Bad luck freight-hopping from Hyattsville to Cumberland
At 3 p.m., I was watching a film at the National Gallery. By 5:20 p.m. I was riding a grain
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Abdul Rahimov has a Ph.D. in Russian history from Stanford. He studied earlier at Harvard and grew up in Illinois in a railroad-dominated town.Rahimov prefers to use a pen name to avoid attracting unnecessary attention from railroads. He lives on the East Coast.
Author: Abdul Rahimov
Dangerous train ride from Cumberland to Gaithersburg
Up in western Maryland, nestled in the Alleghenies, is the crew-change town of Cumberland. You can go west on CSX
Read moreRiding on the CSX Southbound through Washington DC
Some days you can’t put it off any longer. I had found a storage facility for my repeatedly vandalized car,
Read moreGoodbye to the West
On a Friday, I quit my job. The following Tuesday, I was in Weed, looking for a freight. Maybe I
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Train-hopping in Canada: ‘You’re under arrest for trespassing’
Browning once wrote: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp / Or what’s a heaven for?” He understood,
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Old fashion ride on the Santa Cruz Local gets me going again
In “The Circus Animals’ Desertion,” Yeats wrote about the loss of youthful elan: “Now that my ladder’s gone, I must
Read more‘Small victories and large defeats’ from San Luis Obispo to Oilfield
Most of us fail most of the time. This year has provided ample personal evidence – besides falling on my
Read moreHoboes, haunted men and rail riding from Truckee to Davis
If Truckee didn’t have a corrupt Greyhound agent, I would have missed the next day’s ride over the Sierras. I
Read moreHiding from the bull’s eye and catching a little freight train ride
Every time I flexed my right arm, the triceps ached. Yep, the train I had just jumped had probably been
Read more‘There’s a coal train comin’ through tonight’
Since coming to California, I have gloried in escaping the puny scale of the East, where diminished people live in
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