One Pays the Price of Hobo Choice

The Dangerous Lives of Train-Hoppin’ Hobos

For some people, seeing the country from a boxcar is the ultimate freedom. But as an October fatality indicates, it can come with a price

By Nina Shapiro

At 4:40 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 8, a freight train making its way south through Chehalis suddenly stopped. A sensor had gone off, indicating that the train was dragging something. It was still dark when Chehalis Detective Jeff Elder got there at 5 in the morning. Firefighters, also at the scene, set up lights so Elder could see. In the glare, Elder was able to make out a body lying between the tracks, now dead, a young man wearing blond dreadlocks, a nose ring, and tattered jeans. The deceased was Jason Litzner, age 25.

While he took measurements at the scene, Elder asked another officer to talk to the conductor. The officer found not only the conductor but two women - one of whom was Litzner’s wife. They had all been riding on what is known by those who frequent the rails as a “suicide car,” whose only floor is a row of crossbars with gaping holes between them.

The trio had spent a lot of time hopping trains over the last year or two, as the women told Elder back at the police station. The detective asked them if they w

RAILWAY AGE.COM

Trespasser Deaths up 15.2% in Eight Months

Preliminary statistics released Oct. 31 show that 368 trespassers were killed on railroad property in the first eight months of this year, a 15.2% increase over the 309 trespasser deaths reported in the same period of 2005. There were also 241 fatalities at rail-highway crossings in this year’s January-August period, one more than the 240 who died at crossings in 2005. Total rail fatalities increased 2% to 610 this year. There were only nine employee fatalities, compared with 20 last year. The Federal Railroad Administration also reported that train accidents declined 12.8% to 1,890 in the first eight months of this year, collisions dropped 28.4% to 126, and yard accidents were down 18.2% to 979.

"A bum is a drinker and a wanderer,” Tommy says. “A tramp is a dreamer and a wanderer. But a hobo, he has the same spirit of a pioneer. He works and wanders.”

A guy once came up to Tommy and told him he was going to grab a meal at a restaurant and skip out on the tab. “Don’t ever do that,” Tommy told him. A true hobo, Tommy says, talks to the manager and asks if he can earn a meal by, say, washing dishes.

Interesting how this piece, well-written and graphic, presents this person’s view that somehow trespassing is romantic and that law breakers are noble rogues.

I gather that the difference, then, between a tramp and a hobo is a good pair of running shoes.

PZ

The real risks in hoboing involve a lot more than the trains themselves. As with any unlawful activity (consider drug dealing and moonshine), there is also a violent human element involved that others can’t be protected from. Unless you have no qualms or scruples yourself, you can find yourself in a situation where you could be assaulted, sexually molested or even killed and nobody else will be in a position to do much about it.

I suspect the phrase “honor among thieves” probably has a place in the discussion.

The basic illegality of the practice aside, for those for whom being a hobo was a lifestyle, there probably was a certain amount of honesty and honor. They weren’t necessarily out to do wrong, they only wanted to enjoy the freedom that came with it. One can perhaps gather from Tommy’s comments that a “true hobo” wasn’t afraid of work - he just didn’t do it any more than he had to, and certainly not in one place for too long.

Some folks who rode the rails lacked the resources to travel “honestly.”

On the other hand, a tramp or bum was out to get what he could from life, regardless of how he got it. Honesty and honor weren’t part of his code of ethics.

Many of today’s riders are thrill seekers - only instead of a surfboard on a 20’ wave, they’re riding a railcar. Some of them get a bit of a tumble, a la Houston Ed, some meet their maker.

Don’t think that I’m defending them. Just pointing out that “hobo” does not necessarily automatically equal “hardened criminal…”

Nowadays, those could get you killed.

Keep in mind, too, that someone riding on a boxcar is NOT doing any harm. He’s only trying to get from one place to another for free and acting like he’s a real criminal is overkill. BNSF is wasting resources on something they don’t need to. Besides, most of the time if you put a hobo in jail it only means you have to feed and house him. They just need to change the law so if they get hurt they can’t sue the railroad(see the posts on the railroads getting sued for $24 million.

