Howdy from the Northwest

Hello everyone. I just wanted to say hello and introduce myself a little bit since I am really digging this forum.

Names Widerstand... Been riding freight trains for about 13ish year... Past 5 years or so been living indoors which cool for a lot of reasons like having a computer, running water, and a bed...etc In the past 5 years or so I have really gotten into spending time ultralight gear and hiking, practicing wilderness self reliance, and now hopefully hammocks...etc. I still take train trips places... Just not full time.

I am really interested in putting together a good hammock setup since my last one was very low quality and literally just thrown together out of tyvek and paracord.

Right I am looking at getting a single ENO hammock, and just using a polytrap until I can get a sil-tarp...

Anyways to make this introduction better here are some pretty photos.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2615/...fd1d0d19_b.jpg
(The world as seen by rail)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3164/...c7e8ea1e_b.jpg
(The lava fields of North California)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3218/...dcff728e_b.jpg
(Standing in a post card north of Polebridge, MT)

Welcome Aboard! Your gonna soak it up on here...... I should post some of my train pix from my Ringling Bros. days.......
Trains and hammocks .... a terrific combo.
Shug

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Originally Posted by Shug

Trains and hammocks .... a terrific combo.

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Could not have said it better myself... Most of y'all don't know this but the inside walls of boxcars have nice tie down points all over them that are made for 1" straps for securing loads but I am thinking that I want to setup up my future hammock in boxcars so I can get off that cold cold steal in the winter time.

Oh and thanks Shug for turning me on to this forum!

Oh yeah ....met three fellers at the MN State Fair this year who have been hammocking on trains for 20 years in canvas hammocks. Forgot their names but they watch my videos on YouTube. Never know who your gonna meet!

Now this makes me wonder.... If I was to take a trip by train, instead of booking the "sleeping" accomodations, If I could just book an empty box car and hang there!!!

beautiful pictures!!!

Based on your description, I think ENO would be a great way to go, all thier stuff is component based so you can buy it as needed. not sure what your size/stature is but you might wanna consider the doublenest as well. It gives you an extra 2 1/2 ft in width but still packs down to the same size. also if you are looking for a good tarp, i received word from the company last week, they are lengthening their fly by a ft and 1/2 for extra coverage. Anyway after looking at your pics, seems like you are on the right track. Ive been using my eno for years, though not for such a unique purpose as yours. go for it man, you wont regret it. look forward to seeing some pics of the singlenest in use.

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Originally Posted by TinaLouise

beautiful pictures!!!

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Thanks!

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Originally Posted by laidback_chica

Based on your description, I think ENO would be a great way to go, all thier stuff is component based so you can buy it as needed. not sure what your size/stature is but you might wanna consider the doublenest as well. It gives you an extra 2 1/2 ft in width but still packs down to the same size. also if you are looking for a good tarp, i received word from the company last week, they are lengthening their fly by a ft and 1/2 for extra coverage. Anyway after looking at your pics, seems like you are on the right track. Ive been using my eno for years, though not for such a unique purpose as yours. go for it man, you wont regret it. look forward to seeing some pics of the singlenest in use.

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Thanks for the advice. Ill be sure to post photos when I get it.

So at the request of a few forum members, here is a story of train travel.

Sorry if this is against the rule mod's if so I am sorry and I would have posted it to the Donating Members Off-Topic forum if was one.

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The following story is just a little bit of the trip I took but rest will have to wait for another day. I hope you all enjoy the following story.

I showed up in Weed, CA on a relatively warm late September afternoon to visit my friends at the Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture. As I was walking out to the property North Bank Fred and Railhed passed me on the grave road…I guess they didn’t know who I was from behind? After a nice little walk and getting a bit depressed about the large amounts of trash on the side of the road that was dumped by ignorant locals in this beautiful wilderness area I show up at the property and after meeting everyone Fred, Bruce, Andrea, Railhed, and Lee (I meet more people then this but I can’t remember many peoples names.) and walking around and looking at all the really cool projects that they had going on such as that caboose, the pond, stream restoration, and the depot project...etc. I jumped right in to lend a hand to Lee on the repair of the garage roof since I have spent my own fair share of time roofing.

