The details are suitably murky given his preferred mode of transportation. He said many participants move on with their lives away from the railroad, while others continue the railroad lifestyle. Ya gotta stay clean or it isn't much fun. He made fun and interesting train hopping videos over these last number of years.Thanks for checking out this video.Please keep your comments about Stobe tasteful and civil. But after years of insights from the road, the former Coast Guard member appeared to have died while riding the rails that he loved so much. "The FTRA, as people know it now, is a different group from the old days," Lynn told me. He made that choice. "But they're real people, just like Pettit, who've often simply fallen on hard times. [19], Pedestrian railroad safety in the United States, United States Department of Transportation, John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, List of common carrier freight railroads in the United States, "Critics Say Railroads Should Do More To Prevent Pedestrian Deaths", "Hundreds die walking the tracks each year", "Pedestrian deaths by train remain steady", "Train Deaths Rise Amid Energy-Driven Rail Transformation", "Manslaughter charges added in death of Sarah Jones", "Sarah Jones Family V. CSX: Location Manager Charley Baxter's Big Reveal", "Fitness Model Struck and Killed by Train in California", "Beloved Rice scientist dies in bicycle-light rail accident", "Stobe the Hobo, the internet's most famous train-hopper, dead after apparent accident", "Towns, train fight over fences -- and responsibility for safety", "Google, FRA team up for safety; will add rail crossing data to maps", "Agency Taps Mapping Technology to Curb Rail Crossing Accidents", "Highway Agency Disavows Claims by Rail Safety Group", "Operation Lifesaver, Inc. awards $217,000 for rail safety public awareness campaigns in 15 states", "Rail safety group shrinks as danger grows", "DuPage railroad safety group aims to cut trespassing, suicide deaths in half", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pedestrian_railroad_safety_in_the_United_States&oldid=1087840257, On August 26, 1991, 41-year-old Mary T. Wojtyla, of, In 2014, Camera Assistant Sarah Jones was killed when she was struck by a, In 2014, 'Jersey Boys' musician John Jeffrey Ray was killed by an Amtrak train while posing for a photo in, On November 9, 2017, James Stobie, better known by his, This page was last edited on 14 May 2022, at 20:39. They dont want to be around him. As he crossed rusting tracks, Quakenbush appeared to shudder for a split second in the shadow cast by a graffiti-strewn box-car. Mark Nichols aka 'Hobo Shoestring' finds freedom, danger in train http://www.webook.com/project/life-times-of-a-professional-hobo. How many cars get hit by trains in the US? "He was tired of the lifestyle. He was hurt one time while traveling on the Kansas City Southern Railroad in Pittsburg, Kansas. Nichols has been arrested and charged with misdemeanor trespassing about two dozen times, he said. Don't cross under couplers or cars. Jim Stobie, aka Stobe the Hobo, or Hobestobe on Youtube, arguably the most widely known modern hobo, was fatally injured in an accident with an Amtrak train in the Baltimore area. Among the most pathological and drug-crazed, as befits America's Social Darwinist society, predators such as Sidetrack have evolved. This is equivalent to walking across a busy street without looking both ways first. Nichols had hopped on a parked grain car, known by hobos as a grainer, and traveled for nearly four days across several western states to California. I've had to delete some comments recently. I have to get out and do something.. Your email address will not be published. He wore new shoes and even his backpack was new.". I could hear my heart pounding as I ducked behind a pile of fresh-cut logs. A couple who romanticized and lived a modern-day adventure by riding railroad cars across the U.S. were killed when a train dumped its load of coal at a Florida power plant. What happened at the end of Baptiste Season 2? How does Farid treat Amir? The railroad is my home, Nichols said. "We were always worried about him. Its considered trespassing on railroad property. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register. He taught himself how to flirt with danger, and so could they. Looks like he was killed November of 2017 near Baltimore MD. It is used when persons or livestock are on the track at other-than-road crossings at grade. I have also had plenty of off time during jobs and other commitments. Stobe expressed a fluid combination of sentimental longing and stoic cynicism that often devolved into confusing rants. Quakenbush could barely hide his anger about the fate of the dispossessed and the "double standards throughout America": "There's a great system of justice for the rich. Why Do Cross Country Runners Have Skinny Legs? The small town hosts a parade, entertainment, arts and crafts, food and the election of the King and Queen of the Hobos. Sitting under a bridge, sometimes for hours or days waiting for a freight, he chugged a beer, ate pizza, he riffed on the squalid life of transients, homogenized new cars, and how to spot where freights were heading (check the names on shipping containers). one of the hobos that sort of inspired this story (Stobe the Hobo) got killed when he was on a bridge and couldn't get out of the way of an oncoming train. But there's a new bunch, kids in their twenties, doing drugs and attacking others when they get high, stealing the old guys' names