Another good one to watch ha.
One thing I notice in a lot of freight hopping videos is that the guys doing it are often drinking hard liquor. That's something I'm quite happy to never do when I'm riding trains. I don't think that a freight car is the best place to be if you're going to get drunk :P
It is for sure a recurring theme with freight hopping and with the sub culture in general. Im not much a drinker let alone while riding freight, I do however partake in the herbal medicine but that's it, too each their own though i suppose.
Yeah. I remember seeing an interview with some grizzled old hobo with a chunk of his mouth missing and he said he got injured when he passed out drunk and fell of a freight train. And reading Hobo Shoestring's blog (an excellent read, by the way) he is constantly getting into trouble because he's a full blown alcoholic and gets the chronic shakes if he's not tanked up on hard drink.
Whenever I read or hear about train hoppers getting into trouble, whether they're caught or injured, it's nearly always because they were either drunk or just really slack (like hanging out in the open and barely even trying to stay hidden).
I think that freight hopping is relatively safe, all things considered, if you just stay alert and act sensibly. I guess this also applies to pretty much everything else in life too. The thought of being blind drunk on a freight train, or even just buzzing from a few beers, kind of scares the hell out of me.
Whenever I read or hear about train hoppers getting into trouble, whether they're caught or injured, it's nearly always because they were either drunk or just really slack (like hanging out in the open and barely even trying to stay hidden).
I think that freight hopping is relatively safe, all things considered, if you just stay alert and act sensibly. I guess this also applies to pretty much everything else in life too. The thought of being blind drunk on a freight train, or even just buzzing from a few beers, kind of scares the hell out of me.
Great video! I especially like how the bottle of jim beam guides us through the mixed direction of scenes; gondola=roseville-dunsmuir, boxcar= duns-eugene, stack=pdx-tacoma. It is one of my favorite routes on UP. You will notice similar shots on Stobe's, "dunsmuir to Ogden" episode. Nice to see the stone lion jungle still sports riders. Lots of changes there the last few years. Overall excellent pace/rhythm to the video. Nothing quite like the taste of whiskey on a fast freight.
