Train Hopping: ‘Pure Unadulterated, Un-homogenized America’

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  06.04.08 | 11:29 AM ET

trainrailsPhoto by 顔なし, via Flickr (Creative Commons)

From road tripping to hitchhiking to rolling on the river, there’s certainly no shortage of iconic American modes of travel to celebrate. There’s one old stand-by that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves, though: the (almost) lost art of hopping freight trains. Shawn Lukitsch, train hopper, filmmaker and founder of the Hobo Film Festival, aims to change that.

Lukitsch has spent the past several weeks on the road, bringing a collection of 30 documentary films about rail-riding life to cities from Miami to Halifax. Part of his motivation in creating the festival is to preserve the memory of a fading subculture—its heroes, urban legends, and simply its sights and sounds. “Freight train riding is dying,” he told the New York Times in a recent interview.

But it’s not dead yet. Lukitsch himself has been hopping trains for 14 years, and estimates that he has ridden more than 120,000 miles around the lower 48 states, Canada and Mexico. I caught up with him to find out what it’s like to travel hobo-style.

You’ve spoken a lot about train hopping’s importance within American culture and history. How does it stack up as a form of travel? How does seeing the world pass by from a freight car change your experience of it?

Pure unadulterated, un-homogenized America. You are getting to see things (countryside, inner cities, the backyards of the surrounding communities) that no other will ever have a chance to see. Your experience of travel through the States or Canada or where have you is limited by having to always stay on the road, continue on the beaten path. Trains take you through amazing countryside that only the people that laid that track and ride that track will ever see.

Also, of course, there is the obvious difference in that there is no seat belt or traffic light or speed trap to deter you from the feeling of freedom that riding trains provides.

Got a favorite train-hopping moment from pop culture? I’m a fan of the scene in “Fried Green Tomatoes.”

Ummmm ... “[The] Simpsons.” Danny DeVito is Homer’s brother and has been ruined by him after he agrees to help him produce the Homer mobile, and upon finding out that Homer has won some money, he decides to hop a train to Springfield to win back his fortune. In the scene, he (Homer’s brother) is hanging out under a bridge with a bunch of other ‘bos and reads of the windfall in the paper. He shouts a goodbye to his buddies and makes to hop a train on the fly, which is loaded with terrible things, among them nuclear waste and acid ... until he finds the “fluffy pillows” car and hops aboard.

Maybe Pee-wee Herman in the “Big Adventure” or Nick Cage pushing Sherilyn Fenn off the freight at the end of “Red Rock West.” Or when Emile Hirsch get whooped up in “Into The Wild.” And, of course, the entire monologue at the end of the classic Emperor of the North with Lee Marvin: “You could have been a meat eater, kid ... but you’re nothing but a bum. ... Stay off the rails, kid.”

Thanks, Shawn.

The Hobo Film Festival is just wrapping up in Buffalo and Pittsburgh this week and will close with a final homecoming show in Asheville, NC, on June 14. Several clips and a few complete films are available online. Here’s the festival promo video:

Here’s the short film “A Day in the Life”:

And, finally, a clip from one of the festival’s feature films, “Who Is Bozo Texino?” a hunt for the true identity of a boxcar graffiti artist:

Tags: Train Travel, News and Briefs

Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


1 Comment for Train Hopping: ‘Pure Unadulterated, Un-homogenized America’

Grizzly Bear Mom 06.04.08 | 1:21 PM ET

I’ve always fantacized about hopping on trains to travel across the country!  It seemed to dangerous for a woman, and now I’m an executive so I fly.

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