Sunday, July 13, 2008

I returned from my freight train trip to the west coast on Saturday, June 28^th. For various reasons, into which I will not delve, I was in no mood to sit down and try and bring life to this adventure until now. My life having gone on without me at home, the transpiration of some heart-breaking events in my absence pretty much set me into a two-week funk, which I am happy to say I have now finally transcended.

As I sit to write this, I am thinking more about how I reconcile my life between the conventional, and the wild within. My fundamental beliefs tell me that where I am and what I am doing holds no value, rather my intentions, my relationships, the intangibles… those are reality. I just find it easier to focus on reality when forced into a mode (like train travel) where my day to day life is based on fundamental strategies. I.e. where do I want to go, how do I get there, when do I eat, when do I sleep, who is looking for me, how do I evade them. Primal problem solving brings me closer to the absolute…. God if you will. So these trips are a pilgrimage of sorts. Or I’m just fucking weird.

Background

I had been invited (over a year ago now) by a good friend in Black Butte, California to come visit and check out his new project, the “Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture” [http://www.bbcrc.org] I knew that he had purchased some land near southern Weed, California (close to Mt Shasta), and was working on projects like railroad depot and caboose restorations. In the year+ since he had bought the land, I have heard tell of the amazing progress he and countless volunteers have made in restoring the land and turning it into the proverbial Big Rock-Candy Mountain. [If you’re not familiar with the song, check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYGCpGzFWh0]. I was dying to get there, see the land, my friend, and become part of the endless stream of train riders who made camp there and contributed to the growth of this amazing project.

My goal was to arrive by June 25^th, when a Gypsy Punk bank from Mexico City named Polka Madre [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek-fJ4s9UTg] was supposed to play at the land in Black Butte. Gypsy Punk? Sounded dope.

Aside from that one, expendable date… I had no responsibilities for 10 days. My lovely baby-cake of a Debster was headed to Cleveland during the same time frame to visit the family. She, having 7 siblings and 13 nieces and nephews in Cleveland, enjoys yearly trips in the summer to socialize and be a part of the family. I, on the other hand, as an only child whose parents visit Denver yearly, often use that time for some reflective travel.

The Route

The IDVOA (Intermodal Denver to Oakland) leaves 3 times a week from 36^th street yard in Denver, typically around 7-9pm. It travels up to Cheyenne, then turns west and takes the UP midland route through SLC, across Nevada (hhhhhhhot), down the Feather River in California, through Sacramento and on to Oakland. I had planned to bail off at the crew change in Sacto and hitchhike or take a cheap bus to Roseville (15? miles away), where I could catch one of the three or so daily junk trains up to Dunsmuir in northern cali. From Dunsmuir, Black Butte is a $3 bus fare.

Last time I rode this route, July 4^th 2006, the trains were DOG ASS SLOW because of the speed restrictions which I can only guess were being used to try and prevent rail-spark fires in the dry brush of Nevada. I prayed my luck would change this year.

My gear

Listed in order from importance to high-tech nerdiness

Backpack, 30° sleeping bag, 2.5 gallons of water, lightweight tarp, cardboard, bagels and Nutella, some freeze-dried meals (yeah I know totally yupified), maps/notebook/ccg, hoodie, knit-cap, one pair pants (commando), one t-shirt, one short sleeve button down, one pair of underwear, army cap, boots, sandals (worth the weight), sewing kit, one flask scotch, one jetboil stove with freedom press for coffee, one cell phone, one solar charger for cell phone, my ipod, and one fuckin antique red tie with yellow stripes and blue Chessie kittens on it :)

I always liked the old-style hobo/ragamuffin traveler garb with the shirt and tie. And with Depression 2.0 quickly approaching, I thought I’d rock the appropriate look.

This trip would be a little more luxurious than others, as far as amenities go. But my pack was still light enough to easily be heaved on and off a freight train.

For the first time in quite a while, I would be riding alone.

Thursday, June 19, 2008, 6:30pm

Deb and I say our goodbye’s outside of the gas-station/Subway on the west corner of Brighton and 31^st St. We kiss and I feel embraced on two sides; my lovely wife before me, and my lustful rucksack behind, pointed towards the tracks and urging me to the road. Not wanting to draw a scene so close to the tracks in mid-day, we end our goodbye with one more quick peck, and I pick up my bundle of cardboard and water bottles, aim myself down 31^st street, and put foot in front of foot – heading finally for the first stop towards my final destination.

