Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 2: Our colleague Noel is on an adventure, but will return shortly.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Sh Can you hear
Speaker 3: it in the distance? That train whistle? Oh?
Speaker 2: I did hear I heard it?
Speaker 3: I heard tell of it. Yes, tonight we are traveling
Speaker 3: the rails fellow conspiracy real exploring a hidden history of
Speaker 3: the United States, a culture that is often romanticized, vilified,
Speaker 3: and above all, perhaps misunderstood. You know, when people hear
Speaker 3: words like hobo or vacabond or traveler, dirty kid, hobo especially,
Speaker 3: I think for most of the public in the West,
Speaker 3: it conjures up this vision of itinerant men, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe not with the best sharpest duds, but with dignity
Speaker 3: in their faces, holding sticks and bindles amid the great depression,
Speaker 3: which is again a terrible name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, images of human beings looking for work. Right, that's
Speaker 2: generally what it's associated.
Speaker 3: With, which is the great differentiator between a hobo, a tramp,
Speaker 3: and a bum. Right, And please keep in mind that
Speaker 3: for people who historically consider themselves hoboes, calling someone a
Speaker 3: bum was an enormous insult. The difference being hobo's travel
Speaker 3: looking for work, Tramps travel doing their best to avoid work.
Speaker 3: Bums neither travel nor work. And that's that's the idea
Speaker 3: of it feels like it's distant history, but we have
Speaker 3: to remember the past is always closer than it appears
Speaker 3: in the rear view mirror. And the reality is that
Speaker 3: train hoppers still exist. According to law enforcement, there's been
Speaker 3: a conspiracy of foot So tonight we're going to dive
Speaker 3: into this thing that we've been loosely calling Invisible America,
Speaker 3: and we're going to ask what is this ft R
Speaker 3: A the Freight Trained Writers of America. Is it, as
Speaker 3: law enforcement says, a brutal coven of people committed to
Speaker 3: organized crime? Is it, as its supporters argue, a loose
Speaker 3: collection of communities trying to provide mutual support, Or is
Speaker 3: it as some railroad spokespeople say an urban myth that
Speaker 3: never existed at all. Here are the facts, Matt. How
Speaker 3: would we define train hopping or freight hopping to someone
Speaker 3: who's never heard of the concept.
Speaker 2: We call it Hell's Angels, but without bikes. That's that's what.
Speaker 3: That's from police magazine.
Speaker 2: That's what Police magazine would say. Sorry, No, train hopping
Speaker 2: is literally just somebody who is using the three the
Speaker 2: thirty thousand miles of rail across the United States and
Speaker 2: using it as a way to move around, but not
Speaker 2: doing it as you know, a passenger on a train
Speaker 2: would if let's say you get on a passenger car,
Speaker 2: you pay for a ticket to that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: It's hopping on and off of the actual freight cars
Speaker 2: that are taking various things, you know, I think everything
Speaker 2: from coal to large shipping containers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, box cars, grainers, fa Lucky you might be able
Speaker 3: to hop inside something nicer used by the employees of
Speaker 3: the railroad. Yeah, it's called catching out. When you hitch
Speaker 3: this ride, do it without permission from the train operators
Speaker 3: or employees. This occurs all over the world. It is
Speaker 3: illegal in every state in the United States currently, and
Speaker 3: it's also dangerous legality aside for a ton of reasons.
Speaker 3: There are accidents, drugs, crime, You can be at the
Speaker 3: mercy of the weather depending on which car you end
Speaker 3: up catching out on, and then there's the ever present
Speaker 3: possibility of another rider becoming violent. Also, we got a
Speaker 3: note first thank you for the seasoned train hoppers we
Speaker 3: talk to in preparation for this episode. A lot of
Speaker 3: the folks that we spoke with also that googles, folks
Speaker 3: who are new to this lifestyle can be a danger
Speaker 3: to themselves and others simply due to their lack of experience.
Speaker 3: So no ill intent, it's just again very dangerous. You
Speaker 3: have to know what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you learn how to do things by doing them right.
Speaker 2: And if you're not with somebody who's essentially a guide
Speaker 2: who can show you the ropes at any given moment,
Speaker 2: you could be putting yourself and everybody else you're with
Speaker 2: in pretty serious and in this case grave danger because
Speaker 2: you're on a giant moving train or you're trying to
Speaker 2: get onto one or off of one.
Speaker 3: Right, and it's a thing that does not currently have
Speaker 3: sensors that tell it, oh, someone's trying to jump on
Speaker 3: this as it's moving and also, slowing down a train
Speaker 3: is very difficult. It's doable. Stopping a train is an
Speaker 3: engineering feat. With this in mind, we want to be clear, folks,
Speaker 3: we are not expressly condoning this travel. And perhaps more importantly,
Speaker 3: this is in no way to be taken as a
Speaker 3: guide to learning the art of train hopping, and I
Speaker 3: would argue it really is an art. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of expertise going into this. You know, we talked about
Speaker 3: this briefly on some other episodes, but there there's no
Speaker 3: shortage of resources purporting to give you advice, warnings and
Speaker 3: guides to train hopping, but they're often of dubious, unverifiable value.
Speaker 3: And the one thing most travelers agree on is this,
Speaker 3: you've got to learn person to person from someone else
Speaker 3: who knows the ropes, or more appropriately, in this case,
Speaker 3: the rails. So as you've become more familiar with hopping
Speaker 3: and you become accepted into the culture and lifestyle surrounding it,
Speaker 3: you might be gifted with one of the most legendary
Speaker 3: books in all of US history, The Crew Change Guide.
Speaker 3: Remember when we were talking about this.
Speaker 2: One, Yeah, I remember this one specifically. What do you
Speaker 2: think that means? The Crew Change guide. Hmmm, well, I
Speaker 2: mean we can get it a lot of it, and
Speaker 2: definitely if you haven't, go back and listen to our
Speaker 2: episode on what was known as and is still known
Speaker 2: as Hobo Code. We did an entire episode on it.
Speaker 3: I think Ben right, we mentioned it in an episode.
Speaker 3: I think we did it on a live show, and
Speaker 3: we mentioned it in an episode about Hidden America where
Speaker 3: we also talked a little bit about hidden buildings and
Speaker 3: urban centers GOSD buildings.
