I guess before I continue talking about hopping freights I should make a disclaimer: freight train hopping is illegal and could be dangerous. If you want to learn about other people’s views and adventures you could check out this guys link.
He talks about quick one hour rides, during the 90’s, doing it just for the thrill of it. My story is a little different since it was about 2 to 3 day journey back in the 70's.
The background to my freight train adventure was to get to San Francisco for the first running of the Golden Gate Marathon. I don’t know if they still do the marathon anymore, but back then K. and I were on the high school cross-country team, so we thought a marathon across the Golden Gate Bridge would be a feather in our cap.
To be honest, it wasn’t my first freight train adventure. I did a training run earlier that year with another friend. We rode a freight train from Seattle to Portland to visit our brothers that were attending college there.
Hitch-hiking was illegal in Washington State at the time, so that was the excuse used for riding the train. It was that experience that inspired me to attempt a longer trip to San Francisco.
A few days before our planned departure we went down to the freight yards behind the old Sears building in Seattle to check it out. In most freight yards they have signs posted telling you not to ask the people about the trains because they weren’t allowed to tell anyone. That didn’t really seem to matter, if you asked one of the workers something they would tell you.
So we found out that each night at 9:30 a train would head south for Portland. That was all we needed to know. When the time came our friend dropped us off at the edge of the train yard. We each had a backpack with clothes, some food and water.
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