I approach the yard just as a mule is pulling my string onto the departure tracks. While I have watched trains here numerous times, I am now wearing a backpack and carrying cardboard and gallon jugs of water. This is not a good time and place to be seen. Parked at the end of the road, nose against the tracks, and right in front of me is a white pickup truck, which I could tell as I approached was thankfully empty. I stand as casually as I can behind the pickup truck, such that my backpack is obscured to the moving train, and act as if it’s my truck. As the units continue past, a quick look confirms that the engineer hanging out of the right window is more concerned with whatever might be uptrack than with me.

I settle down in a small concrete depression and scope the consist of the train as it pulls past and to an eventual stop. 90% of the train is 40s & 48s. Two 48 buckets about 4 cars from the units (which would become the rear of the train), and 1 set of buckets RIGHT in front of me as the train stops. How do I say this? My heart feels glad. I was worried that I’d be riding halfway across the country on a 53. Seeing this single set of 48 buckets tells me that the first 2 days of my travel could just possibly go according to plan.

I look up track and try to envision how a person walking across the tracks by the units would appear – knowing that this is what I would look like to the engineer. I determine we are far enough apart that I will not be noticed.

6:56pm

I make the decision, grab my gear, walk 30 paces to the train, set my gear on the deck, grab the ladder, jump up and on, drop into the well, retrieve my gear from the deck, and sink down undercover into the 4 foot well of the 48. I am on my train to Sacramento. I snap a picture with my phone, knowing that this was the cleanest I will look in any forthcoming pictures.

Just before I turn off my phone, it rings and an old retired coworker of mine calls. Bob Beardsley! I explain my situation, have a brief talk about our friend who is moving to Equador, and hang up. Did he believe me?

I doze in the 70 degree weather in the stack well, listening to the airman drive past twice and stop to beat on the air connection between mine and the adjacent car. We are probably 6 feet away from each other, through the steel wall of the well. At last, the rush of air filling the brake cylinders indicates imminent departure.

I look up. A storm’s a rollin in.

HANK-HANK!

The turn-of-the-century whistle code for “proceed” blasts in the distance indicating that the engineers left glove is on the whistle while his right is starting to push the throttle. Creaking. Moving. I am headed to California.

We pull about 5 miles forward through the yard and onto a siding off of the main. And we stop. I shrug and suppose that we are in the hole waiting for the inbound Z-train from LA to pass us. I unpack my cardboard and sleeping bag and prepare to doze so that I can wake up with the sun the next morning. As I lie there, the intermittent creaking of the train seemed to increase. I sit up puzzled, only to be hit squarely on the head with a marble-sized hailstone!

Thankfully, that hailstone gives me about 5 seconds warning before someone dumps a mattress box of ping-pong balls into my well! I immediately take the cardboard and sleeping pad out from under me and put it on top of me, while a 5-minute hailstorm barrages the train and fills my well with a single layer of stones. As quickly as it starts, the storm moves on without even a drop of liquid rain spilt. I use the cardboard to scoop as much hail out of the car as I can, put my iPod onto a Dan Brown book-on-mp3 (which ended up sucking), doze until a train blasts past in the opposite direction, and we finally pull again towards our destination.

At some point, I am no longer awake.

I vaguely recall the feeling of stopping for 10 minutes late at night and then proceeding on a large left turn, which I can only assume is our crew-change south of Cheyenne in Speer, WY. My last thought as I drift back to sleep in my sleeping bag: “From now on if I get arrested, it won’t go on my Colorado record.”

Friday, June 20, 2008, 8:00AM

I sleep through Rawlins, WY and wake up just as we are pulling into Green River for our crew-change. and wake up just as we are pulling into I always find it remarkable how birds along the tracks in the yard are capable of occasionally disturbing the ballast such that it sounds like a single footstep. Freaks me out.

8:36AM

8:36AM

I have no particular recollection of the crew-change, other than I remember last time I was trying to catch a train here [FLASHBACK] and one of the inbound conductors took me into the shack where the green monochrome DISPATCHA-TRON terminal sat in the corner. I watched him carefully as he pulled up the incoming trains (no password required) and helped me with some suggestions on how to get to Pocatello. Later that night, I sneaked back into the shack and pulled up more trains on the computer myself – I felt so cloak and dagger. That was a trip with Radar and V (remember guys)? That was also the trip where I got soaked with a lawn sprinkler while getting ID’d by the local cops as they were asking us if he had any “tattoos or distinguishing mark.” [FLASHFORWARD].