As the sun dipped down behind the behind the hills everyone kind of grouped around the campfire and ate dinner that consisted of burritos made it the really cool outdoor kitchen. Most of us stayed up kind of late chatting around the fire, which is always a great way to really get to know people. As the night grew old and after watching a few trains pass through I hit the sack for the night…

I was awoken in the middle of the night by a little tiny mouse that was trying to rob me of my food so I proceed to yell it and it jumped about 1 foot in the air and ran away…I must of given it a heart attack…I feel right asleep after that to the sound of the strong winds the wipe around Mt. Shasta…

I awoke very early in the morning around 6:00am to a very clear windy day and I proceed to take care of the very important business of making morning tea and taking a walk… As I walked around I noticed that all the snow that was on Shasta the day before had been blown off and accumulated into a large snow cloud at the summit, it was really quite the sight to see but sadly I didn’t have my camera with me on this trip.

After tea and sitting around I was listening to the weather on my scanner and I found out that a storm was about 12hours away from slamming into Weed, CA so I opted to make this a short trip and catch the next NBD to stop at the Black Butte siding. I approached Railhed with the idea of us going north together since he was also going to catch the next north bound train which is not something I often do since I prefer the solitude of riding alone. Around 10:00am the M-RVEU (Manifest Roseville, CA to Eugene, OR) stopped at the siding and after myself and Railhed said some quick goodbye one of the local tramps was nice enough to give us a ride in his pick-up down the train to scout for rides. For those of you whom do not know the M-RVEU train often has very few to zero rides on it and this particular train was about 90% A-Frames and about 10% boxcars only two of which were open. We got dropped off at the rear end of the train so we could walk up to our ride and as we were walking up a few tracks over a MofW truck stopped right near us so we tried to hind behind the truck of an A-frame car but it didn’t work and one of the works got out of the truck to throw a switch and he called out to us and said “hey I see you hiding there” so we slowly stood up and he said “are you guys trespassing” and we replied with “no were just walking north” he then said “well you might want to cross over here since that train will move soon” so we did and he drove off. We continued to walk up our train and found our empty boxcar, which would be out home for the next 15.5 hours.

After sitting at the siding for maybe another 35mins or so we started to move which is always a good feeling after being spotted like we were. As we rolled north slowly and after waving goodbye to our friends we siding almost right away at the North Black Butte for a train to pass and after that we were on our way to Klamath Falls. For those whom never have made this run the Union Pacific Black Butte Subdivision, which runs between South Dunsmuir and Klamath Falls, is one of the more gorgeous lines with long sweeping curves and huge vistas. On the way we sided at Grass Lake, Mount Hebron, & Worden… As we were getting closer to K-Falls you go through two tunnels 18 and 17, both of which are under 2000feet but like magic we went into tunnel 18 with dry weather and came out with rain…It’s a good thing we were in a nice boxcar for this trip.

As we pulled it to K-Falls we left the main which meant that we were not going to be having a quick crew change and go…plus they unhooked our units…I knew that our train was set to leave K-Falls at 7:00pm so we had sometime to kill so we talked and I made some raspberry earl gray tea… Around 4:00pm our train aired up and we started rolling! Wait ago UP for moving a train 3 hours early! Is that some kind of record?

After leaving K-Falls and starring out at the lake as we left the area I laid down for some rest and fell asleep right away almost. I’m not quite sure where we sided it but I know he stopped at Diamond Lake, Gilchrist Jct., maybe Crescent Lake, Heather or McCredie Springs. I woke up to lights and I thought we were going into Oakridge and thought to myself that it sure took us a longtime to get here and then I realized that we were on the outskirts of Eugene, so I woke up Railhed and rolled up for debarking. I got off as we passed the Amtrak Depot since they have some nice flat cement leading up to the tracks and it makes for an easy spot to get off it. Railhed stayed on for a bit get closer to his place.

I walked to a friend’s house where she left the door unlocked for me so I could sleep on her couch.

Overall all I think this was a good Standard trip…

Thanks Widerstand. I enjoyed that. My granddad rode freights from NC to Florida and back a few times in the 1920s. He was doing carpentry work down there during the land and hotel boom. I wish I'd questioned him more about the hoboing as he called it.

Ken

Fascinating! Thank you!

I've always wanted to stow away on a freight boat across the Pacific... prolly never happen...

- MacEntyre

P.S. I like your YT Channel, too. Being a videographer, you'll fit in here!

Nice pictures and I enjoyed some of your videos. The story above was very interesting. Welcome to the forum!

Thank you for sharing that!