto a ship. But somehow, riding the rails in a shipping container just doesn’t have the romantic appeal of a boxcar.
I’m glad I was lucky enough to experience a bit of the old ways, to ride the big steel rails over open country, to see the night sky in the great deserts of the southwest from an open boxcar door. I’m glad I was left alone to do this, when we still occupied a live-and-let-live world, where I didn’t bother anyone, and no one bothered me. Sadly, those days are gone.
Boxcars have been replaced by shipping containers, sealed shut, off-limits to the free spirits who used to ride them. No more open boxcar doors, no hobo jungles, no cardboard beds, and no free passage in a parallel universe that runs on two steel rails. And to add insult to injury, they even got rid of the caboose.
Editor’s note — here’s another story by John Egenes you may enjoy.
John Egenes is the highly acclaimed author of “Man and Horse: The long ride across America.”