But that was years ago and by the time I finish my Wayne & Garth style recollection, we are rolling again and I snap another few pictures in Green River.

Between Green River and Ogden, I learn how to solve the rubiks cube for the first time in my life following these directions [www.stanford.edu/~leyanlo/cube_solution.pdf], and using a cube that a friend of mine at work had given me for my little brother. I feel bad about playing with my brother’s gift before giving it to him – but not really. It is all nicely oiled, but after hundreds of miles of salt-playa invades the plastic bearings, it becomes a little sketchy.

Friday, June 20, 2008, 4:00pm

I’ve noticed that when riding [do other riders do this?], I pre-designate an upcoming crew change point “high-risk” or “low-risk” based on things that happened in the ride prior to the change. Accordingly, after a crew-change I feel like I have been “forgiven” of all my train riding sins that may have occurred beforehand.

To those who don’t ride trains, this is what I mean: If you get spotted on a train, especially on a long haul, it is (in my experience) much more likely that “they” will try to pop you at the next crew-change or yard rather than stop the train in the middle of nowhere. It costs the railroad less time (hence $$) and the bull and/or local cops can set up at the yard for a relatively quick sting. So while riding, if I am spotted by an engineer or conductor of a passing train, or a road crew, etc, then I gear up for a “high-risk” crew change next. This typically involves packing up as much as is practical and keeping a good hard eye up-track while pulling into the yard. Only once that I can think of, on the highline, they did have a sting set up for me (or somebody on the train) in Havre, which I did avoid. My penance was waiting 12+ hours for another train with ridables. For the same reason, after pulling out from a crew-change, I have a new lease on life, because if anyone wanted me off of the train, I’d be off already.

So tell me if you think this situation warrants a “high-risk” crew change:

After changing crews in OgdenUtah and Nevada. and going over the Great Salt Lake (see picture), it is getting pretty friggin hot approaching the border of Pretty friggin hot, indeed. If you’ve never been sun-baked in an 8’ x 4’ steel solar oven, you really should try it.

We have stopped at a siding in the middle of nowhere waiting for an Amtrak to pass us. Since the wind is no longer blowing, and my bottles of water are getting warm, I promptly decide to strip down and try and capture what little breeze exists on my bare-ass nakedness. (Sorry ladies, no pics). So anyway, there I am standing on the deck of the 48 in all my glory lookin around, tryin to see the headlights of the oncoming train in this completely desolate part of the country. The picture (left) is actually from a former train trip, but the scenery is exactly the same – a demonstration of “aint nobody around.”

So I’m standin there, lookin over at a small hill about 50 feet away. And I think to myself (and this is really odd), “How screwed up would it be if someone came walkin over that hill right now and saw me jumpin around on this train butt naked?”

…and I’ll be damned - it happens 5 seconds after I thought it.

Some guy in a white T-shirt comes walkin over the hill towards the train. My first reaction is to jump down into the well, but since fast movement draws more attention, I kinda sink down to the sitting position and slowly ease into the well and my awaiting clothes. I peek up again about 20 seconds later, and he is GONE. Now I’m starting to think “Am I going crazy? How hot is it out here?” Another minute later and I see a cloud of moving dust as a car drives away on a barely marked dirt road. Ok – not crazy, but should I be worried?

Dream-sequence:

Dispatcher: 911 dispatcher, what’s your emergency?

Dude: I’ll be damned there’s a preverted nekkid hippy dancin around on that thar freight train!

Dispatcher: Sir? Can you be more specific?

Dude: Goddamn nekkid hippies probably on his way to our town right now with the sole purpose of exploiting our youngens!!

Dispatcher: Can you describe the hippy sir?

Dude: NEKKID – I ain’t about the stick around and take photos. I jumped in my pick-em-ip and to’e outta there before he started prevertin me! I *did* notice he was more than adequately hung, though. [This is my dream-sequence I can say what I want.]

SO…

After that incident I am a little freaked… until the next incident when I become really freaked.

We are at a siding passing a coal train which is on the track. The siding must have been really long, because the coal train (to our right) is actually moving in the same direction as us but going about 3mph slower. The result: A VERY slow passing train with ample time for the engineer to look down into my well and see me.