when they see them tagged on bridges, calling themselves FTRA.". Wyoming is probably the worst . To escape the brutally cold night, William Pettit Jr, a 39-year-old hobo, crawled into his sleeping-bag and pulled his High Times baseball cap over his wind-burned forehead. Remembering Stobe the Hobo, Jim ( James) Stobie - Facebook The 48-year-old former U.S. Army helicopter mechanic is one of just a handful of modern-day railroad hobos a longtime American lifestyle that had its heyday in the Great Depression but has since lost popularity. Question: What does the saying, Run him out of town on a rail mean? He was an amazing artist with the way he presented his views and the background music was all played by him on piano. Nichols has developed a following on Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. But the fact is that they just arent necessary anymore. In many yards, bulls have traditionally turned a blind eye to hobos, regarding them as minor nuisances. That's so true.I'm still sort of at a loss.Thanks for filling in the details.It's a dangerous ride we ride for sure. James Stobie created his now famous youtube channel Hobo Stobe on February 15th, 2012. Stobe the Hobo died five years ago in Baltimore. What Happened To Shoestring The Hobo? - On Secret Hunt Six-foot-four and heavily tattooed, Clites had been riding the rails for six months when he met Silveria. With a jerking motion the train pulled away, out of Helena, and up a long incline towards the 6,000ft Continental Divide that stretches down the Rockies. On a bitterly-cold, grey morning, I visited the switching yards of Spokane, home-town of serial killer Ted Bundy. The railroad police dont check them out that much.. U.S.: Is Amtrak advertising too warm and fuzzy or even necessary. Alex Kershaw rode the rails himself to follow their trail, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. He showed me what train to get on and the next thing I know, I stayed on through Denver and stayed on to Stockton, California, Nichols said. Offered a camping stove by Silveria, Stanley refused it believing it was "hot" - stolen. He did not yet realise they were the same person. There was a problem saving your notification. What happened to Meriwether Lewis in the end? He said railroad staff often dont care when they find him aboard trains. Each year on average about 500 are killed. I was hitchhiking and trying to get to Denver. As millions are dumped off welfare rolls and mental institutions are emptied, more and more homeless people cower in the box-car shadows, rolling cigarettes with hands shaking from the DTs and cold. You have permission to edit this article. The railroads have become the last refuge of the destitute, moving from place to place collecting welfare benefits, hoping to find something better. Eventually, Nichols said hell retire and possibly settle down, but not yet. Chapter Notes: Big Sky Country (Destination Unknown) A hobo is a migrant worker or homeless vagrant, especially one who is impoverished. Stobe the HoboYouTube There are other, darker, theories surrounding Stobie's death. They have to stop in Bristol for a crew change. Each was investigating the murder of a transient that had happened within the previous eight months. "I go anywhere," Silveria replied. Its unknown, but the Norfolk Southern Railroad passes through the center of the city. Location. Stobe the Hobo - PokerFraudAlert.com However, not all workers turn people in. Quakenbush read Silveria his rights. The last time Artes spoke with his mother was last Saturday. [13] After several deaths in Villa Park, Illinois, safety advocates built fences at spots where people would often walk across train tracks. Pedestrian railroad safety is concerned with the protection of life through regulation, management and technology development of all forms of rail transportation. final wbd ::drinkingbuddy:: been beers all night for stobe. Grandinetti discovered the FTRA's existence after recording ten deaths between 1990 and 1992 on the "High Line" between Seattle and Minneapolis: "The bodies had their shirts and jackets pulled up around their heads, and their pants pulled down." In May last year, Silveria pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in Kansas for the murder of Charles Randall Boyd. On a freezing cold night, I arrived in Montana and headed straight to the rail yards in the town of Helena. Remembering Stobe the Hobo, Jim ( James) Stobie He estimates that two decades ago there were likely a couple hundred full-time hobos around the country. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. It can be seen here if you are interested. I had a lunch date with a remarkable police officer called Mike Quakenbush, a hero to hobos who made him a Knight of the Hobo Order of Merit in honour of his brave and relentless pursuit of Robert Silveria. "What are you doing in my space?" As my entire backside became numb from the cold, the train slowly screeched into life. We moved a lot when I was a kid, being a military family, said Nichols, who was born in Freeport, Texas, but grew up in Port Arthur. Done, done, done. Some cops have a code for such deaths: N-H-I - no humans involved. I'm sure they thought the train would go from one yard to another." America's first known railroad serial killer then hit Garfinkle at least 13 times with an axe-handle. But as time passed, Nichols continued to hop aboard trains landing a couple times a year in jail for trespassing and his family made him an outcast, he said. How did the Great Depression affect the