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Reb00t
location:
Chicagoland
Gender: Male
Iron Chef Microwave
 |  |  | Re: Does anyone do train yards?
<Reply # 40 on 8/15/2005 2:30 PM >
|  | | | *First time posting*
I've done a few yards, but nothing like "hopping trains", and shit like that.
I have a membership to the Illinois Rail Museum, and it's fun to always go and poke around in their yards and barns. It's a good way to get neat pictures without much effort or endagering oneself, the downside being that they're not really modern operations, and, it doesn't really qualify as UE, considering they just let you roam the entire place. They do keep their maintaince shops closed though. The hardest part of the facilities to get onto would either be the diesel or steam shops, but a lot of times, there'll be a door open. Sometime's there'll be somebody inside, working on something, but they don't seem to mind, just as long as you don't screw with the power tools.
As for stations in Chicago, they're pretty easy to get around in and explore. My excuse is that I'm building a model railroad, and I'm taking pictures of the prototype. Most of the guys are just blue collar workers, and they don't care if you take some pics, just don't disturb anything else. In Metra's northwestern station, its pretty easy to spot security because they wear bright yellow shirts that say "security."
In the Union Station, I haven't run into any of the Amtrak police.
In regards to intermodal yards, I wouldn't really recommend sneaking in there. The people at homeland security think that the evil people are gonna sneak stuff in with intermodal containers. I guess its a valid concern, but keep in mind that if you get caught in there, it's slightly more suspicious than being caught in the Amtrak terminal. Some of my friends got off at Western Avenue and tried going though some of the yards, and were kindly escorted out, minus their cameras.
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bikepunk
  
location:
Vancouver
Gender: Female
| |  | Re: Does anyone do train yards?
<Reply # 41 on 8/17/2005 1:21 AM >
| | | | If you are interested in trainhopping, there's a book by Duffy Littlejohn that has quite a bit of good info in it. It's called something like "Hopping freight trains in North America". Read up, take it easy, go with experienced people and stay safe. I met a girl who lost both legs on her first time out, when she jumped with her friends to avoid going into a hostile yard. For me, the consequences outweigh the benefits, but I have lots of friends who are very committed to the hobo life, and it can be a great one. You get to see parts of the country that aren't accessible any other way, and you get to do it for free.
There used to be a bunch of burned out old freight and passenger cars in the Trillium industrial lands in Vancouver. It was a neat area to explore, as long as you were careful to watch out for needles and such. The whole area is being built up and redeveloped, so the old trains are gone (the railway companies must have had them taken away after one too many arsons) and so are much of the railyards that used to be around here.
Just one other word of caution though: fines for trespass on railway property are huge. I got caught once and let off with a warning, but the fine can be up to 10,000$ or a year in jail. I usually figure that I can pay a small trespass fine (115$ or so), if I can't talk my way out of it, but 10 grand would end my exploration days for a long time to come.
www.urbanexploration.ca |
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