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	Freight Train Riders of America - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA) is an American gang of homeless men who move about in railroad cars, particularly in the northwestern United States.
		The FTRA was founded by homeless veterans of the Vietnam War in a Montana bar in the 1980s.
		Believed to number as many as 1,000, FTRA members are most frequently encountered along the BNSF Railway's Hi-Line, which stretches from Minneapolis to Seattle, often sleeping in switching yards, bridge underpasses and boxcars along the route.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Freight_Train_Riders_of_America (421 words)

	Golden Gryphon Press - Two Trains Running Review
		There is an America that has slipped from our ken, a place of freight trains, shadows and hoboes, a past in which the land itself seemed to be in motion.
		Freights go places that no automobile, no passenger train, no bus can go — through isolated canyons, mountain passes, or along rivers known by all but not knowable in certain ways except by the rail rider.
		One recent phenomenon that draws the wrath of the true hobo is the "yuppie rider," a person who lives in the real world and holds a regular job, but joyrides the freights in his or her spare time.
	www.goldengryphon.com /revtrains3.html (1242 words)

	Trainhopping
		A train is approaching from the north, which narrows their possible destinations to San Antonio, Laredo, Corpus Christi, and all the railyards and sidetracks between.
		According to police and railway observers, surprising numbers of students and young urban professionals are hopping freight trains for kicks, particularly on the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest.
		Freight train jumping, or hoboing, was first popularized during the Great Depression as a cheap means of travel for migrant workers.
	www.northbankfred.com /austin.html (2945 words)

	Clamor Magazine :: issue 22 :: feature
		So my knowledge of train hopping was previously limited to an episode of "The Simpsons" in which the Simpson family stows away in a boxcar because Homer refuses to pay an airport tax for a flight.
		A streamline rider is typically equipped with only a bag filled with the essentials: food, water, and enough cash for about a week on the rails, which as you can imagine probably really wouldn’t be that much cash, considering you’re not paying for a ticket, and won’t be spending much time in the dining car.
		Tim explained that the FTRA, or Freight Train Riders of America (or Fuck The Reagan Administration, although that name may be a little dated), was a group of US veterans that began riding freight trains in the 1980s.
	www.clamormagazine.org /issues/22/feature1.php (1752 words)

	Freight Train Riders of America
		It is a symbol that has become an unnerving part of the railroad landscape across the West, where the mysterious brotherhood known as the Freight Train Riders of America has gained a foothold in the world of switching yards, bridge underpasses and boxcars — the realm of the American hobo for more than a century.
		Concentrated in the Northwest along the Burlington Northern Santa Fe's 1,500-mile High Line between Seattle and Minneapolis, the FTRA claims at least 1,000 itinerant train riders who police believe could be responsible for hundreds of deaths, assaults and thefts along American rail lines over the past two decades.
		About the same time, he said, a freight train derailed west of Spokane after the air line to the rear cars' brakes was cut off.
	milepost1147.2.railfan.net /pages/stories/Article009.html (1082 words)

	Train Simulator for PC Review - PC Train Simulator Review
		Train Simulator will be a joy for anyone with even a passing interest in trains.
		Train Simulator puts you in the cab and in control of six different railway routes, covering more than 600 miles of track.
		For the hard-core train enthusiast, you'll be able to operate the dynamic brakes, locomotive brakes, and train brakes separately.
	www.gamespot.com /pc/sim/trainsimulator/review.html (807 words)

	Freight Train Riders of America - Trains.com Forums (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		FTRA made headlines ten or so years ago when there was a surge in yuppie hoboes who were putting themselves at risk by taking their laptops and sleeping bags along for a whimsical freight train ride.
		Bad choice of train on their part, it was supposed to go Englewood hump yard, in Houston, but last minute was diverted to PTRA at the ship channel.
		Surprise, your train went somewhere else, you aint in Englewood, right next to IH 10 and a bunch of nice motels and diners, your on the Houston Shipchannel, right next to the docks, and most of you dont want to be near the docks after dark!
	www.trains.com /TRC/CS/forums/736491/PrintPost.aspx (3425 words)

	Hobo's Choice \| The San Diego Union-Tribune
		The trains of the title refer, of course, to those mighty engines of hoboes'; dreams, but also to Shepard's approach.
		Freights go places that no automobile, no passenger train, no bus can go: through isolated canyons, mountain passes or along rivers known by all but not knowable in certain ways except by the rail rider.
		Overall, though, "Two Trains Running" is a tour de force that captures all the untamed life of hoboes and their beloved machines.
	www.signonsandiego.com /uniontrib/20040328/news_two_son.html (1224 words)

