The Trains We Rode

By John Puccioni

The dramatic true-life adventures of recreational collegiate freight train riding. Personal recollections of dodging railroad police (sometimes unsuccessfully); bone numbing cold, walking zombie tiredness, what the #@!$% moments and beautiful scenery you can only see seated in a lawn chair in the open doors of a boxcar. NEW LOWER PRICE!!

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Puccioni
• Release date: Oct 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310593352

Book preview

The Trains We Rode

By John Puccioni

Copyright 2014 John Puccioni

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is dedicated to my mother, Marge Puccioni. She was always loving and supportive.

Version 1.1

Contents

Map

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Final Chapter

Acknowledgements

Map

The Trains We Rode

Chapter 1

Kirk & John

To Klamath Falls, OR on WP

25-27 Feb 1977

The red lights flash, the limit gates fall on either side of the steel rails and three behemoth rumbling locomotives packing 100 odd freight cars fly by in an array of color. To most, this is only a bothersome delay, but to my train riding buddies and me, it brings back memories of vagabond trips to far away train yards and country you can only experience from the wide open doors of a boxcar. We were left with these stories of the trains we rode.

Kirk and I climbed up the ladder of the railroad automobile carrier and threw our packs in back of a brand new blue Ford F-150 long bed pickup. We sat with our backs against the cab facing towards the front of the train with only our eyes above the bed wall. After about 20 minutes of anxious waiting we had our first go (a surge forward). My heart was beating out of my chest. This was actually going to happen! We slowly exited the yard and headed north through downtown Sacto (Sacramento). We were about 12 feet above the tracks in the back of our pickup. This was high enough that the cars stopped on the surface streets could not see us as we passed. Our sleeping pads were unpacked to provide some padding in the truck bed. The train started to accelerate and the empty rice fields became the prevalent scenery north of town. We were gently rolling and rocking along and keeping up with the cars on the road that paralleled the tracks.

By now it had been almost 4 hours since we walked into the railroad yard and we started digging in our packs for some food. One of the staples we brought was a loaf of Wonder white bread and some meat and cheese. We started throwing together some sandwiches and realized that the bread was getting hard almost immediately from the wind. We choked down the dry sandwiches and drank some water. We started to realize that there might be a downside to our lofty perch; the diesel smoke that came our way from the 3 big General Electric U30B locomotives at the front of our train was beginning to be overwhelming. These are quarter of a million pound behemoths with 16 cylinder diesel electric engines large enough to fit a basketball inside each cylinder. They produce 3000 horsepower and carry 2900 gallons of fuel.

All of a sudden there was a definite stop (sharp deceleration) in the middle of nowhere and the train quickly came to a halt. We had no idea why and started to look around for some explanation. Was there a train coming the other direction? Didn’t see one. We then saw what we believed were the conductors walking forward from the caboose (yes back then they still had cabooses). They appeared to be looking for something or somebody. Were they looking for us? Had somebody seen us and turned us in? Was our adventure already over? Were we going to end up in jail? We saw a white Western Pacific RR truck slowly driving down the side of the train. More men walked by. We tried our best to stay out of sight while still trying to figure out what was going on. We got to the point that we expected someone to climb up the car carrier and demand that we get out of the back of our pickup and go directly to jail. This went on what seemed like forever. After almost an hour we slowly started up again. We never did figure out what was going on, just the first of many unexplained freight train mysteries on this and subsequent trips.

Freight trains have always been a source of awe and amazement to me. As a child, I owned model trains and earned the Railroading merit badge as a boy scout. This fascination evolved during my freshman year of college at California State University, Sacramento (Sac State) in 1976. Southern Pacific railroad tracks ran along the west perimeter of the campus. I’d sit in my calculus class and watch the freight trains buzz by on their way to unknown distant destinations. Occasionally, a bo’s (hobo’s) head would peak through the door of a boxcar and my thoughts would wander to what it would be like to ride the rails. The urge grew as each train went by. Somehow this lack of attention in Calculus might have contributed to my difficulty in passing this class.

I grew up in Healdsburg, a small town of 5000 people 70 miles north of San Francisco in what was then a rural farming community primarily for plums/prunes. It was a great place to grow up. I rode my bike anywhere I wanted to go. People in town knew you and watched out for you. But, it left me wanting to see and experience the bigger world. Now there is a winery on every corner and the town square is surrounded with foodie tourist haunts. How and when did Healdsburg become an affluent tourist destination as highlighted recently in United Airlines in-flight, Sunset and Outside magazines? Through it all it has maintained its small town mellowness and beautiful tree lines streets and unique central plaza.

I am the oldest of five children of a telephone repairman and a medical lab technician. My ingenuity and work ethic came from my dad and what brains I have came from my mom. My mom’s father was a self taught engineer who designed and installed the lighting on the Golden Gate Bridge and 3 of her brothers were also engineers. My dad has Yankee ingenuity and can figure out how just about anything worked and how to fix it. As a kid I was always taking things apart to see how they worked and to see if I could put it back together without too many extra parts. I was destined to be an engineer. I had spent twelve years in catholic schools and some of my high school counselors had suggested a catholic college. I had had enough and wanted to try something else and a public state college was all my parent’s could afford with 4 more siblings behind me.

My dad’s younger brother, Ron had been the only person in their family to go to college, and he went to Sac State. Ron had been a large influence on me through hunting, fishing, photography and family events. Given that Sac State was less than 2 hours away from home, had a pretty good engineering school and that my first semester tuition was $64; it sealed the deal of where I went to college.

Back on the train north of Sacto, I tried to keep track of where we were by comparing landmarks with our AAA maps. Once a boy scout, always a boy scout. We passed under CA Highway 70 south of Marysville and then crossed over the Yuba River between Marysville and Yuba City. As the sun started to go down we had just passed through Oroville and headed up the hills northeast of town around big sweeping curves.

Our diesel smoke problem turned into near asphyxia as we went through our first tunnel as the billows got caught against the roof of the tunnel. We moved up against the tailgate and covered our faces with our jackets. This tunnel was only about half a mile long. Shortly thereafter we crossed over Lake Oroville on the same