Speaker 2: So in this book, you're gonna learn a lot about
Speaker 2: like again, literally the crew change, which is when people
Speaker 2: check the trains, get on and off the trains, when
Speaker 2: the crew actually changes who are engineering the train. There's
Speaker 2: all kinds of cool information in there, and it's such
Speaker 2: an interesting legendary book because it does seem like something
Speaker 2: that would literally change year to year, even season to season,
Speaker 2: even month to month, because you might have stuff that
Speaker 2: gets altered when it comes to you know, who is
Speaker 2: actually operating the trains, when and where and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: But I guess theoretically keeping the trains on the tracks
Speaker 2: really is a thing where you need to have regular
Speaker 2: shipments of particular goods moving across, you know, from state
Speaker 2: to state across regions of the United States on a
Speaker 2: daily basis.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. As a result the Crew Change Guide, originating
Speaker 3: with the legendary train Doc as he's known, The Crew
Speaker 3: Change Guide provides the specifics of when a particular rail
Speaker 3: line stops to change out their crew. Working for railroads
Speaker 3: is very difficult. There's a high bar. It's probably terrible
Speaker 3: for personal relationships if we're being honest, sort of like
Speaker 3: working as an air traffic controller. And thank you to
Speaker 3: our ananymous correspondent who reached out about that the crew
Speaker 3: Change Guide cannot be purchased, cannot be posted online. You know,
Speaker 3: it is meant to be given from person to person,
Speaker 3: and as you said, it often gets updated. For more
Speaker 3: information about the Crew Change Guide, check out our earlier
Speaker 3: episode on whether or not any book should be banned
Speaker 3: because this one's interesting. It's been partially self banned by
Speaker 3: the community that creates it for their own protection. It's
Speaker 3: fascinating stuff. We know. It is inarguable that the number
Speaker 3: of active hoppers, or people traveling rail illicitly it has
Speaker 3: greatly decreased over the decades, but make no mistake, there
Speaker 3: are still strong communities of people traveling this way all
Speaker 3: across the world, including the US, Mexico, and Canada South
Speaker 3: America as well. So to understand the accusations about the
Speaker 3: conspiracy surrounding the ftra we got to understand the history
Speaker 3: of this hidden subculture. The concept of itinerant traveler searching
Speaker 3: for work is ancient. As soon as the idea of
Speaker 3: work started, that demographic existed. But the origins of modern
Speaker 3: train hopping are directly tied to the expansion of railroads
Speaker 3: and economic disasters, notably the Civil War in the mid
Speaker 3: eighteen hundreds. That some people will argue, like our pal
Speaker 3: Dave Russ's writing for How Stuff Works, that hobo originally
Speaker 3: stood for hoe boys or guys who o cake. After
Speaker 3: the Civil War, these disillusioned veterans were cast off from
Speaker 3: larger society and they hopped the rails, maybe for ride home,
Speaker 3: maybe for a new horizon, right to start life over.
Speaker 3: And we're going to see how history rhymes later on
Speaker 3: with this idea of disillusioned veterans. It's crazy, man, think
Speaker 3: about it. How how can we articulate just how monumental
Speaker 3: the railroad was. It's like up there with domesticating horses, right.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, absolutely, If you imagine if you had to
Speaker 2: literally hoof it to wherever you wanted to go, you
Speaker 2: know in the United States, which is giant. And then
Speaker 2: you've got a horse, now who can hoof it for
Speaker 2: you at least part of the way or most of
Speaker 2: the way. You just got to take stops to make
Speaker 2: sure the horse is good. Now you've got a thing
Speaker 2: that can take you hundreds thousands of miles and without
Speaker 2: you having to run anywhere, without you having to, you know,
Speaker 2: take care of another animal as it takes you somewhere.
Speaker 2: You literally jump on a thing and then it takes
Speaker 2: you thousands of miles.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We know also that perhaps due to the sheer
Speaker 3: significance of this innovation of the concept of rail trains
Speaker 3: were not entirely or solely a good thing here in
Speaker 3: the US. They came to represent a stark divide between
Speaker 3: haves and have nots. You know, the railroad network expands
Speaker 3: westward and becomes denser in the north and the east,
Speaker 3: and there's a new class of workers who are created,
Speaker 3: an entirely new class of workers employed in the transit industry.
Speaker 3: And at the same time, a lot of people from
Speaker 3: rural areas or people who have been delayed displaced by
Speaker 3: things like you know, the dust bowl. They had a
Speaker 3: way to migrate to cities in search of more opportunity.
Speaker 3: Freight trains were an inexpensive way to travel, especially if
Speaker 3: you could hop out or catch out and not get caught.
Speaker 3: But on the other side, on the bad side of it,
Speaker 3: railroads could ruin a town's economic future, right if the
Speaker 3: railroad bypasses your town, then you received no new travelers.
Speaker 3: They also, you know, use slavery to build the railroads,
Speaker 3: and there was a ton of racism involving the exploitation
Speaker 3: of migrant workers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think my mind gets a little hung
Speaker 2: up on this concept of everybody in a country who
Speaker 2: doesn't have a job that is set up, you know,
Speaker 2: that they imagine is going to be the job for
Speaker 2: the rest of their life now has an opportunity to
Speaker 2: go and travel and work, like literally be an internal
Speaker 2: migrant worker that can go for two months, six months
Speaker 2: a year, you know, travel two states away and work
Speaker 2: a job that they know people are hiring for, make
Speaker 2: some good money, bring it home, and then they could
Speaker 2: go do it again if they need to, or not
Speaker 2: even take it home because they don't have a home. Anymore.
Speaker 2: They just make that their temporary home and then they
Speaker 2: can move on to the next thing. You it's almost
Speaker 2: it's it's almost like the lottery thing to me in
Speaker 2: a little tiny way, where if I put myself in
Speaker 2: that position, I can imagine myself thinking, Okay, I can
Speaker 2: go make quite a bit of money here at this job.
Speaker 2: Then I can go and make quite a bit of
Speaker 2: money in another job, and maybe I'm going to strike
Speaker 2: it big in one of these. Does that mean? Because
Speaker 2: it's a brand new opportunity every time.
Speaker 3: And for me, I see the both the desperation and
Speaker 3: the appeal. Right, let's say you get word through the grapevine,
Speaker 3: just like in grapes of wrath, that someone is hiring
Speaker 3: a tremendous amount of workers out west, right, and you
Speaker 3: are an okie. The dust bowl has wrecked not just
Speaker 3: your prospects as a farmer, but the prospects of your
Speaker 3: entire region. And so you tell yourself or you know
Speaker 3: with certainty, this is your best chance, even if the
Speaker 3: odds are against you. A lottery, as we were saying earlier,
Speaker 3: you you don't have the money for a ticket, but
Speaker 3: if you can get a solid job, then you can
Speaker 3: change the course of your family's future. We also see
Speaker 3: similar things with travelers who might go work in canning
Speaker 3: in Alaska seasonally or travel to do cannabis harvesting right
Speaker 3: and stay on the road. And that's a very common
Speaker 3: thing in the earth, still common thing in the modern day.
Speaker 3: It's not as common as it was during the Great Depression,
Speaker 3: to be honest. Estimates tell us that during that horrible
Speaker 3: time between nineteen twenty nine all the way up to
Speaker 3: World War Two, really hobo ranks well to some four
Speaker 3: million adults two hundred and fifty thousand teenagers amid them.
Speaker 3: And of course this is a very dangerous time for
Speaker 3: teenagers right, who can be victimized, exploited in any number
Speaker 3: of ways. It just inspired, It left a tattoo on
Speaker 3: the American consciousness and inspired so much fiction non fiction literature.
Speaker 3: I was going back through my library and I was surprised, Matt,
Speaker 3: I have more books about hobo history than I thought.
Speaker 3: And don't know why.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I do not have those books, but
Speaker 2: we do, as you said, we do have lots of
Speaker 2: people in our circles who have done train hopping, who
Speaker 2: have lived that lifestyle for a while, and it's interesting
Speaker 2: to think about it way back then, right in these times,
Speaker 2: and then think about it maybe in the past twenty years,
Speaker 2: past thirty years, just how much it has changed, and
Speaker 2: really thinking about motivations for wanting to live that lifestyle.
