train hopping
Illegal boxcar travel
Train hopping is the practice of illegally riding freight trains, typically by climbing into open boxcars or onto flatbeds.
Associated with hobos during the Great Depression and with contemporary vagabonds and thrill-seekers, it remains dangerous and illegal: He spent a summer train hopping across the country.
Also called freight hopping.
- boxcarEnclosed rail freight carrier
- riding the railsIllegally traveling on freight
- vagrancyOffense of rootless wandering
- railroadPermanent track for trains
- hitchhikingSoliciting free rides
trainhopping · Woody Guthrie · subculture · vagabondage · drifter · switchyard · survival skills · itinerant · freight car · rolling stock · nomad · rambling · cross-country travel · Americana · folk ballads · hobo jungles · hobo signs · wayfarer
- risksrisk, gamble, bet, wager, chance it
- survival tacticspanhandling, dumpster diving, scavenging, squatting, rough sleeping
- nomadsnomad, nomadism, Bedouin, wanderer, roaming
train hoppingOrient Express
Famed continental passenger railway
sleeper car · business class · limousine service · private jet · cruise ship
train, trains, trained, training, trainer, trainee, retrain, hopped, hopping