Typically what one does in a situation like this is gather up all the gear and push it against the wall of the well closest to the passing train. This increases the downward angle necessary to be spotted, and in some cases, if the tracks are far enough apart, it makes you impossible to see. So I do that. And I glue my gear and my body as close to the wall as possible. Here is a picture of my gear in its un-gathered state.

The units of the train are approaching. It’s taking about five seconds for each car to pass us, so that gives the conductor (left side of the train) about 5 seconds to see me if he is looking. I try to calculate in my head the ideal position of my body to minimize my conductor-cross-section.

The locomotive roars to my right as it passes. There are three units on the head end, and I know I have to worry most about the lead engine. I put my head down… and wait.

Three… two… one… Here it is. I can feel it passing. I can feel eyes scanning.

It passes.

I open my eyes and take a breath.

HAAAAAAAAAAAANK!!!!

The passing train, right after passing my car blows its fucking whistle!!! WHY? My mind goes through all the permutations of situations that could cause a train to whistle, and I can’t come up with one that makes sense. Even if he SAW me… why would he whistle? But what was unique about the timing that he happened to whistle right at my car?

The only thoughts that make sense are the following two:

1) He was prematurely indicating to my train that he had finished passing us, and our train could speed up.

2) He saw me and wanted me to know he saw me

Elko, Nevada is going to be a high-risk crew-change.

Friday, June 20, 2008, Dusk

I recognized the ¼ mile tunnel just east of Elko yard, and pack my gear. Thankfully, it is no longer 100 degrees. Elko is a pretty easy train town, and I have heard stories of city cops giving water to tramps and even transporting them to the yard. I have never seen a bull there, either, but I did witness some overly-ambitious yard workers last time I was there. (They actually drove up to our hiding spot and hit us with their headlights while a train was departing, keeping us from getting on).

Does the story get interesting here? No. Typical crew-change. Don’t see a soul. I say ten Hail Mary’s as penance, and my past deeds are wiped clean.

Friday, June 20, 2008, 9pm – Desert Reflection

The stretch between Elko Nevada and California can be absolutely brutal at mid-day. Two years prior, I felt like a pink-skinned hog in the sun on the desert at two in the afternoon. The sun was so hot that its rays literally stung my bare skin. As I planned it this year, my train rode that stretch at night. We are on time.At 60mph the wind feathers my skin at 75 degrees. I’m a parasite on thousands of tons of steel plowing into the horizon where the sun is setting in an orange-pink haze over the desert in front of me. The rock outcroppings and hills around me and in the distance are silhouettes against the glowing sky. I dig out my flask of scotch for the first time, sit on the deck, and lean back against the emergency brake air reservoir tank. We blow through a few small towns, over a few grade crossings, but I don’t move. I know I am invisible on a train at night. This is truly how one “rides off into the sunset.” I am trying to come up with words to convey how I feel in that final hour before I lie down on top of my sleeping bag and disappear.

never do I move

illusions pass around me

the trains taught me that

I lower my flask

drops of scotch on the ballast

to where we return

three-thirty miles left

this ghost train sweeps me onward

portola by dawn

Saturday, June 21, 2008, 8-ish am

I awake to the cool California pine-soaked wind. Definitely different from the pine scent in the Colorado foothills, which has elements of oven-treated wood and clay, here I can discern the fragrances of moist earth, the rushing water of the feather river, and pine that reminds me of the “Christmas Wreathe” Yankee Candle in my office at home. The warm night through the desert probably never got much below 70 degrees, and I find I am still lying on top of my bag. I stand up, and a quick glance at a passing mile marker verifies that I was indeed past Portola. I dig in my bag for my Jetboil and make up some steaming hot coffee and some freeze-dried bacon and eggs, which I enjoy while watching the river dart hither and yon.

We pass through Williams Loop [http://youtube.com/watch?v=cGxA_H5Bl6Q] and I pick up my phone and SMS my buddy waiting for me in Black Butte:

“At Williams Loop – Hope to catch out of R-ville tonight.”

For the next hour I just stand in the well, enjoying my cooling coffee taking in the beautiful scenery and perfect weather.

At once I have a thought “I wonder if my company has any customers out here?” I scan the sparse smattering of log-cabin style expensive homes that dots the Feather River along the tracks. Then, I see it – a dark compact charcoal satellite dish with folded optics.