	Darlene's Daydream Cafe \| News Items
		But whatever the outcome, the trial will shine a spotlight on the loose-knit Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA), which was started by Vietnam veterans in the early 1980s and now numbers from 1,000 to 5,000 members, according to police.
		Police believe the FTRA may be responsible for hundreds of deaths, beatings and thefts along railroads in the past 15 years.
		The FBI briefly investigated the gang for involvement in the 1995 derailment of an Amtrak train near Phoenix, according to a memo from the security division of Burlington Northern.
	www.theatredance.com /ddc_news.html (918 words)

	The Dangerous Lives of Train-hopping 'Yohos' :: Life :: thetyee.ca
		The largest and still active is the Freight Train Riders of North America (FRTA).
		Of curse, train hopping is 100% the fault of Gordon Campbell.
		One of the coal trains was being loaded at the mine near Elkford and the loading operator noticed that there was a person wandering around the tracks.
	thetyee.ca /Life/2005/10/27/TrainHoppingYohos (2908 words)

	Two Trains Running ~ Lucius Shepard
		Shepard joined the "hobo nation" — riding the rails throughout the western half of the United States, his "neighbors" the disenfranchised, the homeless, the punks, the gangs, and the joy riders.
		At the time, the Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA) were making headlines across the country: Were they an organized gang using the U.S. rail system to rape and murder, to smuggle illegal drugs, and to terrorize unsuspecting train-hoppers?
		The train passes through strange, arabesque, monster-infested landscapes as it journeys to Yonder — a likely paradise where a few hundred hobos live within the confines of a majestic tree in apparent peace and tranquility.
	www.gothicrevue.com /Twotrainsrunning.html (829 words)

	Missoulian - Rail life
		Moving around the West on freight trains, the riders are immune to the rules that govern those in the apartments and houses along the tracks.
		The train he had cleared to leave the yard had missed him by inches and the $5 was gone from his pocket.
		Freight trains do not run on a schedule and often sit for hours in rail yards or on side tracks.
	www.missoulian.com /articles/2003/09/07/territory/territory01.txt (3090 words)

	[No title]
		His yard strategy is to stick to a train on a main line, whereas my style is to throttle the yard for information or other freights.
		A Call Board there lists the eastbound trains with their ‘call times.’ Freights are assigned call instead of departure times that is when the crew is notified in their rooms that the train is on mainline and ready to man. A crew van picks and drops them at the head locomotive.
		The Freight Train Riders of America is a purported gang of men who move about the country by rail, particularly in the Northwest.
	www.dailyspeculations.com /keeley/longhaul.html (2773 words)

	Palmini interview
		The FTRA members I’ve dealt with insist they are just another organization with their own initiation rites and set of rules and customs and refer to the FTRA as the Brotherhood.
		Every FTRA member I spoke to told me that the FTRA was formed in 1984 in a bar in White Fish, Montana, as a reaction to the government cutbacks in social welfare that were being implemented under the Reagan Administration.
		Most of the FTRA rail riders I spoke to stated they took up train hopping after a divorce or death of a spouse. Their estrangement from normal life and family appears to have many sources: drug addiction, mental illness, personal trauma, poor education, loss of income, death in the family.
	murderontherails.com /_wsn/page2.html (2118 words)

	Alternative Press Review 14 - The Other Side of This Life - Patrick Marley
		Train hopping must be stamped out because it endangers lives and threatens property, authorities say, but they know little about the character of the young people riding today.
		Jumping trains is just one aspect of their way of life, though, and at the moment, Bree and Lars are more interested in finding a heartier supper and something to drink.
		Train riders took pride in the title, and saw themselves as distinct from tramps—on-the-move freeloaders who refused to work— and bums who stayed in one place.
	www.altpr.org /apr14/this_life.html (6510 words)

	Two Trains Running by Lucius Shepard - an infinity plus review
		According to the police, the FTRA are responsible for murders, drug running and train wrecks.
		Many of the people he met had simply decided, for one reason or another, to drop out of society and live a life on the margins of society, a life that is as dangerous as it may be romantic.
		Billy Long Gone takes a train and finds himself in Yonder, a strange land populated by men and women who are mostly ex-hobos like himself.
	www.infinityplus.co.uk /nonfiction/twotrains.htm (703 words)

	The SF Site Featured Review: Two Trains Running
		Lucius Shepard was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1947.
		The FTRA is the "Freight Train Riders of America," a sort of hobo gang that some believe may be involved in more sophisticated criminal activities beyond illegally hitching rides and general pandering.
		it is the trains, then, two-million-ton beasts with electric hearts and diesel blood that function as a god in the hobo pantheon...
	www.sfsite.com /05b/tt176.htm (632 words)