Speaker 2: And I don't know about you, but just anecdotally from
Speaker 2: people I've spoken with, a lot of it has to
Speaker 2: do with this feeling of not the feeling of not
Speaker 2: having a solid foundation where you are in your life,
Speaker 2: where where you grow up, where you stand, especially for
Speaker 2: young people, then finding a family through this. So it
Speaker 2: reminds me of our discussions of gangs and cartels and that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, which it's not the same, right, We're
Speaker 2: not we're not equating these two things, but this sense
Speaker 2: of finding a group of people that becomes your family,
Speaker 2: that you would in this case then just travel to
Speaker 2: rails with and explore the explore the United States.
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna I think it's important for us to
Speaker 3: have a positive note on this as we as we
Speaker 3: enter the train tunnel here, this is a way, without
Speaker 3: condoning it, we have to acknowledge this is a way
Speaker 3: to see parts of the United States, in Canada and
Speaker 3: Mexico that people never get to see. There is great
Speaker 3: untamed beauty out there, you know, in that purple mountain
Speaker 3: range and so on. So there is there is a
Speaker 3: real appeal and community is a huge part of it.
Speaker 3: And today, you know, you'll see widely different demographics. Right
Speaker 3: are crust punk friends so called our dirty kid pals,
Speaker 3: our anarchists who decided of their own volition that they
Speaker 3: didn't want to participate in some of the frankly ridiculous
Speaker 3: stuff that society demands of people in the current milieu.
Speaker 3: But for all of those folks, whatever their motivation, it
Speaker 3: is inescapable that train hopping is more difficult now than
Speaker 3: it was in the past. There are security innovations at
Speaker 3: train yards. You know, it's not now it's not always
Speaker 3: just one day drunk train yard bull running around going
Speaker 3: oh you can't have blah blah blah to the hooscal
Speaker 3: you know. Now there are serious security innovations, and it
Speaker 3: happens in step with growing federal concern national security concerns.
Speaker 3: That these factors all put tighter eyes on the practice
Speaker 3: of train hopping. Now, uh, his the demographic that we
Speaker 3: we say this with great respect, that would historically be
Speaker 3: considered hobos they're also sharing the rails with immigrant workers.
Speaker 3: It's another it's another great off the grid transport option. Uh.
Speaker 2: And they're and families, by the way, not not just
Speaker 2: you know, imagic an immigrant worker. Imagine an entire family
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 3: Trying to keep their kids safe right in a place
Speaker 3: where the law doesn't really exist. And then there are
Speaker 3: the real seekers, you know, shout out to the college kids,
Speaker 3: the eagles, and almost a terrorist, the tourists. To be clear,
Speaker 3: my my slip there is because the federal government has
Speaker 3: raised serious or what they call terrorism concerns.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: Part I mean there there's validity to it, but there's
Speaker 3: also you know, the T word is a magic way
Speaker 3: to get more funding. Uh yeah, well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but well and then there's there are real dangerous individuals.
Speaker 2: Hear me when I say that, dangerous individuals who choose
Speaker 2: the rails as a way to get around and then
Speaker 2: may also commit heinous crimes while they're doing that.
Speaker 3: And like anybody else, they have a community. To what
Speaker 3: degree is their community united? That becomes a question worth asking.
Speaker 3: There are criminals who have gone off the grid to
Speaker 3: escape the law, and due to the circumstances up until recently,
Speaker 3: those folks could ghost very effectively, and we're going to
Speaker 3: talk about that as well. These folks, all these groups
Speaker 3: we're mentioning, have different motivations, but they rely upon the
Speaker 3: same tactics. You need a community to survive, and that's
Speaker 3: why there are loads of groups or crews or gangs,
Speaker 3: trained gangs on the rail and they are usually providing support, resources,
Speaker 3: guidance to their members. People are looking out for each
Speaker 3: other because they know they're bad things out there in
Speaker 3: the dark. So if you ask law enforcement, and we're
Speaker 3: going to have a dichotomy here between people in that
Speaker 3: community and people in the l EO community, if you
Speaker 3: ask law enforcement, they'll tell you some of these groups
Speaker 3: are dangerous. One name that came up over and over
Speaker 3: and over again is the FTR or Freight Train Riders
Speaker 3: of America. Innocuous name, a little bit ambitious, but it
Speaker 3: sounds clean. It sounds like a union. Actually when you
Speaker 3: think about.
Speaker 2: It, it really does. And have you seen some of
Speaker 2: the patches that exist online.
Speaker 3: The start the party.
Speaker 2: Well y SDP, But there's also circular things that look
Speaker 2: so much like a union that say Freight Train Riders
Speaker 2: of America around the outside and that you know, and
Speaker 2: it just you go, hmm, it feels like I'm on
Speaker 2: a movie set, or right, you know, there's another union
Speaker 2: hanging out over.
Speaker 3: Here, or I'm at the VFA right checking out people's patches.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: So defenders will tell us this is just another group
Speaker 3: of reil writers. You can find people who identify or
Speaker 3: associate with the FTR and they say, we have been mischaracterized.
Speaker 3: We're a group that looks out for each other, and
Speaker 3: a lot of people are making false claims about us.
Speaker 3: A lot of people are associating us with crime. But critics,
Speaker 3: including law enforcement, we'll talk about several of the law
Speaker 3: enforcement investigators here. Critics will argue that FTR is an
Speaker 3: extraordinarily dangerous organized criminal enterprise. So what's the truth. We're
Speaker 3: going to pause for word from our sponsors, and then
Speaker 3: we'll dive in. Here's where it gets crazy, all right, Matt, Yes,
Speaker 3: the ft is a real thing. Yeah, there's a considerate
Speaker 3: a real thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a Facebook page and everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, a gold standard starring step aside social security numbers.
Speaker 3: And that's the real idea these days. I said real
Speaker 3: id my cat yelled at me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh well, you can scan it now you.
Speaker 3: Can scan everything. I don't know if it's the right
Speaker 3: world to live in, but anyway, the FTRA has been
Speaker 3: most active, not solely active, but most active in the
Speaker 3: northwest United States and in southwestern Canada. So that's why
Speaker 3: you may sometimes confusingly hear a similar Venn diagram term
Speaker 3: FTRC that means Freight train Riders of Canada. And it
Speaker 3: is so tough to find an origin story for FTRA
Speaker 3: that everyone agrees on, partially because it's tough to find
Speaker 3: a description of the FTRA that everyone agrees on, and
Speaker 3: even now or even in its heyday. Right as far
Speaker 3: as reporting investigation goes, railroad spokesfolks were saying, this is
Speaker 3: an urban legend. Police are trying to do something that
Speaker 3: makes their job easier. But I suggest we go to
Speaker 3: Police magazine with an excellent article by Richard Valdemar that
Speaker 3: shares one of the most popular origin tales, and maybe
Speaker 3: while weld go through it, we can provide a little
Speaker 3: bit further context.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, would you mind if I read a short
Speaker 2: little excerpt from that same article. I think it's the
Speaker 2: same one November two thousand and seven, okay man, And
Speaker 2: this if you read the entire thing, which we highly
Speaker 2: recommend you should. It's called The Freight Train Writers of America.
