Did hobos ride on top of trains?

According to one estimate, the hobo ranks swelled to 4 million adults and 250,000 teenagers between 1929 and World War II. These steam-engine hobos crisscrossed the country looking for paying work and a hot meal, hitching illegal rides between, on top, underneath and occasionally inside train cars.



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Riding the rods There could be four or more of these truss rods under the car floor running the length of the car, and hobos would “ride the rods”. Some would carry a board to place across the rods to lie on. Others would lie on just one rod and hold on tightly. Riding the rods was very dangerous.

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Many hobos were killed or injured while trying to board or jump off a moving freight train. Others became locked inside box or refrigerator cars, their bodies found weeks later. Some hobos found places on trains to hide from the bulls who policed the cars, only to be crushed when the freight shifted.

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Life as a hobo was dangerous. In addition to the problems of being itinerant, poor, and far from home and support, plus the hostility of many train crews, they faced the railroad police, nicknamed bulls, who had a reputation of violence against trespassers.

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After the Civil War, many headed west in search of work, carrying a hoe with them. “Hoe boys” became “hobos.” Hobos were not bums or tramps; they were men seeking work wherever they could find it. They lived out of doors in camps known as jungles.

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'ho-bo plural hoboes also hobos. : a homeless and usually penniless wanderer : tramp.

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During the night of 22–23 July 1945, these men went ashore at Karafuto, Japan, and planted an explosive charge that subsequently wrecked a train.

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City congestion and lack of metros. With the expansion of the national highway network after the Second World War, urban areas in the US were increasingly built to support road rather than rail travel. City centres were places to get in and out of, rather than move in and around.

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To cope with the uncertainties of life, hobos developed a system of symbols they'd write with chalk or coal to provide fellow “Knights of the Road” with directions, help, and warnings.

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Female hobos were an integral part of the hobo culture, and their stories and experiences have been documented in literature, photography, and other forms of media.

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Luke Magnus Nicolson (born 9 July 2000), known as Francis Bourgeois, is a British trainspotter, social media personality, model, and author.

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