CREW CHANGE TRAIN ROUTE GUIDE UP TO DATE AND READY TO ROLL!

HERE IS THE CREW CHANGE IN MY POSSESSION. PLEASE SEND 30 bucks to me, I will email you my address if you want the CC guide. FULL! 30 bucks covers postage, envelope, notebook, xeroxing and labor. Not a bad price for a free ride on the rails with this original one, most up to date CC.

Let me know and email me at junelander47@yahoo.com

CASH OR MONEY ORDERS ONLY, NO CHECKS, NO PERSONAL CHECKS! I will mail to you directly.

Good luck and have fun.
Train Hop Video Lady

RELATED TO TRAIN HOP CREW CHANGE GUIDE:

HOW TO HOP A FREIGHT TRAIN BY WES MODES

A Brief Guide To Riding the Rails By Wes Modes

What to Worry About

Safety is a big deal on the railroad. It is real easy to get good and hurt. You are made of soft, breakable stuff, while railroad equipment is made of very hard, very heavy stuff. A rolling boxcar won't even flinch as it quietly rolls right over you in a sneaky surprise attack.

Furthermore, accidents make everyone look bad. You, me, the railroad gal who told you what train to get on, all the people who saw you and were too cool to call the bull on you. This is why, every time you talk to a rail, he or she will tell you to stay safe.

Don't walk on the tracks. Don't cross under couplers or cars. And watch for cars rolling quietly through the yard. Be careful out there.

Some yards have a railroad cop. The railroad cop is universally referred to as the Bull. The only way to get caught by the bull is being stupid. The bull typically sits is some office somewhere until someone calls him with a problem, which is seldom. Occasionally, the bull will make a foray out of the office to cruise around in the bull-mobile, a white pick-up or bronco, typically. The bull may traverse all the roads through the yard before they retire back to their den. To avoid the bull, stay out of sight of the roads within the yard. Walk between strings of cars. Watch for the bull-mobile. Watch for flashlights. Stay out of danger. Steer clear of the office.

What to Bring

Keep everything dark, dark clothes, dark pack, dark sleeping bag or blanket. This will make it harder to get caught by the railroad cops as you blunder around the train yards.

You'll be walking a lot and throwing your pack on and off of trains, so pack small and light -- under 25 pounds. If you have something in your pack that \fIcan\fR break, it will. Leave your valuables at home.

And think about warmth. Dress in layers. You may end up on an open car in the middle of the night with a 60 mile an hour wind blowing in your face. Your clothes and your sleeping bag should keep you warm and comfortable and dry. If you're cold and wet, freight-hopping will be a miserable experience.

Bring some sturdy gloves and boots to keep you safe as you scramble around on freight cars. And if you prefer not to sunburn your ears and nose off, bring a hat.

Its nice to know where you are. An atlas can come in handy, both for finding where to catch-out and for finding out where you've been left. You may be able to round up a railroad map. Call up the railroad business office and pretend you are doing a study on rail transportation. Ask for a map of American freight lines.

Bring something to drink. Exposure to the wind sucks the liquids right out of you. Bring something that's not going to spill when you throw your pack on and off of cars.

Don't forget to bring your patience. Freight-hopping involves as much walking and waiting as actual riding. You spend most of your time waiting for information, waiting for a train, waiting for your train to get under way, waiting, waiting, waiting. For this you'll need flexibility and patience.

A quick checklist:

dark clothes
dark pack under 25 lbs
sturdy gloves
sturdy boots
hat
railroad atlas or map
warm, waterproof jacket
light, warm bedding
water or other liquid
non-perishable food
patience and endurance
Where to Catch-out

Find your local freight yard. There'll be a train leaving or coming through there eventually. Look for train yards in the forgotten part of town, the part of town with all the rough neighborhoods. The yard is usually near big industry, maybe near a river or port. You can often find givaway street names like Railroad Ave. The passenger train station is probably not too far away.

There are freight yards in almost every city in America. However, there are fewer marshalling yards where they make up and break down trains. These big yards are going to be the easiest places to gather information and catch-out. Here you can ask the yard crew which trains are leaving where when.

Some yards are crew change-points. A single crew can work a maximum of twelve hours, so yards at which trains receive fresh crews are strategically placed along the mainlines. These are good yards to catch out from.

How to get Information

Railroad workers are your friends and will help you out whenever possible. Crews can usually only tell you where their train is going and when power's called for. Yard workers often know the whole story. They make up all the trains that are leaving their yard. They know which trains are going where and often when the power is called for. They will sometimes call in to the tower to find out what track your train is on and when it leaves.

What to Ride

In order of preference, you want to ride in open boxcars, on the rear platform of a grainer or hopper, between the wheels of piggybacked trailers, in the well behind cargo containers, on the second or third deck of empty auto carriers, or in empty gondolas. And when you get really bold, you can ride on the back engine of several coupled units at night.