Speaker 2: You can find it online. It feels like a hard
Speaker 2: boiled detective novel at times, and some of the stuff
Speaker 2: in here it has been You said, it's tough to
Speaker 2: know what's real and what are just stories being told
Speaker 2: around various police departments and sheriff's offices. So this is
Speaker 2: what he says, and this is corroborated by some other people,
Speaker 2: but they do. I don't know if you found this too, Ben,
Speaker 2: They mentioned this specific article often when it's like mentioned
Speaker 2: in Wikipedia or something, they'll cite this article, which is
Speaker 2: interesting because for all intensive purposes, this is one person
Speaker 2: who has experienced writing about it.
Speaker 3: Right, I've also seen it. This is why I'm excited
Speaker 3: about doing some clarification and contextualization because I've also seen
Speaker 3: this article mentioned by people who do not agree with it.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, one hundred percent. So that's that's why it's
Speaker 2: kind of h all right, Well, he says, the FTR
Speaker 2: is rooted right after the Vietnam War. There's a group
Speaker 2: of disaffected veterans who come home. They don't want to
Speaker 2: live life the way everybody else wants them to. They
Speaker 2: are in a specific bar in Montana. It's the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: They are, I believe at the time, they're already unhoused,
Speaker 2: and they decide they are gonna basically just be a group.
Speaker 2: They are gonna work for each other, with each other,
Speaker 2: and they're gonna it's a specific railway, right, or a line, Yeah.
Speaker 3: The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Pacific Railroad line, the high line,
Speaker 3: that's right. And this let's pause here because Okay, it's
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties when these guys meet. So they've all
Speaker 3: served and survived through the Vietnam War, like so many
Speaker 3: other veterans, they're having a tough time reintegrating into a
Speaker 3: society that you could argue threw them away through a
Speaker 3: great many veterans away. And these are demographically most mostly
Speaker 3: white males. We know that for sure. And like you
Speaker 3: were saying, Matt, they according to the origin story, they
Speaker 3: throw their fates together and they say, let's work together
Speaker 3: to essentially improve quality of life for each other, to
Speaker 3: support each other, and we're going to share everything, and
Speaker 3: we're going to keep it a family show. But they
Speaker 3: do mean everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets pretty yeah, kind of gross. Talk about
Speaker 2: sharing women specifically and stated in that.
Speaker 3: Article violating human rights similar to a one percenter motorcycle gang.
Speaker 3: I do want to shout out some internet scuttle butt
Speaker 3: and some accounts that again we're going to keep anonymous
Speaker 3: from different conversations, and we both have had. The idea is,
Speaker 3: if you want to get specific about the origin of
Speaker 3: the FTRA, you'll hear people say it started at this
Speaker 3: bar in Whitefish, Montana. But you'll hear other people say no,
Speaker 3: it's started in Libby, Montana. And you'll also hear that
Speaker 3: the original guys were were not criminals. In fact, their
Speaker 3: argument is that they were banding together to protect themselves
Speaker 3: against violence that environment.
Speaker 2: So let's let's remember our previous discussions of returning Vietnam
Speaker 2: War veterans and the varying degrees to which they were
Speaker 2: hailed as heroes and or shunned by other Americans who
Speaker 2: were on you know, us soil when they returned home,
Speaker 2: as well as you know, some of the good things
Speaker 2: that were in place by like the Veterans Affairs associations,
Speaker 2: as well as the really bad things that promises basically
Speaker 2: that were not kept, and just that experience, you can
Speaker 2: imagine at least I imagine making an individual pretty angry,
Speaker 2: or could has the potential to make someone pretty angry
Speaker 2: and fear that they may not have any kind of future. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the.
Speaker 3: We have to also remember the context of Montana at
Speaker 3: the time. For years and years, decades and decades we
Speaker 3: can say century plus, Montana had been a kind of
Speaker 3: haven for what law enforcement would call transient individuals, right,
Speaker 3: and again that's law enforcements word, not our own. You'll
Speaker 3: often hear people in that community prefer the term traveler.
Speaker 3: So the issue was that a few people, a few
Speaker 3: bad apples, ruined the bushel for everybody. As a result,
Speaker 3: legislation in Montana is passing laws that vastly exacerbate criminal
Speaker 3: penalties for stuff such that you don't have to be
Speaker 3: if you are an unhoused person, you don't have to
Speaker 3: be caught red handed, you know, watching the wheels and
Speaker 3: figuring out when to jump on the train. You can
Speaker 3: just be sleeping nearby, and then they can put you
Speaker 3: in jail for months and months and months, and they
Speaker 3: know that you'll probably get acquitted because you didn't really
Speaker 3: do anything wrong, but they will keep you in lock
Speaker 3: up for that time. Because what are you going to do.
Speaker 3: You're gonna get a lawyer. No, you're not not a gomplin.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Well and just also quickly, the dangers of
Speaker 2: let's say, sleeping in oh man. I think in this
Speaker 2: article they were maybe it's in a different article they
Speaker 2: refer to them as jungle camps. Yeah, the gibles, but
Speaker 2: really just camps that are nearby to a real access point, right.
Speaker 2: And but just the dangers of sleeping there that we've
Speaker 2: we've seen over time. The police talk about it, the
Speaker 2: people who have actually you know, traveled to talk about
Speaker 2: how dangerous it can be because literally anybody could be
Speaker 2: on that train right coming through, whether they're law enforcement
Speaker 2: or not, whatever they are, and they and if their
Speaker 2: intentions are bad, you are in an extremely vulnerable position.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. Yeah. The authorities, uh if you, if
Speaker 3: you decide to go to them, may simply arrest you.
Speaker 3: It may not help you. Right. And this is this
Speaker 3: is an issue that occurred back then and occurs to day.
Speaker 3: And I remember something that came up a lot when
Speaker 3: I was doing some volunteer work in similar areas there.
Speaker 3: The distrust of authorities comes from a very valid and
Speaker 3: extremely smart place to be honest with you, it is
Speaker 3: a rational and intelligent decision the FDRA, again according to
Speaker 3: the scuttle, But here you'll hear that the original crew
Speaker 3: did not They were not these super criminals. They weren't
Speaker 3: teaming up to be like the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Speaker 3: But perhaps as a knock on consequence of the loose
Speaker 3: nature of the organization or the covenant there, the FTRA
Speaker 3: had a new wave of people coming in and these
Speaker 3: were more hard cases, These are ex convicts. They start
Speaker 3: calling themselves the new FTRA. And that's where we get
Speaker 3: to the three divisions. Right by the skanks or the bandanas,
Speaker 3: which would be the black bandanas, that's what we're talking about,
Speaker 3: the high Line, the blue bandanas aka the wrecking Crew,
Speaker 3: and then the red bandanas that are more Southern like
Speaker 3: Louisiana to Long Beach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really it's really interesting to separate them out
Speaker 2: by the southern corridor the Midwest, you know, like it's
Speaker 2: interesting to split them up that way. We have heard
Speaker 2: stories of people who have ridden the rails, not associated
Speaker 2: at all with the FTRA, who state wearing the black
Speaker 2: bandana is still a very popular thing in the areas
Speaker 2: where the black bandanas are supposedly worn by the FTRA,
Speaker 2: which is really interesting and it's a way to associate
Speaker 2: yourself with other people who ride the rails, but it
Speaker 2: is not specifically gang related.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, because again, confirmed members of the FTRA defined
Speaker 3: as people who say their members and then get that
Speaker 3: confirmed by other people who say their members. That's really
Speaker 3: the best you can do on an order chart here,
Speaker 3: because it's people connected by a similar lifestyle, and they're
Speaker 3: so loosely organized that people do not always agree who
Speaker 3: is actually in the FTRA. To that earlier point, it
Speaker 3: is a known fact out there that some people will
Speaker 3: falsely claim membership for protection purposes, or for intimidation, or
Speaker 3: just for bragging rights, just to like sound cool at
Speaker 3: the fire, which is not a smart move at all.
