I guess the bottom line is that there are many ways to die but challenging fate and combining two ways at the same time must qualify for the STUPID award for trying to ride a rail train in the middle of winter.
It all started with a friend of mine Bob and I deciding that we were going to go to Alberta to work. There weren’t any jobs in North Bay for idiots – LOL – We decided to buy an old beater car and drive out West. We saw an ad in the paper for an old Plymouth and when we called the lady owner who said she wanted “$75 or less” …… huh???? ….. So we paid her less ….. $50. We headed West ….. the car broke down near Sudbury just 75 West of North Bay – an omen maybe of things to come. So we hitch hiked the rest of way stopping in Winnipeg to visit some relatives of Bob then landed in Edmonton sometime in September of 1972.
We found a few odd jobs here and there that lasted a few days to a few weeks. One of them was with a company called Service Master. They were an industrial cleaning company and one of their services was cleaning up after a fire. Sometime late fall or early winter we got a call from them for a job in Jasper Alberta. A hotel had had a fire and had to be cleaned up. Service Master would pay for the travel and pay minimum wage for a week to clean the hotel ….. sounded like a good deal so off we went to Jasper …. neither of us had ever been to the mountains and it sounded like an adventure.
We got to Jasper around dinner time and decided we would go to the local hotel for a beer ….. after all ….. we were going to be rich soon ….. maybe days worth of work to come ….. well one beer led to another and it wasn’t long before we were drunk ….. and then more than drunk!! ….. STUPID!!!
We left the bar and started walking back to the hotel where we were staying. Jasper is a railroad town ……… and running parallel to where we were walking was the Canadian National railroad tracks. We decided that working wasn’t for us at the moment and so we would head for Edmonton ….. No richer and totally drunk …… We stuck out our thumbs to hitchhike home ……. No luck!!! ….. Remember it is cold at this time of year…… We got colder and colder and ……… we noticed a train was rolling ever so slowly East toward Edmonton …… Surely the train must going our way ….. Edmonton was where our drunken minds said it was going …..
Oh ….. By the way …… It is very cold in the mountains in November and it had been snowing that day while we were in the bar. We were drunk and …… the thought came to mind ….. with a Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn kind of crazy …… we had to do what we had to do and well …….. that we should just hop on the train and go home …… here is the real stupid part ….. we actually decided to do it.
We ran over to the track ….. the train was made up of box cars and flat cars loaded with lumber and as we reached the train, the flat cars were rolling by. We decided to jump on a flat car that had standing room ahead of its load of lumber ….. This small area was about a 2 feet by 8 feet surface ….. the snow that had fallen during the day was thick on the rectangular platform …… all seemed good there until ….. The train started rolling faster …….
We soon realized that the heat from our feet was melting the snow underfoot. Snow was turning to ice as it melted as we tamped it down ……. and the train kept on accelerating ….. I don’t recall how long it was from the time we hopped on the train until we realized that we were in trouble ….. We might slip off and fall under the train …. what I do recall is saying “Bob …. I am really scared” ….. we should have been ….. We rolled along for what seemed forever.
Before too long the train slowed to a stop on a siding to let another train pass ….. we were able to get down off our perch only to realize we were now in middle of the forest, out in the middle of nowhere. We found a box car that was open and jumped back on the train. At least we were out of the wind and not risking falling off the train …. we started rolling again and finally got to another town called Hinton ….. where we got off the train for good.
We hitchhiked the rest of the way to Edmonton
Idiots ….. Out in the middle of winter ….. we could have frozen to death …. we could have fallen under the train ….. maybe attacked by wild animals ….. Arrested by railroad police.
I think we get a prize in the young and stupid department!!!!!!!
Please do not try this ……… LOL