“WooHoo!!!” I caterwaul to nobody, “How’s your service?!!” I can’t help laughing uncontrollably at the ridiculousness of the situation, thinking how many people have ever had a “train roll” service call.

I have a few hundred miles left to roll; my next crew-change in Sacto will be my bail-off point. I am not looking forward to trying to find the bus from Sac to Roseville in the presumably soon-to-be 100+ degree heat.

Marysville Jnc

I pop open my rail map and note how the line I am riding south (the ex-Western Pacific Feather River Corridor) crosses the line I want to ride north to Dunsmuir (the ex-SP I-5 Corridor) at a junction in Marysville CA. I want to know if it is possible to catch on the fly at Marysville. The safe conventional route would be: pass Marysville on the train, get off at Sacramento, take a bus to Roseville, catch a train north out of Roseville, and pass Marysville again on the way up to Dunsmuir. If it were possible to bail off and catch north at the Marysville junction, I could cut out all of that bullshit. I figure that I have enough time on my hands, since the first part of the trip has gone smoothly, and that I will try it. It would be nice to know either way for future travelers. If our train slows significantly, that will be good indication that the northbound trains might slow as well.

I decide: If we slow to walking speed at Marysville for the junction, I will hop off.

Saturday, June 21, 2008, 11am

The mile markers indicate less than a mile away from Marysville, and we are slowing considerably. Before I know it, we have almost rolled to a stop. Having already packed in anticipation of this opportunity, I grab my pack without thinking twice and bail about 100 feet from the junction. I am extra enthusiastic when I see that we had just passed over a small creek less than ½ mile away.

Plop. I land next to a moving train with a small cemetery on one side of me, and a little league baseball game in action on the other. I am no longer rolling, and suddenly the train to my left which has been my home for two nights seems foreign and forbidden. In a flash it is gone and I am a stranger on the tracks with a backpack, wearing a shirt and tie.

My first stop is that little creek.

A little wary that I am in home bum territory, I strip off my dirty, stinky road garb and am nude save for my lightweight black soccer shorts that I brought for such an occasion. The flowing water is about 75 degrees, and as I step out I let the current pull my feet out from under me and sink under the water, content that I might never, ever again arise. It’s nice. God damn it’s nice.

After 10 minutes of creek meditation I am completely recharged, and take another 15 minutes cleaning body and clothes with sparing amounts of Dr. Bronners. In 30 minutes the sun has dried my clothes and I am clean, teeth brushed, redressed and confident that no one can tell that I didn’t wake up in a cozy bed and shower this morning.

Ten minutes of hiking into town in the asphalt heat quickly tempers that sentiment.

Saturday June 21, 2008, 7pm

I don’t want to talk much about Marysville.

Suffice it to say that it sucks and all northbound trains blow through the junction at speed. I ask the blonde girl at the pizza joint on B-street how hot it is. She replies (classically) “I think it supposed to be 104. Aren’t you from around here?”

No, I’m not, thank fuck.

As I sit under a tree by the cemetery, trying to stay in the shade, I realize slowly that my brain isn’t working correctly. I am having a hard time deciding what to do next and an even harder time trying to figure out basic train hopping strategy, like where to try and wait for the next train. Do I want to catch north to Dunsmuir or south to Roseville? Where should I wait for the train? Do I have enough water? Should I just sit here and keep thinking? Why haven’t I peed in about 12 hours?

I start to realize I am in the early stages of heat exhaustion – most likely the combined effects of two days on a train with little sun cover and limited electrolyte intake and this adventure hiking in and out of downtown Marysville in the 100 degree heat.

Screw this. I’m supposed to be enjoying myself. I’m getting a motel room. The Punjabi man who owns the motel has it right as he suggests beer as a way to beat the heat.

Sunday, June 22, 2008, noon

My cardboard sign reads “ROSEVILLE Please”

After about 45 minutes of leaning against a light post on CA-70, a foreign car honks behind me, having pulled over 50 feet south of me onto 2^nd street. I scoop up my gear and run, curious as always if they actually pulled over for me, or if I will surprise them when I yank open their door.

“You are going to Roseville?” The Dutch accent of the male driver inquires.

“Yeah man, thanks a lot for the ride.” Fresh fruit is moved from the back seat to the trunk. “I have an office in Roseville - hop in.”

