Trains Again. This Time A True Tale by David Shearer

Years ago while I was a college student at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo I lived alongside the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Many nights a northbound freight train would park for awhile across from my bedroom window and lull me to sleep with the thrumming of its diesel locomotives. The sound was calming and was the catalyst for many dreams of “life on the road.” I was seduced by the sound of trains.

The reason for stopping the train in my part of town was to add several “pusher” engines to the middle or rear of the train to help it up the steep and long winding grade over Cuesta Ridge. Once over the top the train would stop in the town of Santa Margarita alongside Highway 101, just a few miles from San Luis Obispo to uncouple the “pushers.” (These are the same trains, incidentally, that find their way south along the Gaviota coast.)

Having been regaled with tales from other college age thrill seekers of riding the northbound freight trains out of town past the prison, through the tunnels, and over the Santa Lucia Mountain range, the thought occurred to me to give it a try. So on a foggy night my daredevil cowgirl friend and I climbed the fence behind my house and hitched a ride over the mountains on a flatbed rail car bound for God knows where. It was to be a thirty minute ride to the top of the mountains where the train would stop and we would get off, meet friends waiting alongside the highway with a car, and ride back down into town. Or so we thought.

It really was a nice ride as the train made its way north out of town. As we passed the state prison we could see down into the recreation yards filled with idle inmates enjoying the remains of the day. We rounded a large horseshoe shaped curve named the Goldtree that allowed us see the entire length of the train turning back on itself as it climbed up the mountain. Intermittently, the lights of San Luis Obispo would spring into view, only to fade again as we rounded the next curve.

Halfway up the grade we broke through the fog and could see the lights of Morro Bay ten miles away. We choked on diesel fumes as we passed through several tunnels that cut through the mountains and emerged on the other side of the pass, grateful for the fresh air. The train slowed, but did not stop, as we passed our destination in Santa Margarita. We had failed to take into account that we were riding an empty train that had no need for the pusher engines in the rear, and therefore no need to stop at the top.

Surprised, but no less optimistic than when we set out, we were certain of two things. One was that the train would stop soon, and the other was that our friends with the car would follow us, since the tracks and Highway 101 ran roughly alongside each other. (Remember that cell phones were still the stuff of science fiction in 1978).

Well, we rode that train for two hours that night until it stopped in a deserted rail yard in Salinas, a hundred miles away from home. We were promptly accosted by the police and informed repeatedly, and in no uncertain terms, of what fools we were and the myriad ways our adventure could have turned tragic. We were then deposited unceremoniously and without sympathy at the bus station. And we were penniless and without a ride home.

Fortunately my crime partner had been to the rodeo in Salinas the previous year and had in her possession the telephone numbers of a surprising number of local cowboys. Fearlessly, she hit up a local wino for loose change, and started calling every number she had. A short while later we were homeward bound in the cab of a pickup truck, courtesy of the nicest bull rider I’ve ever met, drinking beer and listening to Hank Williams sing about trains.

It is said that God looks after fools and little children. I never did decide which I was that night.

Many thanks to guest blogger and faithful reader David Shearer for this wonderful post.