Freight Train Hopping - Stuck 24 Hours

so today i was going to tell you a story there's actually a video of this online and it's just on my channel called freight train hopping but i wanted to dive more into detail of that story i think that was like five years ago maybe six years ago now damn um but uh i was gonna tell the story a little bit more in detail about what really happened i was freight train hopping from las vegas to salt lake city and beyond and um there was i just had my gopro i was like on like this mission and i was trying to film it so a lot of the footage like it was kind of bad quality and anyway but um it started out in such a bad like i was just in las vegas and i was like i need to get out of here like i need to um i was skating and just kind of so i went to the freight train yard and um i originally i was like i don't even care i just want to go north like and i waited there forever like forever it's like three or four hours and then a train came through this was something that i do not encourage at all like i've been to jail for it i've been ticketed i've been fined four videos online it's not cool it is not worth it um i can't tell you not to freight train hop but if you do don't film it and don't put it online it's way more hassle than it's worth um but uh they've actually forced me to to delete 99 of the videos that i've had on there court ordered so anyway um this story involves me being a lot younger and and doing things that i wouldn't do today so i'm waiting there three or four hours in the las vegas train yard more to the north end which is really dangerous really sketchy um it was just about getting dark there's really scary people walking around there's a lot of just it's gnarly if you ever go to the north las vegas train yard you'll know what i'm talking about but um i see this freight train coming and i was like this is my chance and it wasn't stopping you never ever i could never ever ever encourage somebody more to not get on a moving freight train if it's like i can't i can't encourage enough to not get on a freight train at all but if you are don't get on one that's moving um and especially there's a little trick if a train wheel has three bolts and if it looks like four it's going too fast um and this it was dark so like at this point it was dark so i couldn't even see what was going on it's like a horrible idea all i knew was i was waiting here forever i needed to get out of here and this train's coming and it looks like it's going pretty fast i'm running through the train yard as fast i can alongside this train in between train cars alone um running running running the stand this thing is going fast this train's probably going like 25 30 miles an hour like fast and i'm like i don't even care and i just run i have my skateboard and my backpack on my back had like what a freaking energy bar and um like half of a burrito and like a bottle of water in my bag completely just so you know careless and um i just run and i see the ladder this ladder is about to pass me like on the side of the train car and i just grab i jump as fast jump forward grab the ladder and this thing just jolts me into the in like i was probably running like i don't know how fast i could be running but i was running and this thing was going twice as fast as i was running so i grabbed the ladder and it just pulls me forward like as fast as i could and i barely hung on and the reason that it's so dangerous to do that is because you get swept under your feet and everything people have lost their legs lost their lives doing that a lot because they try to go on they can't tell it's going too fast they grab on they fall and they get run over people call them the meat slicers it's like those big wheels those trains weigh so much you know they're going to cut you right in half right away um so a lot of people have lost their lives that way so it's no joke but i i have uh i jumped on and i held on and it this thing just pulled me it's going so fast and i'm like hanging on literally dragging and then i climb up on the ladder and um like i said i don't encourage this type of activity at all um and i get on the train i'm so excited i'm like we're out of here it's probably like 10 o'clock at night by this point and i get on and as soon as i get on i like take my backpack off i'm like settling in the train stops in the yard like so i didn't even have to do that and it was like the just so stupid but anyway um i'm like really like really uh so i get off the train that train wasn't moving at all um and then maybe like an hour later this other train comes through stops i'm like i have a good feeling about this train so i jump on that train and um maybe like they were doing a crew change which is they were just switching out train crews and then they were back on their way uh and i got on that train i was hanging out and then we took off into the night um and it was a beautiful beautiful night and i don't have that much like i said great footage but this is on my channel um in another video if you can find it and um we just headed off into the darkness and it was the coolest coolest most memory like memorable night of just stargazing i was like laying out on the back of this train car and just laying out looking at the stars and it was just like the most clear beautiful desert night and we're just drop like just you know alone just looking out it was like the most majestic coolest thing it was so cool and uh then we just keep we keep going and it must have been like i probably those trains i was on a grain train which is not a hot shot so those those trains go a lot slower we were probably going like 55 miles an hour and those tracks are just headed for salt lake city and that's a long ways especially going 55 miles an hour on a train through the desert so i fell asleep it was probably like midnight and um and then i wake up it's like five in the morning the sun's coming up and it is so cold it is so cold like like zero degrees i'm shivering i'm on the back of this you know steel car the steel train i had a sleeping bag had some jackets um but i was bundled up in all of them and i was shivering i was like so so cold but then the sun came out and it was crazy because i didn't realize it during this time i can't exactly remember what time of year it was but it was probably at least zero degrees that night and in the daytime it was like 110 like the the