Adventures With Tempting Fate...or Pushing Your Luck.

[O2HeN2]

Stupid, illegal and dangrous jogged my memory... (can we post more than once in this thread? )

In college we used to jump trains on the weekend. Not to go anywhere but just for fun. The northbound trains would stop in San Luis Obispo, CA to have helper engines put on them to assist them going up the Cuesta Grade. We'd stage a car in Santa Margarita, jump the train as it went [slowly] by the off-campus housing and get off when it'd stop to remove the helpers and drive home (took about an hour or two). This went fine until my roommate jumped a train WITHOUT helpers and 10 hours later ended up in San Jose, in the middle of the night, half frozen to death.

...oh, and there was an over-a-mile-long train tunnel at the top of the 'grade that we'd drive to after the train went through town (we could beat it to the tunnel easily). We'd walk inside and get in the "step offs" - small areas that two or three people would fit in - as the train went by.

O2