In the years I've spent riding freight trains, I've been lucky enough to have never been pulled off, ticketed, or arrested for being on railroad property. I'm good about being discreet and keeping my head down for the most part, as well as getting ready to dismount and get off property before I reach my stop. I have, however, still had a few encounters with railroad police also known as bulls.
My first such experience came in Kansas City, MO in the KCS yard. I was still new to traveling and hopping trains, having only rode three at that point, all of those with other people. I ended up in KCMO and ran into an old rider named Solo and his dog Suzy. We spent several nights staring at a coal train that would stay parked all night waiting for a general manifest that was supposed to come through but never did while we were they, probably did during the day.
So anyway, one night we're waiting under the bridge there. The railcop actually drove by us once and we never did anything and they never did anything. When I mentioned that they were driving back through the other direction, Solo directed that we quickly make our way up top of the bridge to hide behind the rocks at the top. We were in such a rush that we left all of our stuff where we were sitting mid way up the hill.
This time the car stops and the two KCS police get out. I'm pretty sure they climbed up as far as our stuff, then proceeded to shine their flashlights just over our heads for the next several minutes until they gave up and luckily didn't touch our stuff. We left the yard and never went back, finally catching UP southbound into Oklahoma.
My second encounter with railroad police was with a Union Pacific cop in Tucson. The UP cop in Tucson is notorious for being especially harsh on riders, but I got lucky this encounter.
I had actually just finished up a Quartzsite season, and had caught a ride to Tucson from there with a couple other hippies who decided they didn't have anything better to do than run around Tucson with me, camping out at the Saguaro National Park for a little bit.
After we finally split ways, my first night looking for somewhere to sleep in town I decided it'd be a good idea when I saw train tracks in an industrial area to walk the tracks briefly to find a spot to sleep for the night. I went maybe five feet past a no trespassing sign for the railroad, then dipped around a fence into the top of a wash that I knew was off railroad property.
When I woke up, I probably spent a little more time than I should have waking up and packing up my stuff. When I went back around the fence and walked those five feet of railroad property, a railcop pulled around the corner like he had been waiting for me, gets out of his vehicle and stops me.
He questioned if I had come in or a train, or if I was trying to catch one. I explained the situation that I had not come in on a train, but a car from Quartzsite, and that I was in town until I was supposed to play a show at a DIY house venue called the Shit Dungeon. These answers were apparently good enough to get by with just him taking a picture of my ID.
My third encounter with railroad police was once again with KCS police, this time in Shreveport, Louisiana.
I had spent a couple weeks in Beaumont, TX with Spotz and his then partner trying to catch the train to NOLA, but we only ever saw it going westbound to LA no matter how much time we spent at the hopout. They eventually gave up and caught out to Livonia because they had already been there longer than me. I decided to stay a little longer.
When checking out at the dollar store near the hopout there, I heard a train going by and when I went out, while I had missed the engines, I noticed that it was a mix of GM and IM and went ahead and chased it down and got on. I should have known by the containers it was hauling and where it ended up stopping that it was actually a KCS train, but at that point I also was ready to hop whatever got me out.
My GPS didn't work the entire ride, so I couldn't tell where I was or which way I was going. Finally, sitting in a yard with the sun starting to come up, my GPS lets me know that I'm in Shreveport. That means I needed to get off and figure out what the new game plan was.
Unfortunately, I ended up at the KCS yard way NE of town, and had to walk several miles to get to some fast food so I could eat, charge my phone, get wifi, and decide what to do from there. I decided that I might as well just try to catch one of the IMs to Atlanta, and one of them stopped at the yard I pulled into.
So here I go, walking the several miles back towards the train yard, and I'm almost there when I spot someone walking towards me with a big smile on their face coming from a nice looking truck. At first, I think they may be about to offer me something like money, food, or a ride. Then I noticed their "blue lives" hat and gun at their side and was able to tell they were probably a cop.
He asked where I was going, so I said out of town, which is usually what cops like to hear from transients. He asked if I needed a ride, and I was like, "Nah, I'm just gonna walk this way."
He pulled out his KCS police badge and said, "No you're not, you're gonna walk that way." He said he'd be watching trains for the next three days.
Once again, I had to walk that same several miles back towards town. I ended up catching the UP IM to Atlanta.
Get more details about these situations and more in my memoir A Modern Hobo Story
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