Detroit Revisted: The unbeaten path
Fifteen years later, I was back in Detroit. On my first, long ago trip, two weeks before 9/11, I left my belongings in an airport locker — airport lockers, remember them? — for the day and took Detroit’s infamously slow […]
Detroit Revisted: The unbeaten path
By Abdul Rahimov
Fifteen years later, I was back in Detroit. On my first, long ago trip, two weeks before 9/11, I left my belongings in an airport locker — airport lockers, remember them? — for the day and took Detroit’s infamously slow […]
Train hopping blues: End of the Modoc Line
This has been a sad summer (2012) of watching the Union Pacific prepare to swallow up the Southern Pacific. Already some magnificent trackage is doomed. In May I said
Santa Fe is known for speed
"The Santa Fe has a reputation for speed." That phrase from a business article rings true. The BNSF habitually attaches a great many units to its freights, so that they
Teaching a friend
After many years of solo riding, I was bringing along someone else for the first time — a coworker who had expressed an interest in riding freights. We rendezvoused at
Moffat Tunnel to Great Salt Lake
I'd bought a discounted round-trip Greyhound ticket to Salt Lake, my jumping-off point. I looked through the bus window and saw a hobo emerging from the UP yards, so I
Hobo life is a disappearing culture
Bruce came by, with plans that lifted me out of my post-injury depression. After committing sedition for a couple days, he was ready to head to the Northeast by
Cascade Range of California and Oregon
In another life I had time to ride freight trains around the West, through thousands of miles of scenery that only freight crews and hoboes had seen ever since
Hobo Pride: Hopping trains in the Virginias
After 17 months — too long a time — I was back sticking a thumb in DHS’s eye. In June 2012, I had nailed down a Cheyenne-to-Ogden ride through
Colorado River and the bulls of Denver
For three days in 2003 I had relentlessly pushed a rental car through the splendors of western Colorado, what they call the West Slope. Now that I involuntarily live
Colorado: Outlaws and blood
After six years, I saw the Colorado outlaw known as TTK again in Fort Collins, Colorado. I'd slept behind a maintenance building and gave him a call that morning.