#Stobe the hobo free#

The stretch of track I chose was the 'Billygoat': the most picturesque route through the Rocky Mountains as well as the heart of FTRA country, some 300 miles long, and the last journey made by one of the most recent victims of FTRA murderers. In fact Silveria, as I was later to discover, was the one hobo I was unlikely to meet. 'The odds are,' he warned, 'you're gonna end up lying dead between a couple of towns.' As if to stop me in my tracks, one FTRA member's name was cited over and over: Robert Silveria, a 37-year-old, known to have committed ten murders between 19, and suspected in dozens more. The country's leading expert on the FTRA - Spokane Police Department's detective Bob Grandinetti - was not enthusiastic about me taking a trip. Only by taking to the rails would I see the fault-lines running through America's rail-yards: the class and generation divides that often lead to bloodshed as one tribe of rail-riders encounters another. Many are ex-bikers who have fallen out of Hells Angels gangs because bikes have gotten so expensive.' The most feared is the 'Wrecking Crew': 'The most hardcore, alcoholic, and violent members belong. And there's no record of your trip.'Īccording to Writer, there are cadres within the FTRA that are more organised and vicious than others. In three days, you can be on the other side of the country. 'The FTRA provides criminals with perfect mobility. 'It's real hard to find suspects after the crime,' says detective Jim Writer of Big Springs, Texas, who investigated Terry's death. They included John Stanley Boris, aka 'Dogman Tony', suspected in two murders including that of 43-year-old Francis Terry, who was found in October 1995 in a grain car in Saginaw, Texas, with his throat slit. Four FTRA members were investigated as suspects.

In the weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, an Amtrak train was intentionally derailed in Arizona, killing one and injuring 40. Past and present members of the gang and their associates are suspected in some 300 murders nationwide in the past decade.

Formed by Vietnam veterans - legendary figures with names such as 'Melford Lawson', 'Uncle Joe', 'Joshua Long-gone' and 'Daniel Boone' - and now estimated to have several hundred members nationwide, today's stalwarts of this band of 'welfare outlaws' are proud of their lightning-bolt tattoos and links to far-right militia and racist groups such as the Aryan Nations. The most violent of this new species belong to a gang of rogue riders calling themselves the Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA).

Among the most pathological and drug-crazed, as befits America's Social Darwinist society, predators such as Sidetrack have evolved. The railroads have become the last refuge of the destitute, moving from place to place collecting welfare benefits, hoping to find something better. 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. Today, 'riding the rods' is more perilous than ever.

#Stobe the hobo free#

Passenger trains have dwindled, but the freight trains trundle endlessly on, still offering the chance of a free ride. It was the railroad that first opened up the West and the railroad lines are still the great arteries of the United States. In the Thirties, when a million Americans 'caught out' - jumped a train - and wandered the West looking for work to avoid starvation, countless thousands were crushed between carriages or simply fell to their deaths from moving trains.Īmerica is a nation based on migration. 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. Riding the rails - a uniquely American experience - has always been a dangerous pastime. The sleeping bag became Pettit's shroud - it was too blood-stained to be of any value. Then he washed his bloodied hands and face in a nearby stream and put on Pettit's clothes. With a blunt object, Sidetrack bludgeoned Pettit to death before taking items he could later sell to buy a fix. While he slept, a lank-haired heroin addict called Sidetrack climbed aboard the freight train and crept towards him. Finally, he fell asleep, huddled in a corner at the end of a metal box-car. 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.