hobo life? Even crew members (cant) hop on and off moving trains. Last weekend, Britt, Iowa, hosted the National Hobo Convention, a mainstay there since 1900. Then Grandinetti noticed that some transients he interviewed were wearing "colours". Boris is still at large. Hobo Killings Probed | Southern Poverty Law Center : spending and owing more money than is being earned Apparently the company had been in the red for some time before it went out of business. The tunes lyrics are practically about Nichols life, he said, one that has taken him along the rails to every state except Hawaii. When one demanded to see his ID, he emailed his old Blockbuster card. . The Bronco passed by. He had the classic hobo persona down, a little jug of wine, and some scraps of food that were tossed out as a bonus while he waits in the darkest hours of the night for the next train out of town. He recalled another train hopper, known as James Stobe the Hobo Hobie, who was struck and killed by a train. A huge locomotive like this uses an average of 1.5 gallons of diesel per mile (352 L per 100 km) when towing about five passenger cars. According to some reports, his bag became tangled in the Amtrak train and he was dragged to his death. Got me when I was asleep.". The train ran over his fingers. In recent years, Nichols began filming some of his trips, including one from Bristol to Knoxville, and sharing them on YouTube. He drank like a fish while hopping trains. He remembers going through Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Do Men Still Wear Button Holes At Weddings? "When you ride the trains, what name do you use?" How do you travel on a shoestring budget? Succession of short sounds : an attempt to attract attention to the train. He started to dress in black and had a lot of different hair styles and colors. ", According to Writer, there are cadres within the FTRA that are more organised and vicious than others. [3] In 2014, every week in the United States, about 16 people were killed by trains. He would sometimes ask her to look up directions on the Internet for truck stops, grocery stores and other places while he was on the road. "The odds are," he warned, "you're gonna end up lying dead between a couple of towns." According to Johnson, "Silveria cheerfully said he was a member of the FTRA, but said that the FTRA had gotten a bad name based on the actions of a few.". 983. With a blunt object, Sidetrack bludgeoned Pettit to death before taking items he could later sell to buy a fix. [2] Between 2001 and 2011, the number of deaths involving trains and motor vehicles dropped 42% to 248. Many went by nicknames or monikers that kept their identities concealed from strangers, police, train workers, and one another. [13], Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit association, was co-founded in the 1970s by Union Pacific Railroad, and has been criticized as having a pro-railroad agenda. Check out his channel at \"HobeStobe\" here on YouTube. After being transported to Kansas City, Nichols stayed in the hospital for three weeks. 1. is arguably the most famous hobo in the United States. One of the last spots Stobe the Hobo shot a video in Halethorpe, Maryland. Like other full-time hobos, Nichols often gets jobs while traveling. It was the railroad that first opened up the West and the railroad lines are still the great arteries of the United States. Day-labor can be found in larger cities, those with at least 50,000 people, he said. [18], The DuPage Railroad Safety Council (DRSC) is a non-profit organization committed to preventing deaths and injuries at railroad crossings and along railways in DuPage County and all around the United States. Nichols said he started train hopping nearly 30 years ago. He usually caught a train in Washington, D.C., and traveled south, through Roanoke, Virginia, the Tri-Cities and Knoxville, Tennessee. I later realized that she was preparing at the time to leave the university, and wanted to sort through her papers which Harvard had asked her to donate to them. They were Vietnam veterans who had not been able to fit back into "normal society" and who wanted to ride "free" and see America their own way, surviving as they had in the jungles of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam by hunting, fishing and living off the land. Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America (1998) that it could either come from the railroad greeting, Ho, beau! or a syllabic abbreviation of homeward bound. Cartooning? Stobie was. The most feared is the "Wrecking Crew": "The most hardcore, alcoholic, and violent members belong. He came across "Chooch Johnson" and a friend, both of them hobos, who were later to confirm key details about Silveria's appearance. After the 2005 death of a young boy, the city of San Jose, California built a pedestrian overpass. The industry has reduced its support of the group's efforts by providing fewer workers to help spread the group's safety message. I had gone from ice-cold conditions to the baking heat that stifles any occupant of a metal box-car in midday sun. In the 1860s, many of the first hobos died of exposure after hopping aboard steam trains leading home, they had hoped, from the killing fields of the Civil War. He backed it up with his tinkly, rambling piano. He drank like a fish while hopping trains. even tho the bar doesn't know. His body was found on the tracks near Baltimore and the circumstances of his death are unclear, although the injuries reported are consistent with his being caught on a train