It was extremely dangerous, but there was an advantage: the conductor couldn't kick you out until the train stopped. Older trains required support trusses for heavier cargo, and that gave a space for hobos to ride on under the train (those rods were abandoned with the advent of stronger steel cars around the 1930s). But in the past, it occasionally referred to the specific act of riding rails underneath train cars. Today, 'riding the rails' is synonymous with any travel on a train. In 1950, a man demonstrates how hobos rode the rods. If that didn't work, there was another heart-racing option.

Author Jack London, who did his own time riding the rails, wrote about the practice in The Road: 'And let me say right here that only a young and vigorous tramp is able to deck a passenger train, and also, that the young and vigorous tramp must have his nerve with him as well.' To 'deck' a car was extremely dangerous, since it was easy to be thrown off the top of the train. 'Only a young and vigorous tramp is able to deck a passenger train'ģ) Riding on top. Though there was a threat of being crushed between cars, the ability to avoid detection made it relatively safe. The location between cars helped them avoid being spotted by railroad police. Most hobos also liked 'riding the blinds' by swinging onto the front end of a baggage car. Occasionally, hobos even tore up the floors of these empty cars for firewood.Ģ) Hiding between cars. It gave hobos space to stay without the threat of being crushed by shifting goods or injured during a bumpy ride. Keeping the railroad police in mind, what was the best way to hop a train car?ġ) Finding an empty car. But here they are shown 'decking' a train as any hobo would. The exact origin of this picture is unknown these hobos may be German. Hobos found many (dangerous) ways to ride a train without getting caught

That led hobos to do whatever they could to avoid being spotted.

In 1920, 2,166 trespassers were killed and 2,363 were injured on trains or in railroad yards. 'He is a hunter,' Anderson wrote of the railroad officer, 'and the tramp is his prey.'Īll that led to a staggering death toll. In addition to bouncing out hobos on trains, they often threw stones at hobos or shot them. They took it as their job to terrorize those who rode the rails, often by any means necessary. Called 'bo chasers' and 'car-seal hawks,' they adopted extremely aggressive tactics. That meant civil police - the hobo-labeled 'town clowns' - were usually more focused on kicking hobos out of town than on jailing them.īut railroad police couldn't avoid the hobo problem. In addition to riding the rails, hobos occasionally broke into boxcars and stores, which spoiled goods both on the train and in communities near train routes, endangering a railroad's operation through the town. That may be because the railroads had more reason to dislike hobos. When hobos were common, most believed the private police were a bigger threat than civil police forces. Many local police forces tried to simply kick out the hobos, leaving the more permanent problem for private railroad police. These hobos are being shipped away from Los Angeles in 1936. Hobos worked hard to evade brutal private police These itinerant workers were expert at hopping on and off trains, and they liked to brag about it, too, since it could be incredibly dangerous. Hobohemia was home to the peculiar dreamers, small-time criminals, and railroad experts we imagine when we hear 'hobo' today. Sociologist Nels Anderson wrote about them in his groundbreaking 1923 book The Hobo, and though he dealt with large homeless communities that were the opposite of carefree, he also identified a particular hobo group that followed 'the American tradition of pioneering, wanderlust, seasonal employment.' This was the group that proudly called itself 'Hobohemia.' Hobos tended to have a particular character, too. And their ranks swelled during the Great Depression as work became scarce. It's difficult to know how many there were (since part of their goal was to avoid detection), but one 1915 estimate put their population atġ million. These hobos were most active from the 1890s through the 1930s. There was and still is a proud tradition of self-identified hobos. But in its most popular definition, itinerant workers traveling the country by train use the word to describe themselves and their unique and intentional lifestyle. The term 'hobo' is a loose one used to define everything from happy-go-lucky train hoppers to large homeless communities (and sometimes derogatorily so). There may have been a million hobos in 1915. But these traveling hobos were real - and they honed surprisingly complex strategies for riding the rails. The hobo is familiar as a character from kitsch art and silent film and feels like a romantic caricature today.

Hobo definition