From: pfinerty@nyx.cs.du.edu (big daddy hate box)
Subject: a lovely story about my train ride, it's long so hit 'n' now
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 23:52:31 GMT

a short while ago i wrote a little story about my lovely experience 
at a scientific conference.  of course, it filled me with much angst 
as i wondered how i might find the opportunity to both meet and 
hang out with a particularly attractive new grad. student.  i managed 
to meet her at the meeting but i have not seen her since.  this is, as i 
am sure you could imagine, quite upsetting.  it would be difficult to 
talk with her since i would basically have to go to the lab where she 
is working and, in front of people who know who i am, strike up a 
conversation out of the blue.  somehow i can just see her response.  
it would probably be a look of confusion as she strove to figure out 
who the hell i am.  woe is me.  
	enough pitiful talk.  i also have not made any attempt to meet 
this other woman at a coffee shop ( a person who i met at a party).  i 
am just a giant loser. enough already!  
	what i am really writing this shit for is to tell you all about 
my wonderful train trip and its origins.  whilst i was attending the 
conference there was a poster session during which much beer is 
around and scientists display posters which show their work.  it is a 
good time to see what your fellow grad students are doing or to just 
drink.  i prefer to drink.  in any event, my friend tim and i were 
hanging out drinking and b.s.ing about stuff when dan, another guy i 
know walks by us.  at this point tim asks dan when we are going to 
go for a train ride.  dan rode trains for about a year.  dan says, well, 
how about this weekend.  tim says ok and i say i'll think about it.  i 
was sort of freaked out about this at first.  the next day i decided i 
had no reason to stay in town so i was going to go for it. yeah.  after 
i decide to go i talk to dan a bit about what i should bring and all 
that stuff.  he says all the usual stuff, but to not wear any bright 
clothing because we want to keep a low profile.  ok, i say.  i should 
point out that i do not wear bright clothing.  the brightest clothing i 
wear are white t-shirts.  almost everything is dark colored.  shades 
of dark blue, green, gray, etc.  the week passes and on friday we all 
take off from the university to go buy some gin and tonic water for 
the trip.  i cannot be expected to go on a train ride without gin.  you 
must be out of your mind if you think so.  we also buy sandwiches, 
some trail mix, and some water.  i also cannot be expected to 
completely dehydrate myself.  so we go to the train yard near 
downtown salt lake city.  we drive around a bit looking for a train 
that looks like it will be a good ride and that will be leaving soon.  
we do not find one and so dan has to go into the "herder shack".  this 
is where they have a computer system with the train schedules and 
where the engineer and brakemen hang out.  they do not have 
conductors anymore since trains don't have cabooses now.  (except in 
oregon where it's required by law)  we do not get to see this part.  i 
guess all dan does is walk in and ask when a train is going to a 
particular location and what the number on the lead engine is.  the 
weird thing is, they tell him.  one guy wanted to know if dan worked 
there but when dan said no he didn't care.  very cool.  the engineers 
and brakemen are not against people riding the trains, only the 
railroad cops are and we didn't see any of those.  cool. so we find out 
about a train and we have to wait for an hour or so until it shows up. 
we drink some beers though so it's ok.  eventually the train shows up 
and we wait until they finish checking it over to make sure it is in 
good shape (like the air line for the brakes is good and nothing is 
wrong with the wheels or brake pads).  when they finish this dan 
puts on a hat and some gloves so he looks just like a workman in the 
yard and goes to check out a prime spot for us to ride in.  he comes 
back in a bit after scoping things out.  we grab our stuff and head to 
the train walking very calmly.  remember, we have to keep a low 
profile.  we eventually find an empty box car that has both doors 
unlocked.  we open the door on the side away from the people 
checking out the train and toss in all of our crap.  dan points out the 
proper way to get on the train.  after we are in the rather dusty box 
car dan makes a wonderful pronouncement. it is, "safety is priority 
one."  this of course, sticks in my mind as something quite wise.  so, 
then we just hang out and wait for the train to get going.  while we 
are hanging out this hobo walks by and dan talks to him for about a 
half a second before telling the other memorable quote. it is, "i think 
we've got a full load here."  there are three people in a box car that 
is about 18 yards long and 2.5 yards wide.  however, dan was quick 
to point out that the car right next to ours was empty and that the 
door was open.  the hobo got in it.  later in the trip, while the train 
was stopped, this guy yelled at us really loud. he yells, "hey guys! 
hey guys!  do you guys want to smoke some pot!  hey!  dan answers 
him, no thanks. then the guy wants to know if we do smoke pot.  dan 
answers yes, now and then.  the crazy thing is that this guy was 
yelling all this stuff while we were stopped in another train yard.  
