Just got this post in from the LTD ROADCREW 2014. With photos by AVOID pi, words by FISHO ngc and a video by DROID 907, it tells a freight hopping story or two. That’s all I know. – RJ
Dropped off in Spartanburg early morning. Boobed around the small yard office and found a spot under a rail bridge at the north throat of the yard. Waiting games. Weed smiles and a little nervousness. SUNDAY NO BEER.
Me and Avoid are exploring a small tunnel beneath the tracks, beautiful light and a birds nest, cool water no shoes…
A scream from above, the train, the train is coming.
Big scramble up hill
No time for socks
Spartanburg to Erwin first
Pull everything together, It’s all here
one at a time we grab the moving ladders and jump.
No cover, exposed ride, catch on the fly with a highway audience
We are rolling, first siding very soon regroup and take a grainer porch together.
Beautiful day the sun is shining
Our porch shakes violently and we laugh.
Marion is halfway & beautiful nowhere is loud.
At a siding in the middle of a mountain
A worker is walking down the track, stash gear leave porch, hide behind wheels.
He pulls a switch and walks back. Some routine. Hide again.
Sunset Pretty, plenty of documentation
Keep it moving, many tunnels and bridges and curves.
The clinchfield loops.
Put a coat and sleep if you can. The train is not shaking so much anymore, before the violent jolt was overwhelming, physical washing machine, a mans rollercoaster.
This is my vacation, my release.
Enough bad memories
We pull into the Erwin yard late night.
We hop off the ride and hop cuplers to the wrong side of the yard, work trucks and a river
Go back, cross over more trains and tracks and up a hill.
Find a good flat place to sleep. Goodnight with hits from the apple pipe
Take socks off, sleeping bag warm goodnight finally
Awake with sun, feeling good smelling like train dust.
Granola bars and we are walking, town is small. local eyes but no crucifixion or which hunt.
get a hot meal at elms, its a hikers town, good. We assume the trail head identity, remove all train paraphernalia.
ERNIE i mean ERWIN
Head to north throat of yard again and lurk.
Gas stations, fast food, and construction.
We find the cut, a lean two structure, an old roof not resting on thick trees.
Clean it up, stack a wood pile, clear the brush and sprawl out a bit.
Talk all day with beer, examine the yard from afar.
Apple pipe. We take turns leaving, going to the store buying more beer or French fries and a pancake.
Lounging around the comfortable jungle we are caught far from guard,
A northbound is pulling out of the yard on a set of tracks we weren’t expecting.
Scramble again… We miss the ride look at it chug away.
Close enough to do it but missed. Just missed
More beer and a walk to the cemetery
There is always a train sounding in our heads.
Lost time downing cold ones until it happens again.
Goodbye Erwin and rain is coming
Another northbound is pulling out of the yard. We are drunk and ready.
Right after the engine passes us we are on the tracks, hungry for a ladder.
I hardly remember as some strange force took hold of me and I was suddenly climbing into a gondola full of scrap metal as it began to storm. Confused smiling I look back at the empty tracks and hear screaming.
Avoid and I are on the phone where is Droid?
I see him he is also on a metal death ride and coming for me. Walking along the metal scraps crossing from one car to the next.
He comes and gets me and we move back over the metal piles while the train is howling out of town.
We get to a dirty face small grainer porch and head bang for madness rain and life
Find one more beer and split it.
Wet night ride. Cold & the first siding we leave our porch & move down the string to A’s car.
Regroup and ride nighttime rough sleep with amazing morning fog
Kentucky country ride next to the river and small old towns
Train CC’s in Shelbiana, We are assed out
Get off and walk around the yard, hazy morning feelings.
Find an abandoned building, warm inside
Its 7 miles to the nearest town
We start walking and the rain comes again, harder
Get picked up by a college kid in pickup halfway
He drops us off at a Mexican restaurant
Get drunk before we start our residency program in Pikeville Kentucky
Confusion about a whiskey town brought us here.
Phone home for the cavalry
Execute a strange piece of roller graffiti with sourced materials
Its not over, its never over
Photos by AVOID pi aka Adam Void