Speaker 2: Or intimidating to someone that they are worried. Is attempting
Speaker 2: to intimidate them, right, That kind of like little thing
Speaker 2: that you would say, like watch out, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Dude, we live in Atlanta. You know, if you're not
Speaker 3: if you're not a crip, if you're not a blood,
Speaker 3: then don't say you are. It is a really dumb idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is an know. The really interesting thing that
Speaker 2: I was having a discussion with somebody about earlier, this
Speaker 2: official association with like those two well known gangs, right,
Speaker 2: there are smaller gangs that have associations and sets, right,
Speaker 2: But then there are other ones that are like claim
Speaker 2: association or might say their associated, or wear the same
Speaker 2: colors or do that kind of thing, and it's just
Speaker 2: it feels like a very dangerous game.
Speaker 3: First of all, my favorite light about that just tagitially
Speaker 3: related was from an old eminem song where he says
Speaker 3: something like I'm walking through the hood wearing blue and red, Like,
Speaker 3: I don't see what the big deal is. It happens,
Speaker 3: you know, it's cool. I've been in a lot of situations,
Speaker 3: as you know, and probably one of the funniest, weirdest
Speaker 3: ones when our office was in a different part of town.
Speaker 3: I went into that local Target and I was accidentally
Speaker 3: wearing a red shirt and khakis yep, And then a
Speaker 3: customer yelled at me.
Speaker 2: Happens to me and best buy with blue all the time?
Speaker 2: Really still, yep?
Speaker 3: Do you do it on purpose?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: Is it just like discordianism?
Speaker 2: Blue? I'm just wearing blue all the time.
Speaker 3: You're wrapping it? So whatever, the true origin of the
Speaker 3: FDR may be. We know that they expanded or things
Speaker 3: calling themselves the FTR expanded not just in purported membership,
Speaker 3: but in areas of operation to those you know that
Speaker 3: rough three categories of regions, and their reputation expanded and
Speaker 3: stepped more and more often. People were saying, these are
Speaker 3: dangerous men. These are the kind of men you should
Speaker 3: never cross and in fact avoid them if you can.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, that's what I've seen. I have also heard
Speaker 2: stories that that FTR members when it was a thing,
Speaker 2: and we're not talking very long ago, you just avoid.
Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know, it's kind of weird to me,
Speaker 2: and it's weird to make this association the way the
Speaker 2: police describes them. We joked about it at the top,
Speaker 2: like a biker gang basically without bikes. But if you
Speaker 2: just imagine seeing a group of people that look not
Speaker 2: that friendly, you just do whatever you can. Just I'm
Speaker 2: gonna stay away from them as much as I can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, never pick the fight, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Just realize that sometimes the fight might pick you.
Speaker 3: And FTRA is full of pithy sayings or attributed to
Speaker 3: the group with things like what is it all on one,
Speaker 3: one on all, meaning that if you have a problem
Speaker 3: with one guy and everybody is fighting and this is
Speaker 3: going to be this gets sticky because there have been
Speaker 3: revenge homicides between FTR members right for different slights, and
Speaker 3: let's go to the crimes. Okay, So again this is
Speaker 3: coming to us from the lens of law enforcement, So
Speaker 3: there's definite narrative and perspective at play. One of the
Speaker 3: most prominent investigators you'll read about and concerning the FTR
Speaker 3: is a retired Spokane police officer named Bob Grandanetti. He
Speaker 3: had a long career in the law, and after his
Speaker 3: experience with rail related crimes and incidents, he specializes as
Speaker 3: a retiree in exploring the nature of this group and
Speaker 3: the alleged crimes. So in his work, he links a
Speaker 3: large collection of criminal acts through the eighties, nineties, and
Speaker 3: up to the two thousands, links them to FTR or
Speaker 3: folks he believes are associated with FTR. And you know,
Speaker 3: some of these crimes honestly are a bit pedestrian. When
Speaker 3: we're talking about living off the grid, things like food
Speaker 3: stamp and benefit fraud, it's not that uncommon. But then oh,
Speaker 3: in theft of course, who doesn't love a good heist.
Speaker 3: But then we're talking drug trade assaults, a little bit
Speaker 3: of human trafficking, and of course homicide and the most
Speaker 3: concerning cases, the most extreme cases concern proven serial murderers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are actual human beings that were serial killers
Speaker 2: that rode the rails as part of their crimes, as
Speaker 2: part of their mo Does that mean they are FTR? Well,
Speaker 2: let's find out, because there is one specific person that
Speaker 2: kind of matches up with Grandinetti's findings in his police
Speaker 2: work as well as kind of the mythos of FTR.
Speaker 2: Is this guy named Robert Joseph Silveria Junior. And he's
Speaker 2: known by a bunch of other names as well, including
Speaker 2: the boxcar Killer. And we'll tell you about him right
Speaker 2: after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: We have returned. Also known as sidecar Sidetrack, boxcar Bob,
Speaker 3: boxcar Killer as the media dubbed him, this man is
Speaker 3: currently serving double life sentences in Wyoming for crimes that
Speaker 3: he does confirm he committed. He was convicted of these
Speaker 3: two murders in different states pretty far away. Before he
Speaker 3: was convicted of these and incarcerated, he spent more than
Speaker 3: a decade and a half, riding the rails and apparently
Speaker 3: for his own reports, killing at will. By the time
Speaker 3: investigators wrapped stuff up, Silveria had confessed to twenty eight
Speaker 3: total homicides scattered across the United States. Right, and he
Speaker 3: also well from his argument he was killing the vulnerable
Speaker 3: younger people who was also killing older people who already
Speaker 3: had government benefits. So the idea is that he was
Speaker 3: killing for profit. But he the story still is murky.
Speaker 3: What he's saying does not one to one match up
Speaker 3: with the results of investigations or even with his own
Speaker 3: earlier claims. He himself denied being a member of the
Speaker 3: ftr A, so he said he didn't do it, or
Speaker 3: he said I'm not in I'm not in this. I
Speaker 3: was just riding the rails. But then other people who
Speaker 3: said that again we have to caveat it, who said
Speaker 3: the ftr A members were like, oh yeah, boxcar Bob,
Speaker 3: that guy's a monster. We know him. We pull we
Speaker 3: want to pull his patch because of his terrible behavior.