	Freighthopping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Freighthopping or train hopping is the act of surreptitiously hitching a ride on a railroad freight car.
		Sometimes yard workers will be happy to help respectful riders find the train headed their direction and even assist in avoiding yard security (bulls).
		Retired Spokane police officer Bob Grandinetti attributes this largely to the rise of an itinerant gang calling themselves the FTRA or Freight Train Riders of America.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Freighthopping (426 words)

	the Glob and Wail (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		The history of the FTRA varies depending on the telling but in general the FTRA is described as a loosley affiliated gang of rail riding men, mostly 30 years of age and up, who are extremely violent and belligerent.
		Train hopping took on some youth culture cache in the late 1990s with numerous articles appearing in the press including one in SPIN magazine (July 1998) by Lucius Shepard (A book Two Trains Running derived from his experiences researching the SPIN article followed.
		Young train hoppers are sometimes referred to as "yohos" as in this 2005 article from The Tyhee by Amy Chow.
	www.jamesmac.ca /2006_02_01_archives.php (3090 words)

	LA Weekly - The Hobohemians (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		It's an America that was offered long ago and never delivered, that we're all supposed to love but not allowed to look for, that's just around the corner and always out of reach.
		The train shakes out a cacophony that seems intentionally musical: a high-pitched squeal that varies from hiss to yawn with the steady bass rumble of the turning wheels, in turns cruel and joyful and terrifically sad, layered with the backbeat of the shaking steel car.
		He complicates the common assertion that the FTRA is a white-supremacist group: A couple of members do have swastikas tattooed on their arms, but Slim is not only accepted, he's treated with more respect and deference than anyone else around.
	laweekly.com /ink/02/36/features-ehrenreich.php (7069 words)

	Science Fiction Weekly Interview
		His early stories (1983 to 1989) were characteristically set in Central America and other parts of the Third World, and evoked the beauty and terror of their locations with a fevered ornate intimacy that recalled Joseph Conrad at his most intense and haunting.
		Shepard: Several years ago, I contracted to do an article for Spin concerning a hobo organization called the FTRA (Freight Train Riders of America), a group that certain elements of law enforcement claimed was a hobo mafia responsible for—among other crimes—hundreds of murders, drug running on a massive scale, and the derailing of trains.
		I hopped freights over a span of a couple of months, talked to train tramps in hobo jungles, urban squats, wino bars, at railfan conventions, in a supermax prison where I interviewed a hobo murderer named Mississippi Bones, and at various other venues.
	www.scifi.com /sfw/issue314/interview.html (6033 words)

	Amazon.com: Two Trains Running: Books: Lucius Shepard (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		In this fascinating excursion into modern mythmaking, Shepard (Louisiana Breakdown) draws on his experiences in the late 1990s riding the railroad and researching an apocryphal "hobo mafia" that dubbed itself the FTRA (Freight Train Riders of America) and who were suspects in a number of unsolved murders along America's rail lines.
		The essay is a fascinating account of his time riding freight trains across America while researching the FTRA, which is rumored to be a highly organized crime ring consisting of hobos operating out of train switch yards across the country.
		A loner that hops a phantom train to a land of hobo limbo where everyone is cured of their physical addictions.
	www.amazon.com /Two-Trains-Running-Lucius-Shepard/dp/1930846231 (1735 words)

	Amazon.com: Hopping Freight Trains in America: Books: Duffy Littlejohn (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
		And while this book may encourage some to hop trains who may not have otherwise, for those who are going to do it anyway, this book is very likely to save lives and limbs, and make the rail-riding adventure much more enjoyable, by educating them about the crucial do's and don'ts.
		In other words, most of what is dated is either relatively unimportant to the actual practice of freight hopping or still viable with the application of some common sense (which you'll need a lot of to ride the rails successfully anyway).
		When I first hopped freight trains, in 1970, there were no books to explain it or to allow one to learn the safe way to do it.
	www.amazon.com /Hopping-Freight-Trains-America-Littlejohn/dp/094462734X (1849 words)

	Executive Hobos and 9/11 - part 3
		The freight slides at 5mph through that gamblers' paradise and on into the Sparks Yard at the east city edge, and parks on the main before the control tower.
		The repeated few-minute breaks on the farm for passing trains allow the execs to vault to the grit, exercise the legs, and converse a bit until the priority train clears.
		We ascend the ladders as the freight jerks east somewhere near the Nevada-Utah border to scan all horizons for geographic clues.
	www.northbankfred.com /exec3.html (2496 words)

	The Secret Life of Trains by Wes Modes
		The steady rhythm of this percussion orchestra is punctuated by the other-worldly screaming of passing trains.
		You don't necessarily have to be young or urban or professional.
		But the only thing we see of the bull is an occasional glimpse of his white pickup truck cruising the access roads, sweeping its headlights over the long strings of cars.
	www.thespoon.com /trainhop/train1a.html (1206 words)

	Hobo Jungles
		Workers flocked to the freights to escape bad luck and to seek employment during the Great Depression.
		"Recreational riders" or "yuppie hoboes" hop freights for the adventure, to seek inspiration, and as a respite from the tensions and stress of their everyday lives.
		Many people fear members of a gang known as the Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA) whose reputation is analogous to the Hell's Angels.
	www.worthyent.com /proposal/back.html (720 words)

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