Your safety is the most important consideration. Don't take short cuts to save time. Tank cars carry all sorts of nasty shit and provide no good place to ride; don't ride 'em. Loaded flatcars and loaded gondolas provide you the opportunity to be crushed or pushed off a car by a shifting load; don't ride 'em. Cars marked Bad Order are broken but are frequently not removed from service; don't ride 'em.

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Infiltration Forums > Private Boards Index > Rail/Transit fanning > Crew change guide getting old...(Viewed 1516 times)

Crew change guide getting old!

I've got a 2003 crew change guide that's getting weathered (it's my fav book ) and a bit out of date for some cities in Canada and the USA. Just wondering if anyone in the Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver or Victoria area has a newer version and would be interested in meeting up to have a bit of sharing. I've got a list of the rail yard & rail police radio frequencies for all of Canada, as well as more detailed city rail maps. Also have the standard Canada rail map booklet...

Any takers? Drop me a PM if you would like to meet up.

SteamPunk location:
Tipping cows in the radiofrequency fields.

Re: Crew change guide getting old...

i'll need to know more about you, i see you have the uer time....but that's only the start...more to follow....

It's a dog fuck dog world. Spread the seeds of dissent and see what grows! Freedom perhaps? We are a society of sheep, run by wolves, and owned by pigs! I do exist, but have no name, and nothing to say!

Underneath Calgary, Alberta

Re: Crew change guide getting old...

Hypno, did you get my PM?

UE TWF location: Mass

Re: Crew change guide getting old...

I also am in need of a crew change it seems like a terrible thing to ask for online but I am planning a trip in a few summers and have read alot of writing and talked with several riders
if anyone can help or point me in the right direction that would be nice I might just go without it and see where the rails take me thanks

Better Than a Crew Change: A Scanner
Submitted Mon, Feb 09, 2004 by sectrix
Vagabonding (Advice)

Although it does cost some money, a scanner may be a viable option to a crew change guide or time table even. A scanner is a device that allows you to listen to almost any arbitrary radio frequency.

I have never actually used it in this manner, since I haven't even begun to travel yet, but I DO know that rail yards (and police departments, fire departments, airports, right down to mall security) use radio communication. And you can listen to this communication with a scanner.

I'm sure the bulls communicate your presence to the dispatcher if they see you, so you can hear that. They may also say what tracks are bound for where, and the time to leave. When getting a scanner, these are some things to keep in mind: Finding and Buying one Scanners can be found at a Radio Shack, or any amature radio store, truck stop maybe, etc. Scanners uasally boast '50 channels' or '200 channels' or something like that. These are only frequency storage channels, not operable range, although more channels are better, as some places can have upwards of 20 channels assigned to them that youll want to moniter. Also, it would be a good idea to get a scanner that supports something called trunking. The reason is explained below.

Using a scanner

Since you are using the scanner to listen to radio transmissions, you must know what frequencies to listen to. You can find a book called Police Call that has all the frequency allocations for your region. You might also be able to get these online, since it public knowledge by law. Simply enter the frequencies you want to listen to into your scanners memory, and it will keep monitoring all the channels you give it, and automatically tune you into active channels.

Scanner Technicalities

Most places just communicate directly across the frequencies it has. This means, when someone uses the radio, the whole conversation goes across one frequency (think CB radio). However bigger schemes, like the police department for a big city, or maybe even rail yards will usually use a system called trunking.

Basically, in a trunking system, multiple radios can be spread over several shared frequencies. So, a police department can have 15 squads talking simultaniously across only like 7 or 8 frequencies. (Actually cellular and land-line technologies use a similar system, CDMA and TDMA, and the new GSM)

This works by switching the voice data to different frequencies throughout a conversation, so any dead frequencies can take up extra data when traffic gets heavy. It works like this:

The whole trunking system is managed by a site controller(a computer). Every radio associated with the system automatically tunes to a frequency the site controller uses(the data channel, or handshake channel). When a user pushes the talk button, the radio makes a request to the site controller, which directs the radio to an unused frequency. The user talks, releases the button. The response works the same way.

So, in effect, a whole conversation of 17 transmissions could be transmitted across 17 different frequencies. To listen to these types of radio messages, your scanner needs to support trunking, not all do. It automatically listens to the data channel and follows a conversation as it switches.

However, some systems, (like Ericsson), have the repeaters (what your scanner is listening to) wait a few seconds before keying off after the transmission ends, while all the radios key off immediately. This makes your scanner drop the conversation, and as a result you can't follow it.

Scanners and the Law

All I know about this is that if you are caught using your scanner to assist in a crime, it will be confiscated.

Other reasons to have a scanner

Besides listening to public safety(PD, FD, government bands, airports, etc.) radio and rail yards, you can listen to: CB transmissions FRS(Family radio service) band transmissions(think Motorola Talkabout radios) All ham radio stations(VHF, UHF, etc.) Weather aross all the US
car races, shuttle launches, AM/FM radio, TV sound, even wireless mikes (concerts) , cellular sometimes, and a whole lot more

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Article Comments from Great Campfire Forums
(Comments are owned by the poster; digihitch.com is not responsible for their content)

Update on Scanners.... by Pooterdunk (Jul 29, 2009 @ 10:14 PM CST)
A lot has changed since this poster wrote about using a scanner. The country is in the process of going digital-trunked in almost all public safety, business band, and railroad communications. There are newer scanners that will receive and track these transmissions, but they aren't cheap.