Speaker 3: Pulling the patch means expelling someone from that loose.
Speaker 2: Organization again, to that to that motorcycle club thing, right right,
Speaker 2: that's just the connections are there.
Speaker 3: Do you think he was FTR.
Speaker 2: I I don't know, I haven't found enough on him.
Speaker 2: Just there's a lot written about him and specifically about
Speaker 2: you know, his crimes and specifics of you know, Roger
Speaker 2: Lee Bowman and the human beings that the lives that
Speaker 2: he took. But there's not a lot of details about him,
Speaker 2: and you got to either trust him or trust the
Speaker 2: people that are you know, picked up and talking about him.
Speaker 3: Right Like one book we read for this as Murder
Speaker 3: on the Rails, The True Story of the Detective Unlock
Speaker 3: the Shocking Secrets of the Box Car serial Killer. That's
Speaker 3: by William Palmini, who has first hand experience in the investigation.
Speaker 3: So if you want to read more, that is a
Speaker 3: fantastic place to start.
Speaker 2: Yep. Absolutely, and there are a couple of different ways
Speaker 2: that you could become a really well known criminal in
Speaker 2: the US. Nowadays, a true crime podcast might get made
Speaker 2: about you. Hey, now, you're we all coughed as we
Speaker 2: continue making true crime. Back in the day, there was
Speaker 2: this little show, while there still is this show and
Speaker 2: you can find Payne Lindsay r peal uh the show
Speaker 2: right now. Yeah, America's Most Wanted And if you went
Speaker 2: on that show, well, you became well known.
Speaker 3: Right, and even if you didn't want to be on
Speaker 3: the show, which is weird because a couple of people
Speaker 3: who are on that show as suspects they did want
Speaker 3: to be on it. They got off on that thing
Speaker 3: because you know, they're messed up. But the FTRA is
Speaker 3: an organization probably did not care for the shout out,
Speaker 3: but they gained national intention because they got that profile
Speaker 3: on AMW and Silveria's brutal nature drove that. So his
Speaker 3: heinous acts are how the larger public outside of Invisible
Speaker 3: America learned about, uh learned about this organization. And then
Speaker 3: we have to introduce a couple of other cases. Matt.
Speaker 3: There's one that you and I both found. This is
Speaker 3: disturbing and it's also heartbreaking because this guy was forced
Speaker 3: to ride rails when he was fourteen years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, we're talking about Michael Elijah Adams, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: aka Dirty Mike. And this guy claims to have killed
Speaker 2: more than sixteen people.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. And the interviews that he gives when he's
Speaker 3: in lock up are chilling because he says he killed
Speaker 3: more than sixteen other people less than thirty, and he
Speaker 3: does not have any regrets at all, he is different
Speaker 3: from Saveria because he proudly claims association with FTRA, and
Speaker 3: he further said he had been taught how to become
Speaker 3: a serial murderer by a guy named John dogg Man.
Speaker 3: Tony Boris Bors himself was convicted of some crimes. Police
Speaker 3: believe he was an FTRA enforcer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which is I mean, again, it's possible, and
Speaker 2: how would we know? But I think maybe that's my
Speaker 2: big question, how would we know any of this is
Speaker 2: happening if there wasn't some kind of deep surveillance going
Speaker 2: on within some of these groups because they can move
Speaker 2: so quickly from crime scene to anywhere else, Right.
Speaker 3: There's one hundred percent infiltration. Yeah, it's that's another hidden industry, right.
Speaker 3: Maybe the stories about fictional characters going deep cover sound ludicrous,
Speaker 3: but it is a real industry with outlaw biker groups
Speaker 3: as well, with any any number of suspected games. You
Speaker 3: could imagine when the FBI was going too hard on
Speaker 3: calling Juggalows criminal enterprise, they had juggalo infiltrators. Can you
Speaker 3: imagine how much fun it would be to be the
Speaker 3: juggalo infiltrator at the gathering? You don't have to pay
Speaker 3: for the ticket. They put you in the helicopter.
Speaker 2: I bet yeah, but they're putting really nice people away.
Speaker 2: Probably you probably.
Speaker 3: You shouldn't do it. Yeah, just let them go, you know,
Speaker 3: like the cool bulls at the train yard who just say, guys,
Speaker 3: just go back on sleep in the jungle, don't do
Speaker 3: this on my shift, Which are real conversations that happen,
Speaker 3: you know, and a lot of the uh tell us
Speaker 3: if you work in the railroad industry, but at least
Speaker 3: without getting too specific, in a lot of urban areas,
Speaker 3: the rail employees who are not security kind of have
Speaker 3: a uh don't ask, don't tell policy. If you're not
Speaker 3: making trouble, then I'm not making trouble, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, but they the FTRA allegedly was making trouble,
Speaker 2: at least according to reports back in the day, including
Speaker 2: pretty major thefts and why don't even know what you
Speaker 2: call that, like taking serious amounts of freight off of
Speaker 2: trains sometimes other times, like there were a couple instances
Speaker 2: where a train was derailed and then an alleged FTRA
Speaker 2: member was like found dead in the wreckage and it
Speaker 2: caused the derailment like purposefully, but accidentally died in the crash.
Speaker 2: A couple other you know versions of that where a
Speaker 2: train is stopped purposefully, you know, at a specific place,
Speaker 2: breaking bad style. Well yeah, I mean it reminds you
Speaker 2: of the trains being robbed on horseback back in the West, right,
Speaker 2: and those old tales, but just doing it in a
Speaker 2: new way.
Speaker 3: And then the question becomes, are these unified organized acts
Speaker 3: by a single group or a group of related communities
Speaker 3: or is law enforcement pinning these things together because it's
Speaker 3: more advantageous for investigation, you know, that's my big question.
Speaker 2: Might get some dollars pumped into the department.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe some promotions a lot. Wait, let me
Speaker 3: get here real quick, so I brush my shoulders satirically,
Speaker 3: not seriously, folks. So that you're right, though, Matt. The
Speaker 3: headlines of this time period they get pretty shocking themselves.
Speaker 3: Ap The Seattle Times could again centered here in the Northwest.
Speaker 3: They feature stories with titles like racist Hobos, slave rail riders,
Speaker 3: police tracks, gang of Elusive drifters, chase. Yeah, that's from
Speaker 3: the nineties, so that's more than heyday. The authorities say, look,
Speaker 3: FTR is real. We suspect this group has killed at
Speaker 3: least three hundred other folks riding the rails in the
Speaker 3: past decade, and we think the group has two thousand members.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, Well it's striking fear, right. But then
Speaker 2: there are also real other serial killers out there that
Speaker 2: were fairly recent within history. We're talking nineteen nineties, sometimes
Speaker 2: in the two thousands. Back in the nineties, there's this guy,
Speaker 2: I think his I think he would say his name,
Speaker 2: Angel Maturino Rescindies. I don't know exactly how you would say.
