Did hobos ride under 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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The era of the freight train-hopping, job-seeking hobo faded into obscurity in the years following the Second World War. Many hobos from this era have since “caught the westbound,” or died. A small number of so-called hobos still hop freight trains today.

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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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It should elicit a fine of a couple hundred dollars, but it could land you a month (or more) in jail and a fine in the ballpark of $1,000. CLICK HERE for more of Esquire's Guide to Minor Transgressions!

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

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Train surfing is illegal on most railways in the world, with some exceptions. Many railroad companies usually take a zero tolerance policy to practice of riding on exterior parts of trains, and employ railway police and guards in an attempt to prevent the practice.

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If you want to leave a train during it's motion (for example, to avoid a catching by the police at the station), get to the lowest footrest of car, face forward to direction of movement, than jump to the side off the train and run after a contact with land surface.

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As far as I'm aware, there's no legal limit. Passenger trains do not normally exceed 12 cars (around 900 feet, dependent on rolling stock type), but many are much shorter than this.

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Freighthopping or trainhopping is the act of surreptitiously boarding and riding a freightcar, which is usually illegal.

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(b) No person, without privilege to do so, shall climb upon or into any locomotive, engine, railroad car, or other vehicle of a railroad company when it is on a railroad track.

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