You can expect to pay about $400 to $500 for a portable one. The frequencies for the scanner can be found for anywhere in the USA on the radio reference.com web site. It may also be possible to download pre-programmed data for your scanner by visiting some of the web groups you will find links to at the same web site. Although chances are you could listen in on the yard communications and any over-the-road talk with the Engineer, you may not always hear communications with the Bull.

Most security and Public Safety now uses MDT terminals for most of their calls. This means only private text messages are sent and no voice communication until after you are caught. Just thought you might like an update from a licensed Ham Radio operator and digital scanner owner.

Underneath Calgary, Alberta

Re: Crew change guide getting old...

Ended up with a 2007 myself Lucky run in, as usual. Love the way it works. Keep hanging around the yards and make some friends.

UE TWF location: Mass

Re: Crew change guide getting old...

im jealous

woot, 2008! Every year I get closer and closer to being current!

SteamPunk location:
Tipping cows in the radiofrequency fields.

Re: Crew change guide getting old...

I no longer have access to the crewchange i once...well, had access to. If anyone could kindly direct me to one of the either crewchange...it would be apreciated.

It's a dog fuck dog world. Spread the seeds of dissent and see what grows! Freedom perhaps? We are a society of sheep, run by wolves, and owned by pigs! I do exist, but have no name, and nothing to say!
He who rules the underground, rules the city above. Infiltration Forums > Private Boards Index > Rail/Transit fanning > Crew change guide getting If train hoppers are mad at train hop video lady for viral videoing secret crew change why are they using it?

If train hoppers are mad at train hop video ladyf or viral videoing secret crew change guide than why are they using it ... look: "Nashville, Tennessee, United States Ena-, Regional Point Of Presence (207.191.177.27) [Label IP Address] cddvddirectory.blogspot.com/ cddvddirectory.blogspot.com/

www.google.com/search?client=safari&rl… hop nashville&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 SEE THEY ARE USING IT EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE MAD AT THIS CHICK!

KayByrd
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

Train hoppers secret train guide has been turned into video format by someone called train hop video lady and because of that the videos have started to go viral and now anyone and their mothers can access this secret crew change train hopping guide which was once passed along from train hopper to train hopper by some person named Train Doc who refuses to show his face or come forward, but one day it will all be video so we can access it on our blackberry units and phones!

Source(s):
Free train hopping video guide http://cddvddirectory.blogspot.com It's free!
2 years ago Report Abuse
2 people rated this as good
Asker's Rating:Asker's Comment:
Train hoppers hopping mad but still use crew change video guide for train hopping!
Other Answers (4)

Richard W

It's called a "Crew Change Train Hopping Guide" and is a secret train hoppers manual to all the railroad and train routes and you can jump on at a certain point and this secret crew change manual has been viral videoed by some lady who decided it was time to get it into the infohighway age, the 21st century, and I feel mostly the curious will see it, but mostly train hoppers are accessing it even after talking against it and just go to http://cddvddirectory.blogspot.com and scroll all the way down to bottom of blog until you see stat bar and click on that and then you will see that mostly, probably all of the hits are from train hoppers, not little kids looking for thrills. Kids today look for thrills in other ways.

Rango

Ya know . . . . . . I just dont see very many hobos carrying personal computers with them to check out this stupid video.
2 years ago Report Abuse
1 person rated this as good

kavekars...

Thank you. This question made me go from a wide smile to barking laughter.
Phineas Taylor Barnum would be pleased suckers are still born every minute.
2 years ago Report Abuse
3 people rated this as good

Samurai Hoghead
Claptrap.

This whole thing is ridiculous... These idiots act like there has been a betrayal of some kind, relative to some sort of secret society. Do any of these folks actually think they've started something new? Riding the rods was around loooooooong before this stuff.

The funniest thing is this is invalid info. Does anyone really think the only time a train comes under scrutiny (or boarded) is at a crew change point? Every time a train passes an employee from the same or another craft (eg, a train in a siding, MOW personnel, signal maintainers, etc.), they are required to make a "rolling inspection" of the passing train and report any anomalies, including the riders who probably boarded at the last crew change point. You get seen, you get reported, and then you are taken off the train at the next crew change point.

I am curious to know... which chapter covers that?

On the other hand, I am both a practical and pragmatic individual...

Suppose there actually were 20 or 30 thousand interested parties, willing to pay say, $10 each for info concerning riding incognito and surreptitiously, with absolutely no guarantee of personal safety for the traveler, but the way to travel from an insider's point of view, with the least chance of detection, then e-mail me.

Ill advised, but... what the hell...

I give.

If ya can't lick 'em, make some cash off 'em...

I never said I wasn't a capitalist and this could be the next "pet rock."