The couple, Bob and [can’t remember?], flip back and forth between English and their native Dutch as we drive and discuss gas and the American automobile culture. As always, when hitchhiking I lead on little by little about train riding, judging my drivers’ reaction. I start my conversation by telling them that I was meeting a friend who works at the Roseville market. After some time, I come clean about riding trains, but don’t want to tell them that I had lied about my friend in Roseville. Bob gives me his Crackberry and I (embarrassed) leave a fake voicemail on my own home machine for my “friend”.

They drop me off at the Roseville MEGA MALL (Denio’s?) complex which actually has signs in the pay-parking lot which read “no foot traffic.” Talk about car culture! They drop me off at the mall and I walk ½ mile to the Roseville Market while they head into the storefront. Thanks, guys!

Roseville at last.

Sunday, June 22, 2008, 3:30pm

Roseville. As despicable as this town seems to be, it has been my train-riding Moby-Dick for a few years now. Twice prior I had made a train pilgrimage (once from the east coast) all the way out to California to visit Dunsmuir, and twice prior had been side-tracked and ended up hitchhiking or grey-dogging up to northern California instead catching out of Roseville. To a Clevelander whose riding experience is more solid in the Midwest and southeast, some of these California yards, even still, seem mythical to me – much the way the entire state of California did on my first train trip west in 1997. In my mind, the weather is always perfect and breezy, lemons and avocados are growing on trees in the jungles, the moon is full, the trains smell like Christmas, and the bulls are easy to evade. “California is a Garden of Eden.”

Now I’m walking down Atkinson St towards the Roseville market. This part of the city is a welcome relief from the mindlessly overdeveloped downtown where the horizon is obscured on all sides by clusters of retail shops, each building having at least a 10 x 30 foot sign advertising its wares, reminiscent of Neal Stephenson’s metaverse.

The Indian woman behind the counter at the Roseville market gives me a deal on the half-day old (I hope) corn dogs inside the windowed hot-box. I fill up my water, thank her in Hindi (Shukriyaa) and head out towards the two oak trees neighboring the departure yard.

As I approach, I involuntarily take a deep breath as I see a group of at least five road kids sitting under the same tree – also waiting for a train. They are dirty punks in their early twenties or younger lounging in the shade on their packs, some boxcar cushions, and a fiberglass insulation pad that I later found out came off of a nearby hydrant.

“Hey guys… mind if I wait here with you?”

No one minds. We bullshit for a while. They are headed east. Then comes the inevitable question:

“We have an 03, what do you have?” The 18-year-old looking Christi asks cryptically, while removing a 5^th generation xerox CCG from her rucksack, in which she also carries therapeutic rocks and gemstones.

“I have an 08.” I reply after a second to process her question.

Gasps. A two-thousand eight?!

I extricate it from my bag and toss it over. The kids gather around like 12-year-old boys who found one of their dads porno mags. I think, and then continue,

“Tell you what. Gimme your ‘03, and you can have my ‘08. I’m almost at my destination and I can get another one pretty easily.”

I get the feeling that no matter what these young, hard core riders thought of a clean 30-year-old tramp with a new backpack when I first walked into their camp, I was now undoubtedly … in.

For the next few hours, we all take turns jumping into the departure yard and checking out the outbound trains. I know that I am looking specifically for trains with open boxcars and empty lumber racks, a sign that they are headed through northern California to the lumber rich Pacific Northwest. Their train is harder to pinpoint, so I use a magic skill, which I will not reveal in this blog, to determine what trains are going their way.

I walk back under the tree and point to the train on the closest departure track.

“I don’t know what route it is taking, but there are cars on that train headed to West Virginia and Proviso.” I can only guess that the train was going back across the overland route to Chicago, where the WV cars would be transferred to CSX.

After brief discussion, they thank me furiously, write down their emails in my little book, and jump onto the train. In an hour they are gone. I only hope that the information was helpful and the train did take the route they were hoping for; across the desert through Wyoming. God speed Jason, Josh, Randy, Britni and .. uh… lithiumlemonade. I am a little happy, now, to be alone under the tree. I don’t mind company, but when catching out or breaking the law in general, I don’t like the extra liability.

