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Amelia Merrick | profile | all galleries >> Train Hopping America tree view | thumbnails | slideshow

Train Hopping America

The images in these Galleries are from Adventures I encountered starting in May 2004 when I hopped freight trains out of Portland Oregon across the country. Photographs will be added as Adventures continue.
Hobomilitia 2006
:: Hobomilitia 2006 :: 		Ride Dirty 2004
:: Ride Dirty 2004 :: 		Dunsmuir Hobo Gathering
:: Dunsmuir Hobo Gathering :: 		Kid Fest 04
:: Kid Fest 04 ::
The Boat People
:: The Boat People :: 		Catching Out
:: Catching Out ::

post a comment
Findmesomehow 20-May-2008 17:06
These pictures are amazing! I want to go hopping but never did it. If anyone has any info I'm going start traveling in mid-June from NYC.
Guest 19-Mar-2008 23:11
Wow your pictures are amazing, im in minneaoplis MN right now and im leaving in May, going to hop to south carolina and meet up with my crew to travel, if anyone outthere is ready to get out like i am and travel email me / the more the merrier

Shade_allen@yahoo.com
Lou 05-Feb-2008 02:17
Hey, I too am a new rider (I have been riding for 2 or 3 months on the weekends) and MAN i love it! My friends and i have been wanting to go further into the capital (of the USA) by train but we havent had time. We have been reading up and all and we would love to go riding across the state or something. How do you guys pass the time waiting for trains and is htere anything we shoudl worry about besides the bulls?
Guest 30-Jan-2008 06:16
I am a 19 year old stuck in Charlotte NC trying to find all the information i can about hopping trains before i say fuck my old life i want a new one... your pictures are absolutely incredible and i would love to meet all of these great people. Thank you so much and if anybody has anything to tell me about hopping trains please dont hesitate to email me my address is mtb527@hotmail.com thank you
Shadow 20-Jan-2008 06:03
Ive hopped one train (canada) got busted oooops ~ but the feeling the freedom ... cannot be explained, these fotos do a good job tho Fucking awesome work ~
Babs 13-Dec-2007 01:35
I love these sets of albums!
great work..
I plan to do the same train hopping thing soon.
sunsetroute 12-Dec-2007 18:25
Whooo! Trains. Fun. I'm off the rails after 10 years of hard ridin'. I love it and its in me veins still. I'll be back come a couple years but until then...

http://hoborhymes.zip.io
abdul the rahim 30-Oct-2007 03:40
great pictures of train hopping. i did it myself for many years, up and down the great main lines of the american west, on BN, UP, ATSF, SP -- of course there have been mergers since then. it was much more mellow in the early 90s but as you know the bulls and the cellphone-wielding informants are much worse than they used to be. safe travels. i wonder if you know north bank fred from the dunsmuir gatherings.
J. Taylor 17-Nov-2006 04:47
Brave, brave heart with a fine, fine eye!
gadget666 31-Aug-2006 14:51
love the pics... makes me inda nostalgic. heading back out next summer, halifax to Vancouver. looking for other riders to participate in a self documentary project about Canadian rail riding. Check us out. www.homelessnation.org
blindlutherricketts 01-Jun-2006 14:30
The lure of hopping is intoxicating and your photos make me want to shake off london, england and head off to anywheresville, usa more than ever. This Summer, I tell myself.
The Kodak kidd 28-May-2006 04:36
great pics, I'm lovin 'em
The Kodak Kidd 28-May-2006 04:35
riding the rails...my way of life..you find 'em, and I'll streak 'em..
Guest 19-May-2006 21:30
Hey all...I am an adult but I understand a little of why you do what you do...be safe...and live life to your fullest...good luck
vicarious 04-May-2006 07:16
Im was doing some research for an anthropology paper im writing on Nomadism vs. modern train hopping and i came across your site. You have some really ausome pics it makes me really want to jump the train...
nobody 23-Apr-2006 00:43
like danny boy i too was googleing train hopping and found your images

gotta say im impress and inspired

sitting here in my city libary lookin for how-2-guides for this and found you


im sick of life as it should be and everything else about and feel the need to get the fuck out and take everything promised to me back


i hear oregons the place to be

would you recomend any zines i should read on this subject?
Danny 04-Mar-2006 03:55
Hey,
I'm really sorry to intrude on your personal space, my names Danny, your trip seems actually amazing, I was looking for websites on train hopping, ect. I found your site. There's some questions I had for a trip i'm planning this summer, If you don't mind me asking please email me.

Danny
manuel 23-Jan-2006 06:01
Amelia, you capture it so well on film. The sense of time going by, or trying to make it go by, as seen on the faces of the kids in the pictures, or the activity of playing dice on a "dirt" patch. Then seeing the landscape going by. I really liked the one where they are all looking out over the landscape from the boxcar.The frustration of waiting for a train,missing it, then the satisfied looks once on the train.
Guest 03-Jan-2006 14:38
Train hopping....how do you know if a train is going too fast to hop? and where do you go to figure out where the trains are going?
silverain16@hotmail.com
I'm intrigued.
Paul Teixeira 30-Oct-2005 21:47
Absolutely fantastic. It looks like a book (or several) in the making. Very well documented indeed.

Best regards,
Paul Teixeira
Guest 27-Apr-2005 00:30
LOVE IT
Kermit
I miss you all. I will find you when I an walk again.
Chilliwata 21-Dec-2004 06:54
Gotta say your photos are really interesting. To document this lifestyle with your camera makes for some amazing photography. Definetly keep it up and eventually have a book made, many people will buy it.
matt 20-Nov-2004 17:32
hell yea good pictures we had a damn good time, bumloaf forever!
Nathann E 16-Nov-2004 21:48
awwww Amelia, those pictures are beautiful! it was great ridin 3 deep (plus Jasper) on a pig with you - FREIGHT TRAIN JIHAD TIL' DEATH - long live the Bumloaf 5 & 1/2!
zach 24-Oct-2004 02:03
hobo fest 04 kicked ass, thanx for documenting it
im the drunk with the harp and gee-tar
Ceightie 18-Aug-2004 08:32
wow... after all this time of you with your camera i finaly found the pictures =0) you are good sweet christ hahahaha anyway love them all great times see ya someday
CRKT 15-Aug-2004 18:22
i was at kidfest, the photos are better than kidfest was.

crkt
sarah. 10-Aug-2004 00:37
ameliaface.

as always, fantastic photographs.
except for the fact that my ugly mug is plastered all over the place. good golly.

the days are contrarily slow as molasses and slipping through my fingertips.
hope you're doing well.
xo.
Wes Armour 29-Jul-2004 08:09
Some really interesting shots Amelia, I enjoyed viewing this gallery thanks!
click on thumbnails for full image