riding the rails
Freight car stowing
Riding the rails is traveling by freight train without paying, typically by hopping into open boxcars.
The phrase evokes Depression-era hobos and drifters seeking work or adventure: He spent a summer riding the rails across the Midwest.
It can also describe legitimate train travel, though the illicit sense dominates.
- hoboItinerant without fixed address
- boxcarEnclosed rail freight carrier
- freight trainRail vehicle hauling cargo
- locomotiveRailway pulling machine
- trainRail vehicle or instruct
freedom · open road · Great Depression · hard times · freight car · wanderer · Dust Bowl · vagabond · Hooverville · migrant worker · drifter · escape · transient · caboose · soup kitchen · nomad · depot · independence
- Depression EraGreat Depression, Hooverville, breadline, dust storms, soup kitchen
- railroad slanghogger, highball, gandy dancer, boomer, crummy
mode of travel
riding the railsair travel
Transport by aircraft
staying put · sailing · driving · walking
ride, rides, rider, riders, riding, ridden, rail, rails, railed