Speaker 2: You can look him up. He's linked to at least
Speaker 2: fifteen murders, not of just people riding the rails, but
Speaker 2: of people who live near railroad tracks, people who were
Speaker 2: out near the tracks one night when he happened to
Speaker 2: be there, like a pastor and his wife while they're
Speaker 2: sleeping at home. Right. So there are real individuals that
Speaker 2: are terrifying, that make you feel and should make you
Speaker 2: feel the way that that title makes you feel. Right,
Speaker 2: But the groups of people that that title is trying
Speaker 2: to make you afraid of maybe are non existent in
Speaker 2: that way, or at least operate in that way at
Speaker 2: one time, but don't exist now. But it's this, it's
Speaker 2: to me, it feels like an attempt to make us,
Speaker 2: anyone who would read that fearful of the rails themselves
Speaker 2: and of any of any possible trip we might want
Speaker 2: to take. I don't know. What do you think, then?
Speaker 2: Is it a way to just keep people from trying
Speaker 2: to do this, from just riding the rails some of it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it has to be. But I'd say I appreciate
Speaker 3: the point that this is simply a convenient circulatory system
Speaker 3: for people who want to do evil things. It was
Speaker 3: at the time, right, So for obviously law enforcement. I
Speaker 3: don't think it's being purposely misleading. They're putting a little
Speaker 3: bit of English on the on the billiard ball, but
Speaker 3: they're doing that. They're doing that because they genuinely believe
Speaker 3: what they are saying, you know, and they're careful to say,
Speaker 3: we estimate this many deaths, we estimate this many members.
Speaker 3: But it's also it's challenged by an easy analogy exercise.
Speaker 3: All right, there are three hundred and twenty three They're
Speaker 3: more than three hundred and twenty three US residents, now, right,
Speaker 3: that's a lot of people. So if one of those
Speaker 3: people travels somewhere else and does a bunch of evilshit,
Speaker 3: then does that mean that the President of the United
Speaker 3: States co signed it? Does that mean you know, if
Speaker 3: there's if there's a guy from Atlanta who becomes a
Speaker 3: famous like non consensual foot tickler, like he just busts
Speaker 3: into hotel rooms and tickles people's feet because he's weird
Speaker 3: and disturbing.
Speaker 2: Hey, where we talked about a guy who did that
Speaker 2: very thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm trying to find a non murder example that's
Speaker 3: still really creepy. But yeah, if you heard that guy
Speaker 3: is like from Atlanta, you would say you would typically
Speaker 3: say he's from Atlanta. But if you said he's associated
Speaker 3: with Atlanta.
Speaker 2: He's an Atlantean. He's an at Alien.
Speaker 3: That makes all of us look really bad, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? So there is I think a logical
Speaker 3: gap there, and maybe that gap comes from desperation, dude,
Speaker 3: because the reason they say they're racist is at the
Speaker 3: time or reporting, they were saying, we believe some of
Speaker 3: these homicides are for criminal gain, some are for revenge,
Speaker 3: and some are just racially motivated, because we think these
Speaker 3: guys are white supremacist. FDR self identifying members have later
Speaker 3: denied this. Of course, no one's going out and saying yeah,
Speaker 3: you got me, cop. But we know and this is
Speaker 3: something you and I specifically have dealt with in a
Speaker 3: lot of investigations on other shows and in personal life.
Speaker 3: Police are facing tremendous issues when they're trying to figure
Speaker 3: out what happened in these deaths, right, and maybe that
Speaker 3: is what drives some of these breathless headlines and some
Speaker 3: of these increasingly I'm not going to say exaggerated, but
Speaker 3: I am going to say ambitious claims right about size
Speaker 3: and level of sophistication or organization. I mean, trade hopping
Speaker 3: is dangerous, even if you have deep experience in it.
Speaker 3: Folks can be injured. They die every year in the process.
Speaker 3: This happens all around the US. And then when you
Speaker 3: find the body, depending on what happened, it can be
Speaker 3: very difficult to prove whether it was an accident or
Speaker 3: foul play. Did that person fall asleep on the tracks?
Speaker 3: Did they pass out due to inebriation, did they get pushed?
Speaker 2: You know, so really quick, two scenarios. Right, you're an investigator.
Speaker 2: You find a body. It's on the side of the
Speaker 2: tracks with on an embankment. Right, this body has bruises
Speaker 2: all over it and it's deceased and doesn't have anything
Speaker 2: of note on it, like no identifying information, there's no
Speaker 2: evidence around. It's just a body there, right. In the
Speaker 2: two scenarios one, it's you, right, and you just accidentally
Speaker 2: fell off the train when there's an embankment there and
Speaker 2: you fell down. All those bruises are due to you
Speaker 2: falling and all the debris and the stuff you hit.
Speaker 2: Scenario two, you get brutally beaten to death on that
Speaker 2: train and then you get thrown off that train by
Speaker 2: a group of people. The investigator is going to have
Speaker 2: a really hard time proving which of those two scenarios
Speaker 2: is true unless there's specific you know, DNA evidence left
Speaker 2: behind by a killer.
Speaker 3: Right, did they beat the brakes off of you? Or
Speaker 3: did you die do your own negligence or just do
Speaker 3: to just an accident of active God if God exists,
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, And that's another point I want to
Speaker 3: go to. The second thing that I think is really
Speaker 3: important that you're hitting on there is travelers in these
Speaker 3: demographics often won't have idea or permanent address. You're hearing
Speaker 3: us pass out nicknames or street names for some of
Speaker 3: the people we've mentioned. That's not just that's not meant
Speaker 3: to be a cutesy, cool or edgy thing that helps
Speaker 3: avoid investigators figuring stuff out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: That's why that's why names like this proliferate. And well,
Speaker 3: and some.
Speaker 2: Of the people out there might be a child who
Speaker 2: is trying to get away from a really bad situation
Speaker 2: at home, so they use a different name, so nobody
Speaker 2: that they talk to or meet can end up contacting
Speaker 2: a parent or you know, an uncle or something that
Speaker 2: would be bad news for that person.
Speaker 3: Right, That's something that is tremendously important for us to
Speaker 3: hit on because I know we have a lot of
Speaker 3: fellow travelers in the audience tonight. Many don't fall for
Speaker 3: broadbrush stereotypes saying, oh, here's a rich trust fund kid
Speaker 3: who just wants to cause play a very difficult life.
Speaker 3: A lot of people are coming from places where they
Speaker 3: have no other recourse. They are driven to this existence,
Speaker 3: and it is tremendously important exercise, at least in my opinion,
Speaker 3: to exercise empathy for that. And you may have met
Speaker 3: these people, and you may not have known because it's
Speaker 3: their story, it's not ours. But we know back to
Speaker 3: this idea about lacking a permanent address, lacking id, whether
Speaker 3: through choice or through necessity. Some people can simply be
Speaker 3: to borrow the phrase the name of a band I
Speaker 3: love Railyard Ghost. They don't really exist on the grid,
Speaker 3: so it can take weeks for maybe someone to happen
Speaker 3: across a body, per your earlier two scenarios, and therefore
Speaker 3: identification could be very difficult. When foul play is suspected
Speaker 3: were obvious, let's say, like a bunch of stab wounds
Speaker 3: or a gunshot, this means the assailant because it took
Speaker 3: so long to find the body, the assailant can already
Speaker 3: be in the wind States and states away, you know,
Speaker 3: and very difficult to find.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. It really is important to
Speaker 2: exercise empathy for every potential angle you could be coming
Speaker 2: the story from, right, because those investigators really are like
Speaker 2: that person that we talked about at the very beginning
Speaker 2: in Police mag Richard Valdemar, when he's writing that story
Speaker 2: and talking about all that stuff, he and everybody he's
Speaker 2: working with are looking for someone who is serial killing
Speaker 2: homeless people in camps, and we're talking dozens of people,
Speaker 2: not just a couple, and they are doing everything they
Speaker 2: can to find out who that is and to stop
Speaker 2: that person, right, and then you imagine just that pursuit
Speaker 2: could bring on all kinds of different things that we've
Speaker 2: been discussing throughout this episode, right.