what a loser. the thing is, we did get high later and dan made another 
wonderful statement. it was, "aint no better place than a freight 
train to get stoned!" tim and i immediately agreed.  in any event, the 
train took off again and then stopped about an hour later.  at this 
point the hobo got off and went to another part of the train.  we 
checked out his box car and it was empty except for his beer cans 
and blanket he left.  the other door was sealed with this strip of 
aluminum which we broke.  we got both doors opened and now had a 
nice clean box car.  yee haw.  we eventually made it to our 
destination, but twelve hours later.  fortunately, we were sedated 
with gin and other stuff which will remain unnamed so we just slept 
in our sleeping bags.  at least i slept, the other two seemed to have a 
harder time than i.  an empty box car does not weigh so much. this is 
a real problem when you go over rough tracks. the car shimmies and 
shakes like a mofo. i mean you wouldn't need a shaker to make a good 
martini on this damned train. we were being shook so hard it 
physically hurt. we would probably move about two inches each way 
about four to five times per second. i could feel the contents of my 
stomach shaking inside. if i was not sedated (like i was) i would 
have lost everything i had eaten. 
	we finally made it to green river though. it only took twelve 
hours. hey, that's only eight more hours than it takes by car! wow. we 
had been on what is known as a shit train. ultra low priority piece of 
crap go nowhere fast train.  we walked off the yard and found a 
drainage ditch. it was pretty flat and clean at the bottom and when 
we stood up you could just see the tops of our heads, a nice low 
profile place. dan looks around and says, "looks like home." tim 
thought he was joking and wanted to look for something better. i 
really didn't care. i just wanted to crash. kinda like right now 
actually. we ended up crashing there and i slept just great. i was 
warm the whole time. tim and dan didn't sleep as well again. i guess 
this is one of the benefits of growing up in a large loud family. in 
the morning tim asked if i had been sniffing his ear. i laughed and 
said what! it seems some animal had come down and was sniffing 
around our little camp site. i wouldn't have heard it anyway since i 
had my whole head stuck in the bag. 
	we packed up and then went to this total dive next to the yard 
and had breakfast. it was good, especially since i was starving to 
death. after we ate dan needed to go talk to the people in the herder 
shack at this yard so we could get a train back, preferably one that 
got back to salt lake by evening. we hung out on the side of the yard 
looking all too conspicuous. this time someone showed dan how to 
work the computer to find out the schedule and if a train has entered 
the yard or not. way cool. just when we saw dan walking back off in 
the distance a cop car drives by tim and i slowly. we just acted 
normal and he went on. that was not to be the end of it though. we 
decided to go check out the river and on our way we were tailed by 
the cop. he stopped and came over to talk to us. it was funny because 
i'm sure he thought we were losers who had just jumped off a train. 
he asked us if we had just jumped off a train too. dan did most of the 
talking. we said we were just hitch hiking around and were on our 
way back to salt lake. it wasn't a total lie. we hadn't just jumped off 
a train, we had just woke up in a ditch. heh. he asked for our licenses 
and went to see if we were hard-core criminal types. sorry, guess 
again. eventually we went on our way to the river but not until he 
said we could expect more of this if we stayed in town because "we 
aint got nothin' better to do" . swell. the river had what appeared to 
be human feces all over the banks. we left and went to a bar where 
we drank fifty cent pints of bud and played pool. we got pretty 
buzzed before we left for the yard. we had no more trouble after that 
one incident with the cop which was nice. all we had to do was to 
wait for our train to come in. we were looking for a presidential 
express. these are high priority trains and just don't stop and go 
fast. it finally showed. we had whiled away the time sporadically 
urinating cheap beer and throwing pieces of sand stone at a sign. 
none of were very good shots. presidential express' consist of piggy 
backs. these are large freight containers for ships and/or trucks on a 
sort of flat bed. only the bed is not flat, it is sunk down so you can 
stack a container on top of another. dan says this was a major 
breakthrough in train transport. we got on. there was plenty of space 
and we could lay down with our legs outstretched. the only drawback 
was that we were outside. another train had pulled in just when our 
train was leaving. we saw a couple of hobos jump off the other. as 
our train left we passed this one guy who was losing more blood 
from his head than i have ever seen before. it was dripping off his 
bangs and into his face. it was really weird. i don't think it's 
something i'll ever forget. i think he was probably drunk as shit and 
tried to jump off the train while it was moving. even though it was 
going about five MPH he probably landed head first on the rocks. very 
unpleasant indeed. 
	well, as you can surmise we made it back to salt lake all right. 
the ride back was very cold but only took about five hours. we kept 
up with the freeway traffic most of the time so we were probably 
going about sixty MPH or more. next summer i want to go to 
california this way. we'll see...

--
			PJF--->Biochem. grad student
			      PUBLIC ENEMY #1
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre