I am a professional hobo. I have been hopping freight trains since 1989 and have ridden over 330,000 miles of steel since my very first hop out on the rails. Canada, USA and Mexico are my usual hopping grounds.
Hobo Shoestring lost half his hand in a rail-hopping accident. Shoestring has taken numerous first-timers out for the first ride when they asked him to. He says that after one ride, they're usually “so beat they never want to ride a train again.” Clearly, it isn't for everyone.
Reports seemed to indicate either falling off a bridge onto the tracks or his backpack getting caught on a passing Amtrack train while on a bridge and being dragged. Based on the communications from Baltimore Law Enforcement and Baltimore Train communications we've located the area where his body was recovered.
Today. Hopping trains happens all over the world and varies from place to place. Some places are more critical and consider freight hopping a crime, and other places are more lenient.
James William Stobie gained considerable notoriety during his all too short life of thirty-three years as a filmmaker who self-produced documentary styled videos portraying life as a rail riding traveler-- AKA 'Stobe the Hobo. His accomplishments were many, but his time here on earth encompassed so much more than that ...
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.
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.
Contemporaneous with London, Leon Ray Livingston, better known as “A-No. 1,” claimed to be the most famous hobo in the United States by the beginning of the twentieth century. He had travelled across the world, purportedly logging over 500,000 miles on just $7.61. [6] He recounted his journeys in over a dozen books.
Graham. Maurice W. Graham (June 3, 1917 – November 18, 2006), also known as Steam Train Maury, was the five-time holder of the title King of the Hobos, and was later known as Patriarch of the Hobos.