The First Night on the Train

Once the train got out of the yard it started rolling pretty fast, probably 50 or 60 mph, which made for a very chilling breeze. I got out my down sleeping bag and crawled in. When you are riding the freights you sleep in your clothes, boots and all.

My friend K. wrapped himself in his blankets and settled down next to me. Within a short time he was freezing and asking me if we could trade. I was reluctant to do so, but could see if I didn’t he wasn’t gong to make it.

I used his blankets for about 2 minutes and quickly came to the conclusion that they were useless, and unless we both got in the sleeping bag together we wouldn’t survive. It was a mummy bag and very confining for just one person, but somehow we managed to fit the both of us in it.

I really don’t know how we managed to fall asleep, but we woke to a sunny morning and the train was at a dead stop in the middle of a forest. There was nothing else around so all we could do was sit and wait, hoping the train would eventually get moving again.

It finally did and crawled slowly until we found ourselves in the Portland train yard. We exited the train there and headed for Interstate 5 where we took up hitch-hiking since it was legal in Oregon.

It took all day for us to make it to Grants Pass in southern Oregon where we decided we had had enough hitch-hiking so we headed to the local freight yard to pickup another train.

This time we were able to find the train they were lining up before it took off. There is always an ample supply of open empty boxcars on a freight train, so we found a comfortable looking one and moved in.