Speaker 3: All well intentioned too. And this is the thing. Imagine
Speaker 3: how damnably frustrating it must be if you're good police
Speaker 3: and you're trying to solve a murder, right, or you're
Speaker 3: not even you don't know if it's murder. You're trying
Speaker 3: to figure out what happened to this poor kid whose
Speaker 3: body was found in the train yard, And then over
Speaker 3: and over again, you get stonewalled by your own people
Speaker 3: because no one cares. It's a homeless person. Don't have idea,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, This is not a high
Speaker 3: value case. And that's also further, I would say, similar
Speaker 3: to serial murderers who predate on vulnerable or fringe communities.
Speaker 3: That's why those monsters get away for so long, right,
Speaker 3: because they're they're killing black people in the time of segregation, right,
Speaker 3: They're killing people in the Gate community, in the time
Speaker 3: of rampant homophobia. This is a systemic problem. This, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's another conspiracy. But right now, for FTRA, law enforcement
Speaker 3: will predominantly from the DOJ on down. They will tell
Speaker 3: you the FTR is this hidden network of organized crime
Speaker 3: operating in and out of states, to quote Dennis Reynolds,
Speaker 3: like a demon's whisper. Some rail companies will still tell
Speaker 3: you it's an urban legend trying to link on related
Speaker 3: crimes for you know, not super ethical motivations or as
Speaker 3: members of the FTR a claim it's a decades plus
Speaker 3: attempt at character assassination where mutual support group. We're not
Speaker 3: wealthy people, Please stop tying us to these evil things.
Speaker 3: But where's the group now, Matt? What about the rest
Speaker 3: of the folks out there in the box scars, the
Speaker 3: grainers and so on.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so what I've heard scuttle butt that I've
Speaker 2: gotten a hold of is that the original FTR members
Speaker 2: are you know, older now, like quite a bit.
Speaker 3: Older than seventies. Easy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But there are other groups of people that are
Speaker 2: I don't know how you would stylize them just a
Speaker 2: you know, small group of people. They'd be they would
Speaker 2: be considered a gang, probably by a police organization, but
Speaker 2: there are several out there that operate that. Again, people
Speaker 2: tell me you just stay away from those people as
Speaker 2: much as you can.
Speaker 3: MM hmm. There are also rules to your point, Matt,
Speaker 3: that can apply to many situations, even similarly seemingly dissimilar situations.
Speaker 3: One of those is always, in a new environment, realize
Speaker 3: that you do not know who you are speaking to.
Speaker 3: That person you're speaking to may seem very very cool,
Speaker 3: ma seem charismatic, may ask you to do stuff, but
Speaker 3: you always need to keep your head on a swivel.
Speaker 3: I don't want to encourage the slippery slope of paranoia.
Speaker 3: But a new environment is not a familiar environment, and
Speaker 3: people people's personas can change on a dime. You know,
Speaker 3: it's something, It's something to be very cognizant about. You'll
Speaker 3: see a lot of advice too, from people with experience
Speaker 3: who would say, specifically in the jungle, don't try to
Speaker 3: flirt with a lady you don't know because you don't
Speaker 3: know who she's affiliated with.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Things that might seem disrespectful can have immediate and brutal consequences.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of Ki Lawrence aka Kai the hitch
Speaker 2: Hiker aka Caleb mcgilvalryo, that dude back in the day
Speaker 2: we talked about. There's a Netflix special on him. Guy
Speaker 2: that nearly killed Jetsimmons McBride with a what a hatchet
Speaker 2: I think, or acts or something that he had. It
Speaker 2: was a very interesting thing, just how the complexity of
Speaker 2: an individual.
Speaker 3: Right right, And this is where we have to ask
Speaker 3: about the future too. Right now the future looks grim
Speaker 3: for the historic practice of ak hobo traveling train hopping
Speaker 3: rates have massively dwindled. In twenty eleven, a Highline spokesperson
Speaker 3: Gus Malonis said, Look, the FTR and overall traine hopping
Speaker 3: culture have quote largely gone extinct end quote. But there
Speaker 3: are people out there right now who disagree because some
Speaker 3: of us may be listening to tonight's show on a train,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That would be so cool if you're doing that. Kudos,
Speaker 2: But also we do not condone that behavior.
Speaker 3: Yes, do you hear us? Hr We did the bit
Speaker 3: at the beginning and at the end, so can't get
Speaker 3: us anyway. We want to end by thanking everybody who
Speaker 3: made this possible, tireless efforts of investigators, rail employees, travelers
Speaker 3: who provided Matt and I with first hand accounts of
Speaker 3: a world most of the public will simply never see.
Speaker 3: And I think we also want to take a special
Speaker 3: moment to thank travelers past and present that've reached out
Speaker 3: to us in our little show over the years, as
Speaker 3: well as providing your own insights on tonight's episode. Please
Speaker 3: be safe out there. If you have related stories, we
Speaker 3: want to hear them. We know anonymity can be mission
Speaker 3: critical given the nature of this travel and given people's backgrounds,
Speaker 3: so if you do decide to reach out to us,
Speaker 3: we will do our best to keep your private infos safe. Anyway,
Speaker 3: With that, come on over tell us the stuff they
Speaker 3: don't want you to know. You can find us online,
Speaker 3: You can call us on the phone. You can hit
Speaker 3: us up on our good old fashioned email address. Over
Speaker 3: on the rails of social media, we are conspiracy stuff,
Speaker 3: conspiracy stuff show or some derivation thereof, and over on
Speaker 3: your telephone keypad we have an address as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, Style one eight three three stt WYTK. It's a
Speaker 2: voicemail system. When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname,
Speaker 2: one that nobody can identify you with, and then let
Speaker 2: us know within the message if we can use that
Speaker 2: name and your message on the air. If you'd rather
Speaker 2: use your words in written form, why not instead send
Speaker 2: us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
Speaker 3: we received. Be well aware, yet out afraid. Sometimes the
Speaker 3: void writes back. Always like to slip a little Easter
Speaker 3: egg in here for our friends who listen to the end.
Speaker 3: If you are interested in this episode you want to
Speaker 3: learn more about subcultures that exist off the grid, please
Speaker 3: please please check out our pal, Jake Hanrahan's newest endeavor,
Speaker 3: Away Days. It's available now on YouTube. We're friends with Jake.
Speaker 3: He's not paying us to say it. He's just great
Speaker 3: at what he does as a journal so check that out.
Speaker 3: Stay tuned for more announcements of that nature in the future.
Speaker 3: In the meantime, join us here in the Dark Conspiracy
Speaker 3: at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.