the temperature change was like unreal like like unreal and so the sun started to come out we were still headed out i had no idea my phone had died at this point i had no idea where i was i had no idea what time it was but i figured you know it was obvious in the morning time and then i think i can't remember the name of the town but if you look up those train tracks there's like one little town maybe 100 or 200 miles north of las vegas on those train tracks and i just remember um being so excited that i was about to just jump off and be like all right like i'm gonna go find some food find some civilization and like call it a day and as soon as i like i'm getting ready i'm i'm in this little train yard and i'm getting ready to jump off the train and i see a guy walking like a a bull they call it the train bull it's like trained police he's walking down the tracks like literally like uh 50 100 feet away from me walking towards me and i'm like oh and i like hide i had this little hole to hide in and i'm like oh and i like hide back in the hole and as soon as i got back in the hole he's walking this way i'm like oh no he walked up to the train like literally he's like five feet away from me like literally i'm looking at him but i'm hiding in this little hole and he's like messing he's like doing something like double checking the connection of that train car to the other train car but i'm literally like in this little tiny hole and i'm looking at him like he's right there he's literally right there and i'm just like and then he had sunglasses on he had these sunglasses on that were mirrored and i'm literally looking at him smiling because like i wasn't gonna say anything but all of a sudden he's like messing with the the connections of the train and he's like doing it like so habitually that he had done it so many times he like he like looks up uh as he's doing it like not paying attention to really what he's doing but he's looking up and he's looking or it appears he's looking right at me i'm like looking around at him and i'm just smiling we're like right so close to each other and i'm just like i just like smiling like he obviously sees me he's just looking at me but his glasses are mirrored so like i can't see what he's looking at he's probably just like not paying attention and then he like finishes what he's doing and just leaves and i'm just like wait what like did he how did he not see me so literally like yeah four five three feet away whatever staring directly at me so um you know like in small towns like that like i guess it might not be considered a train bull but a train you know yard worker slash they all kind of have some some similar uh job titles in a way um so anyway oh my okay like this is definitely like not my time to get off the train because then i look back and there's like you know a worker here there was like a vehicle like a police vehicle a train vehicle there um and i'm just like not the time not the time so like i just stayed on and that was a horror there's a lot of horrible decisions on this trip but that was one um because i stayed on then maybe you know an hour later we get moving again and we're headed out north um towards salt lake city and uh i was probably on the train for another five hours just going through the desert and then it stops like the train just stops and there's as far and flat as you can see in every direction there's nothing and there's footage of this um so i didn't really go into detail like this in that in that story but we waited a whole entire day in the middle of nowhere like like literally from it must have been i don't know what time it was but the whole entire day we waited um in in in the desert and i'm like what is going on like why why are we here and my only theory was like that the train broke down because then all of a sudden you know romping through the desert was like a couple train car vehicles coming and they were like they were going up to the front of the train but you got to keep in mind this train is like one or two miles long like this this train is really really long so in that footage if you go to see that video i finally ended up losing my mind i'm out of food out of water at this point i you know like completely unprepared like with certain situations that i put myself in i'm just like screw it it'll work out you know but because it's such a gamble anyway it's like you know i could have gotten off at that point but i didn't but now i'm out of food out of water um and i lose it i literally i'm like forget this i don't even care we're in the middle of nowhere i'm walking up to that that train and i'm gonna go talk to these guys like i'm gonna talk to the guys that are running the train like i so i walk like two miles down this train down down um to the front of the train and i'm like what are you doing dude like if they find if they know that you're here they're gonna like be confused i'm i walk up to them like young kid skateboard in hand backpack on and i'm just like hey like i can't remember what i said like are you guys are you guys okay like i saw the trains been here for a while like is trying to play dumb like are i'm just walking through the desert and i saw that you guys have been here like you guys good and they're like what like he didn't get out of the train but he had the window open and i i was just gonna ask him for water but i got scared about even doing anything because i was like oh you're actually in the middle of nowhere like if you don't get back on this train you're screwed like you're legitimately screwed you have no phone no water no food and you like for i'm telling you these flat you know utah or wherever i was somewhere in nevada or utah you could see for forever and i could not see a single road anything and so i'm like you are probably like this got really real again because these guys deny you or make sure you don't get back on this train you're screwed so i'm like oh no no it's like always just saying hi and he's like you're not getting on this train are you i'm like what no are you what are you crazy he's like cool just making sure you're not going to try to get a free ride on this train because uh we can't you know like sen and i'm like no absolutely not like you're you're crazy man like and so just kind of playing playing dumb in that way and then uh i run i'm like well they could leave at any moment now because he was saying the