Better freight than never
The trains that define America
On Tuesday May 15 last year, a freight train dashed 66 miles through Ohio. Nothing unusual about that – except that this train had nobody on board. For more than two hours it tore through three counties at an average speed of 35mph – reaching a top speed of 47 mph. The company responsible, CSX Transportation, hastily dispatched another locomotive to grab hold of the 47 cars from behind – including two containing hazardous acid – and to slow it down as much as possible. Then a brave engineer called Jon Hosfeld, positioned at a crossroads ahead, jumped aboard the 10mph train and applied the brake.
Of course, that’s not the first time an American jumped on board a moving freight train. They’ve been doing it for decades. The practice is dangerous – and strictly illegal – but people still feel the urge, even if not in the numbers seen during the Great Depression; when hundreds of thousands of “boxcar boys” travelled free in their search for jobs elsewhere.
Typically, would-be passengers wait for many hours before an opportunity arises to climb aboard trains as they slow down at crossings or stop at junctions. Most carriages, being sheer-sided, are virtually impossible to board while the train is moving; but latter-day hobos can make do with even the narrowest strip of platform or cling to ladders for hours on end. According to their own accounts, posted on the internet, these trespassers feel shockingly visible as trains pass through towns; claustrophobic as they rumble through seemingly endless tunnels; and constantly anxious about the nature of the freight. (Is it merely some hazardous chemical, or could this carriage hold nuclear waste?)
If the ride is at least moderately comfortable, travellers may leave a calling card. Their tags, generally more subtle than ordinary grafitti, often consist of scratched self portraits – but also take the form of scratchy satire, propaganda or religious appeals. Among the most popular, encountered on trains all round the country by connoisseurs of this subculture, is the outline of a man wearing a huge stetson.
According to one theory, the word “hobo” comes from “homeward bound” and refers to the men who built the railways – through dry plains, snowy mountains and rain-soaked valleys – whose travails should properly be regarded as the 1800s equivalent of the next century’s space programme. In north American folklore, the 1869 rendezvouz between the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific at Promontory, northeast of Salt Lake City is considered a matter of only slightly less pride than the moon landing. While finishing this great patriotic enterprise, many workers, veterans of the civil war, continued to wear military uniforms. Afterwards, some returned home to their families – the first hobos – but others stayed on to build branch lines. Many carved out new lives immediately beside the tracks. Unlike British railways, built within settled landscapes, American lines provided a focus around which new urban centres were constructed: that’s why freight trains continue to run through main streets across the country.
The Union Pacific, chartered by an act of Congress and signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, is the largest railfreight company in North America; its network, reaching from coast to coast, covers some 36,000 miles. Even now, with the country thoroughly trussed up in highways, Union Pacific’s business continues to grow. Indeed, one significant portion of the company’s business relates to road transport: in 2000, Union Pacific delivered 815,000 carriage-loads of finished cars and car parts. (Auto-related freight accounted for almost half the company’s traffic to and from Mexico, which has increased substantially under the North American Free Trade Agreement). Other, even more substantial areas of business include coal, agricultural products, building materials, lumber, steel and chemicals – which Union Pacific delivers in what it calls a “rolling pipeline”. Altogether, in 2000, the company delivered 8.92m carriage loads, generating income of some $11.9bn.
Slightly smaller than Union Pacific is CSX, which has a network of more than 23,000 miles over 23 states. As well as the runaway train in Ohio, CSX last year had to contend with one of its trains derailing in a tunnel in Baltimore. This spilled 5,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid as well as combustible lubricants and other corrosive substances. A fire raged for five days and routine life in the city was gravely disrupted. The incident was uncommonly severe, but not unique. Recent figures suggest that, since 1990, there have been nearly 64 rail-related oil and chemical spills in Baltimore, more than 100 in New York and nearly 200 in Chicago, among other cities. (Not all those accidents involved CSX.)
Environmental campaigners seized on the incident. The US Energy Department has been planning for some time to bury nuclear waste in Nevada. This would involve transporting the material from 77 sites in 35 states, and possibly through Washington DC, Los Angeles and Chicago. The casks intended to be used for that dangerous mission are designed to withstand a fire of 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes – but as campaigners pointed out, the Baltimore fire burned for days, at temperatures that approached 1,500 degrees.
And then came September 11. If terrorists could hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, how easily could they blow up a train in the middle of nowhere? In the immediate aftermath, railways voluntarily suspended shipment of certain hazardous materials; and security measures across the industry were stepped up. Foreign-born workers were in many cases obliged to submit their papers to close scrutiny; bridges and crossings were checked and rechecked; and railroad police showed renewed vigour in their pursuit of trespassers. More than ever before, only the truly desperate, these days, will dare to catch a ride on a freight train.
PLUS
Last year railroad police removed 38,300 people from railway property, a substantial portion of them riding on trains. Of those, some 21,000 were subsequently deported. Nearly 9,000 were arrested for trespassing.
PLUS
In hobo slang, engines are called units and cars have a a variety of designations: refridgerated box cars are called reefers, for instance, locomotives are units and flat backed carriages offering space for containers are called piggybacks.
13 April 02