and dragged. He also liked to ride the rails, and, in August 1994, he hopped on a freight train for the hell of it. Mark Nichols, aka Hobo Shoestring (his hobo name), talks about his years of riding trains across the United States, Canada and Mexico. James William Stobie gained considerable notoriety during his all too short life of thirty-three years as a filmmaker who self-produced documentary styled videos portraying life as a rail riding traveler AKA Stobe the Hobo. His accomplishments were many, but his time here on earth. If they do, its an overnight for trespassing.. Posted February 25, 2020. . He played the piano for all his videos. rsorrell@bristolnews.com |276-645-2531 |Twitter: @RSorrellBHC | facebook.com/robertsorrelltn. Unlike a tramp, who works only when forced to, and a bum, who does not work at all, a hobo is a traveling worker. Genuine train hobos attended throughout the 20th century, but in the absence now of real hobos, the event has gone country-fair mainstream. They have family. In a homeless shelter in Eugene, Oregon, I met Tony "Fireball" Stanley, a 62-year-old who had been homeless for seven years since suffering a heart attack and then going bankrupt when he could not meet his medical bills. Mark Nichols aka Hobo Shoestring finds freedom, danger in train hopping. Stobe the Hobo, the internet's most famous train-hopper, dead after apparent accident November 18, 2017 Administrator By Josh Katzowitz, The Daily Dot; November 17, 2017 James Stobie was the most famous train-hopping hobo on the internet. Mark Nichols "Shoestring" Professional Hobo. ", Hobos have been taking free rides on America's freight trains since Civil War days - they have always been a law unto themselves. "Silveria said that Garfinkle didn't belong," Harper told me. In a TED talk, another Brit recounts loopy emails with Nigerian scammers. He told another hed open a bogus bank account, but only if he got a free toaster. The country's leading expert on the FTRA - Spokane Police Department's detective Bob Grandinetti - was not enthusiastic about me taking a trip. On a windy Sunday morning, Mike Quakenbush pointed to the stream where Silveria washed blood from his hurting hands. Then he washed his bloodied hands and face in a nearby stream and put on Pettit's clothes. "I don't recommend it and I encourage people not to do it," said Kevin Rice, of San Luis Obispo, Calif., who writes about his train hopping adventures from 20 years ago on his website. three years as a filmmaker who self-produced documentary styled videos portraying life as a rail riding traveler-- AKA 'Stobe the Hobo." His accomplishments were many, but . An academic "top gun", he never did drugs, meditated three times a day, and ran a successful business. Like many, he looked for ways to occupy himself. I dont know what to compare it to.. On November 9, 2017, James Stobie, better known by his YouTube identity Stobe the Hobo, a famous train hopper was killed when he was dragged to death by an Amtrak train. According to some reports, his bag became tangled in the Amtrak train and he was dragged to his death. It was HIS decision, and his responsibility. He knew that freight trains rumbling and clanking past were not the cheerful, cartoony "Thomas the Train, but dark and filthy monsters that would kill you as soon as look at you. "He died doing what he loved,. As the railcars arrive, the bottom opens and cars drop coal several stories below onto a waiting truck. It's a site that collects all the most frequently asked questions and answers, so you don't have to spend hours on searching anywhere else. Can You Use Speedfit Fittings On Central Heating? Channel The channel was created on February 15, 2012, and the first video was uploaded on February 17, 2012. Above all, as any hobo will tell you, don't join anyone else in a box-car. This group is for Stobe related content from Stobe fans, there are lots of groups for riders and foamers to post things about trains and your personal trips. The budgeting process is where the term will most frequently appear, as in a shoestring budget or alternately as on a shoestring.. More than 7,200 pedestrians have been killed by trains in the United States since 1997. The bull had come across Silveria in the Roseville yard, run a routine check on him and then arrested him on an outstanding warrant for probation violation. His fascination with the transient underworld developed after a 13-year-old girl, Marsi Belcz, was found stabbed to death near the rail yards in May 1985. Between April and December 1995, he managed to kill a fellow rail-rider once a month. He was riding the rails, and stowing away on ships starting at the age of 11 and then he began to write about his journeys. Scenic routes such as the Billygoat are particularly popular with growing numbers of "weekend riders", especially in the summer. He claimed that he sent child support payments to his wife, though he'd been on the road for five or six years. His videos have been viewed about 1.3 million times. The term originated in the Westernprobably NorthwesternUnited States around 1890. But Nichols is looking forward to returning to the rails. "The FTRA provides criminals with perfect mobility. He rode his first train while traveling through Laramie, Wyoming. "It's easy when you look at the homeless to think that they're just low life," sighed Quakenbush. [4], The railroad industry has supported educational initiatives like Operation Lifesaver. Hes also ventured into Canada and Mexico. Surgery this summer is keeping Nichols in Johnson City.