Sunday, June 22, 2008, 9:00pm

It starts to grow dark and, since tomorrow is Monday, I go off searching for a place to sleep in the event that I don’t catch a train tonight. The area directly around the oak trees is currently under heavy construction, and the crews do not like train riders, due to the gutter punk, Satin-worshipping, barely-pubescent oogles and their homosexually and/or fecally charged porta-shitter graff. I mean, just how long of a cock can you draw with a Sharpie in a limited space? Just keep draggin that marker and if some other graff gets in your way, make a right turn and keep on drawin, boy. And of course no Sharpie-penis is complete without ordnance of 3 or 4 tear-shaped projectiles, as if the interior of the shitter is backdrop for a full scale penile-Vietnam.

I find a decent little snooze patch under some trees by what looks like a 4-wheeler dirt track. Not ideal, I suppose, but definitely out of site of the yard and any construction workers.

On the walk back, I jump once more into the departure yard and scope the outbound trains. Ho-lee-shit. There, on the 6^th track over, is a train with about 8 empty lumber racks in a row, and a smattering of open boxcars. This train has Dunsmuir written all over it. I consult my secret train angels, and they tell me this train is indeed headed north to Hinkle. I sprint almost full-speed across the yard back to my stashed gear, retrieve it, and jog back. My train. Nice.

Since the bull has been spotlighting outbound trains, I opt for a gondola next to an open box. This way I can stealth my way out of the train yard and transfer to the boxcar the first time we enter a siding. The gondola is high-walled, such that I have to stand on something if I want to peak out. The gon is empty and dirty (as always), but in the middle is a GINORMOUS, thick and surprisingly clean plastic tarp. The tarp is wadded up such that it is about as comfortable to me now as a king size mattress. I lie down, cover my gear and most of my body with the tarp, and drift in and out of Zen as I wait for us to pull. It’s now about 10pm, totally dark, breezy and 72 degrees.

Monday, June 23, 2008, 1:30am

About 20 minutes of air checks and we pull.

I lay on my back on the tarp in my gon, and watch the stars as a collection of high-pressure sodium vapor lamps go floating by. We seem to pass a shit-load of snorting, growling units (probably the fuel pad), and about 10 minutes later, we are crossing under Sierra Blvd, on our way back up through Marysville.

I pop my head up as we pick up speed and I laugh loudly to have successfully caught the last train of my journey. The weather is perfect, the trains have been perfect, the only thing missing from my fantasy was the lemon and avocado trees.

I wish I can lie down to sleep for the night at this point. But my stop is the next crew change. I know that once I fall asleep, I am out for the count, and the thought of missing the Dunsmuir crew change and having to backtrack from K-falls is not appealing. So the rest of the night and into the dawn I listen to “Digital Fortress” on my iPod and change cars to the open box once we stop for an Amtrak meet.

Sitting on the rails waiting for our train to pull again, I hear my, least favorite sound while on the road; the guttural, pained croak of a rooster who thinks he has spotted daylight on the horizon. It almost always says to me “Well you missed the prime sleepin time, bro, it sucks from here on out.”

Monday, June 23, 2008, morning

My phone is dead, and I can’t charge it until I get some full daylight on my solar charger. Luckily, my box is open on the “good” side, and I snake up along the Sac River towards Dunsmuir watching the water and waving at the occasional fisherman.

We stop and break-air at a siding, which has me confused for a while. I theorize that we are picking up a car or two but can’t figure out why a car would be sitting by itself on the mainline (we are on the siding) with no yards or junctions nearby. I am much more anxious about this confusing course of events than I should be; which I attribute to my mild sleep deprivation.

Finally, we are pulling through the little yard just south of Dunsmuir, and slowing appropriately for our crew change. I have made it.

We stop, I hop off of the train, and walk off of property into the residential streets of Dunsmuir. The last time I was here, the town was hopping with people for its annual “Railroad Days.” The town was almost unrecognizable now; sleepy… almost desolate. Townies here are quite used to

train riders and I hardly get a look as I tramp up the hill towards the freeway where I drop down to the hobo “tripwire camp” between the mainline and the Sac River. This place was the scene of my buddy getting kicked in the head by the Siskiyou county sheriffs two years ago. I am too tired to care.

I bathe in the river using my organic soap in moderation. I put my solar charger in the sun. I lay out my sleeping bag in the jungle camp. The river and cool breeze lulls me to sleep at 11am. Four hours later I will awaken and spend $3.45 for a bus to South Weed where I will meet my friend and start my California vacation. But that’s a different story.