one thing that he said was like the train's been uh we've been sighted here we're waiting for a train but we're also having some mechanical issues so we're wait so he's like but we'll be gone in no time i'm like all right you guys have a good one i was just and and so i'm like oh so i just start power walking try not to make sure that they see me running and i'm like just power walking because if you get far back enough on such a long train you actually lose sight of that person or that like it's so this so far so i'm just trying to get out as fast as i can and get as far back as i can to get back on the train um car that i was on and then uh like literally like two seconds after i'd made it back there the train just boom the whole jolt the whole train starts moving again i'm like oh my gosh so uh we just start going for another like six seven eight all of a sudden it gets dark again and it's so it was like 110 degrees i'm like this is like the gnarliest and earliest uh thing to just like bring myself back to because being out there in that desert and it was so hot no water no and i'm just like this is so miserable to getting into the night where it's so cold and and just having that fluctuation of temperature but also not being ready for that um when it got when it got light again i mean when it got dark again i am just no no uh no preparation whatsoever like so anyway um about it's probably like six or seven o'clock at night and we just start going back into the night and i'm like i i have no idea where i am i have no idea how long i'm gonna be able to sustain this for but um here we are like i'm literally just like you're good you know and so then it goes back into it it was night time for a long time but like i said i have no idea how long it actually was but um i started to finally see like it had been dark for 10 hours maybe i'm guessing we had gotten sighted again for a couple hours and i'm like when is this ever gonna end i feel like a crazy person i feel like i'm i literally have no chances of of of of of getting off of this thing like get me off of this thing so finally then i see i start seeing signs of civilization i see billboards i see a highway i'm getting so excited i'm like okay we're finally like getting somewhere um we're coming back into society and so i had been familiar with the salt lake city train yard in the downtown area prior to this so i finally when we were arriving salt lake i knew where i was and i knew that we had made it but i also knew that we had been sighted for so long just an hour or so prior that we start coming down through salt lake city we're not slowing down we're going we're going like 55 60 70 miles an hour at this point or whatever however fast a train is going full speed and i start panicking i'm like no no no no there's no way like there's no way this this thing has to stop it has to like oh so at this point i'm start freaking out dude and i'm literally hanging off the train because i'm like delusional at this point i literally can't even understand one like what's really even going on but two it was such an optical illusion for me that i didn't even really see like i couldn't really tell how fast the train was actually moving i just knew we were going really fast so i'm hanging off the side of the train dragging my foot on the ground and then dragging my skateboard with my hand i'm holding on one hand dragging my skateboard just trying to get like a general consensus of like how fast am i going can i just jump off this thing and bail and like live you know like i don't know i even thought like all right i'm gonna get as low as i can and then just kind of like huck it onto my backpack and try to like use my backpack as my like brace of impact on the ground because we weren't stopping and i was like if we go outside of salt lake city there is nothing for so far like besides ogden and that different you know those little towns like i don't know like this thing could be going off into the you know into montana or idaho or wherever like so i start panicking and i'm literally hanging off the train crying i start crying i'm like in such like agony and like such suffering and like misery that uh i'm literally crying going like i have to get off this thing i i have no options but i'm like what am i doing so um i realized that jumping off at that speed would be a death wish for sure uh it would have been a really horrible idea as this whole trip and like like i said people are watching this video like this dude's an idiot and i couldn't agree with you more i i think that but i'm telling you these stories so that people out there that have this fantasy of train hopping and have this fantasy of you know filming youtube like it's not like that it's not it's you know it's not like it portrays itself to be on the screen and there's a lot of super crazy things that happen that you're unprepared for like i said i was a lot younger a lot dumber but i'm making this so that you can learn or at least hear a funny story and laugh at me which is fine um so finally we make it to north salt lake city which is like on um you know parallel with the highway 15 and there's a way big bigger train yard there's you know like a lot of trains in there a lot of movement and we start slowing down and i was so excited we start slowing down slowing down more slowing down and finally after what felt like eternity we stop and as soon as we stop once again there is a train police car right next to me like literally right next to me on this side but we're we have like 10 or 15 rows of train cars or more that train yard is huge and so i saw literally the police train car i don't know why they were just probably checking the train as it was approaching but it was right there so i was like okay i'm gonna jump off the other side they're not gonna be able to get to me so i jump off the other side which is right next to the highway 15 and i had to hop through like 10 or 15 rows of train cars like off like over over over over all of them and then finally i like arrive in like these like like uh bushes like these reeds and there's just like this whole thing and i just like i'm running through weeds i'm like getting all wet it was like just like i didn't care but i got out of there and this is like i think the detail in this story i realized i left out of that original thing is that i finally get to the freeway and there's this car sitting there