Riders

It would be any time of year, but often in the summer. Other kids weren't in school. Our lot had spotty graduation. There were nights where we'd get ripped off getting a homeless man to buy us beer. We'd get the beer, but it would be the cheapest kind. I, of course, complained. We would drink in the graveyard by the tracks. Malt Liquor was always a safe bet.

Those tracks were used by freight trains. The Tropicana train cars always promised warm & exotic, no matter which direction they were heading and what time of year. Int'l, Will, Yarny, Ted, and others had somehow discovered that the freight signals were governed by completion of a circuit across both tracks, by some conductive bit of metal like a train. Or a strip of steel arranged across the tracks, even a very thin one. One that would be broken by the passing of a train over it, thus distampering the signal.

There was a purpose to this mischief. If the signal indicated that there was another train, even if the conductor had information which contradicted the signal, the train would slow to a crawl. The advantage to this is that it became hoppable. Hoppable as in, one could run alongside it and grab a ladder or whatever. This wasn't of hobo caliber odyssey, this was a short ride through town. If one stayed on as the train regained speed, one would end up somewhere between Philadelphia & Baltimore presumably. There were plenty of tales.

The ones we saw or made to be that were slow were "Slow Boys". We would do this in the hottest part of the day, because we were stupid kids, almost all of which had families of one sort or another. This provided no cover of darkness, but there were always places to hide as the engine went by. We were very stupid. There were shotguns with salt-shot. We knew they existed. There were tales. Hand-me-downs, maybe, the oral history of train-hopping from our great grandfather hobos, or 1st or 2nd person experience. Whichever, they were entirely, absolutely credible.

Where the Tropicana cars go, that's where we wanted to go. But most of us had to make dinner or streetlights, or their own beds. I did not, but didn't have the courage to just hop an open boxcar and go. I'd probably have brought cigarettes for my journey, and maybe have eaten before I left. Documentation makes it clear that you are supposed to have cans of sardines and whiskey, but I was winging the theory. And theory it remained.

Sure, I'd get on on the south side of town, and ride victoriously up to the center of town, débarquement before getting into an area where the police would likely see me hanging off the side of the train as it crossed Main Street or whatever (though that had certainly been done, as well as a ride from another town 5 miles away into another set of tracks on the opposite side of town), but never just let the train go. I never let it speed up and just settled in for the long-haul.

Regrets, maybe. Things happen & don't happen. There are still trains, and there is still time. In fact, I know someone who needs to take a ride. Soon is always the time to do so. And in my age, I know to bring sardines & dramamine.