Simplistic answer. Spoken like someone who hasn’t had to be at the scene of one of these guys losing limbs or being a fatality from exposure. Contaminating or stealing from cargo. Have one of these lovely drunk or drugged out folks approach you one night when you are alone walking your 150 car train. Or find one of your locomotive consist has been occupied by a “traveller” and they have defecated all over it and anywhere they haven’t has rotting food and foul smelling garbage.

They are doing real harm and should be charged with a crime if the facts merit.

The laws will never change in the way you suggest, because they would no longer protect the majority of us and besides, most people view suing the railroad as a kind of lottery.

LC

You have some good points, Limitedclear, about the slobs. But the laws not changing in the way I suggest VIOLATES the majority of us because we all pay the costs of those looney tune lawsuits. Also if the law changed like I suggest the lottery STOPS.

A change in the law in the way you suggest would dramatically alter the laws concerning not only trespassing but also the way we handle others being on private property for any reason as a large measure of that law is based upon trespassing or being on the property in various degrees. You can’t change only the railroad part of this particular part of the law without causing massive change in the law.

LC

I didn’t think that at all. But what you’re saying is like using the phrase “slightly pregnant…”[:D]

Property rights (as regards to trespassing) are a lot like copyright permissions. If you don’t defend your copyright, your property becomes public domain. Similarly, if you allow the public to freely use your property, your property basically becomes public property. And at that point, you can no longer claim that the offender was trespassing. Therefore, any law that denied the ability of trespassers to sue for injuries would not be taken into account, and the lawsuits would continue.

What’s your source on this? Because what you say is dead wrong.

I’m in a business that requires I know copyright law, and as I understand it the only way a copyright becomes public domain is if it expires and is not renewed. The absence of defending any or every violation does NOT open up a registered mark to “public domain.” The law is broken when someone uses a copyright without obtaining proper license – and I would say it follows that as long as private property is posted, trespassers can be prosecuted. To say otherwise is untrue.

Go here and read No. 5 – http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

I really should have stayed with just property rights and not tried to go with the copyright analogy. Every state has laws that cover public use of private property. You can search for information regarding “prescriptive easement” or “implied dedication”. Here is an example from California:

• A right of access acquired through use is, essentially, an easement over real property that comes into being without the explicit consent of the owner. The acquisition of such an easement is referred to as an “implied dedication”, the right acquired is also referred to as a “public p

The romantic part of being a hobo died a long time ago. As mentioned in a post above, todays world is just too violent for anybody to call the hobo lifestyle romantic. Hopping a ride on freight train was a practice that generally was accepted in times long since past. I’m sure that going back to the years of the Great Depression, hopping a freight train was the only way for some people to get from one place to another while looking for work. Were there people who died, lost limbs or suffered other various injuries while doing so? I’m sure that there was. In todays world you have lawyers who will sue for anything, asking for everything and our court system seems more than willing to listen. That has a lot of people and companies running scared.

CC

[quote user=“Datafever”]

I really should have stayed with just property rights and not tried to go with the copyright analogy. Every state has laws that cover public use of private property. You can search for information regarding “prescriptive easement” or “implied dedication”. Here is an example from California:

• A right of access acquired through use is, essentially, an easement over real property that comes into being without the explicit consent of the owner. The acquisition of such an easement is referred to as an “implied dedication”, the right acquired is also referred to as a “public pres

First of all, let me state that you may very well be correct and that implied dedication does not apply to railroads, in which case this entire segment of discussion is completely moot.

The Civil Code section that you quote applies to the conversion of an easement to a title; it does not address the creation of

I was drawing the line somewhere above (or below, your choice) law-abiding. That is to say that a shop lifter and a serial killer are both criminals, but there is a substantial difference in the seriousness of their crimes.

Kinda like being “slightly pregnant” with one baby, or quintuplets.

[quote user=“Datafever”]

First of all, let me state that you may very well be correct and that implied dedication does not apply to railroads, in which case this entire segment of discussion is completely moot.

The Civil Code section that you quote applies to the conversion of an easement to a title; it does not address the

I agree with LC’s assessment. However, about a year ago the Indiana Supreme Court just ruled the opposite in a case involving an easement claimed by a gas line utility over the Louisville and Indiana railroad. I thought it was a crazy opinion that basically concluded that commerce requires various forms of transportation to have easements ergo the gas company should not have to pay for it.

I should probably shut up before I say something that angers the powers that be.

Gabe