like this truck it's like probably 4 30 in the morning um i think it's yeah it was like somewhere right right about to be start getting light out but it's not and it's cold there's this car sitting there and i walk up to them uh actually first of all i skate in the wrong direction i see these lights i'm like a gas station i just need water i just need something like like i just need food water like so i start skating to the closest lights i get there it's like this industrial area i skated like two miles in the wrong direction so you gotta be kidding me so i started skating backwards i skated back i was heading north along the 15 on some access road and if you know where i'm talking about you're like there's nothing out there it's like a concrete plant the lights that i saw was like a concrete plant so i come back the other way then i get to where i was originally got off the train and there's this car sitting there by the freeway it's like off this off ramp and i'm like okay i'm gonna just ask these guys like if they know where like you know when i say these guys is because i later found out there was guys i don't i was approaching this vehicle and i approached the driver's side of this vehicle and this guy rolls down the window and he has like three or four laptops like set up like on like and they're wearing like football jerseys and i'm like wait what is going on and it was just like the weirdest thing and they were in they were like there was like maps and stuff set up on their um on their laptops and there was like they were they were doing some tracking uh that's all i'm gonna say i'm not gonna get more into that but it was weird and they were really uh surprised to see me there at the time i'm like hey guy like us immediately i was like whoa like okay um i'm gonna ask these guys like hey like do you know where like the closest gas station is or anything like that and they're like sorry i can't help you okay so i just keep skating i knew that i was i'm gonna just start skating towards the city which was like way far back the other way as soon as i skate i skate through this like industrial area down this access road i'm like obviously trying to stay off the freeway and then i'm not kidding you out of a movie i just hear boom boom like gunshots like like right next to me like it was dark you know but it was like these gunshots were so like loud and prominent in my mind i'm just like what what like so i'm like okay like i don't know i didn't see anything i just heard these gunshots so i just keep skating all of a sudden i enter this like pretty sketchy neighborhood and then like i see cop car after cop car after cop car just like hal going so fast down the street and i'm just like i'm not about to be in the middle of like what is that and then they just surround this house that's like across the street from where i'm standing and there's just like five or six cop cars like running out guns pulled the whole thing and i'm just like okay like i'm now i'm walking down the street and there's no one else on the street and now they're gonna think that i'm like part of this whatever so i just crossed the street and just like walked like a normal got out of that situation kept skating towards the city um and then i get to downtown and there's like uh the homeless shelters downtown there's like some hotels and some so i walk into this gas station i think there's a 711 downtown salt lake city i buy a couple of waters and buy some snacks and stuff and on the way there i found this guy's sprinklers were going off in his front yard i just like showered in his sprinklers and i remember his his porch light was on and i remember just standing because like on a freight train it's dirty like it's really dirty and i remember just standing this dude's sprinklers so stoked and i'm looking and like it's just black water just pouring down my arms and i'm just like okay like you are so dirty and i like wash my hands and like wash my face and i was like just solid just dirt just black soot from the train and so anyway i get to downtown i'm like i don't even care get me a hotel like i go into this hotel i just like and they're like oh sir it's 4 30 in the morning like we can't check you in until 3 00 p.m the next day we don't like we don't offer hotel rooms at this time i'm like you're kidding me like please i'll do anything like sorry so i'm all right screw i'm just gonna go sleep at the homeless shelter i'm like okay i walk in there and they're like no we're booked up for the night like try back tomorrow i'm like so i go and there's footage of this too i slept i just went behind the homeless shelter there was a dumpster in the back i laid out some cardboard and just like passed out behind this dumpster for like two hours and then waited for my friend to get off work that morning and went and skateboarded with him but then you know took a shower at his house i was so stoked and then like i continued continued my trip from there but this story the whole entire consensus of this story one is on preparation but two just just like a wild experience that i had no idea and i was like stranded in the desert completely at the mercy of whatever was going to happen and it was exciting and adventurous in that way but at the same time really stupid and i don't know i just hope this story resonates with some people out there and and find some entertainment in that find some entertainment in my stupidity at the time let's find some entertainment and just a wild adventure and uh i don't know you know i think i think a lot of those experiences like that gate like really can make you who you are because you realize like how vulnerable you can really be in situations like that it's like you know when you're stuck out in the desert suffering in the heat suffering in the cold no water no like and not sure if you're even going to make it out and whatever like and you're alone and you have a lot of time to think you have no one to talk to it's like it really allows yourself to to get to know yourself in a lot of ways and i think that can be really beneficial for the right type of person so i hope you enjoyed this story thanks for listening we'll talk to you next time

Channel: TrevorJacob

Views: 90,946

Rating: 4.8899455 out of 5

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Id: MzMgBskYTZA

Length: 26min 31sec (1591 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021