Eric is a veteran of the rails who has ridden all across North America.

Winter 2009, we were in Mexico, riding north on the Kansas City Southern. They’d done a crew change and then we were moving. The railroad cops got on on-the-fly, with masks, bulletproof vests, and guns, all black. They started walking up the side of the train. You know how some people walk dangerously on the sides of containers? I’ve never done that myself, I’ve seen people do it. Fuck that. The cops were doing that.

They were making sure none of the containers were cracked open. They pointed a big assault rifle with a light on it toward us, shining the light toward where the seals are. All three of us had our hands up. All the seals were still locked. They yelled in Spanish, I don’t know what they said. My homie was like, “He just said, ‘Don’t fuck with the containers.’” They didn’t care that we were on the train, just kept going. They didn't pull us off.  

This Canadian kid with us broke his leg. He rode with us to the Copper Canyon. This cool old Mexican dude also rode three crew changes with us. He spoke pretty broken English, but he figured out the kid had never shot a gun. He pulls this little six shooter out of his bag, hands it to the kid. On top of a grainer in the Copper Canyon, the kid shoots off two bullets. He’s never shot in his whole life. Then the Mexican guy’s like, “No more! I need those bullets!” He was on his way to America. 

A good two months down in Mexico. That was a weird trip. We were waiting for a train to ride into America. We're all American, he’s Canadian, so if we get caught, it won’t really matter. We’re just going back home. We were chilling with some Mexicans and Ecuadorians, drinking, eating with them by this fire, waiting for our train to roll. 

Then we decide to use the rest of our paint. We’re like, “We'll take turns marking cars and watching the gear.” We're in the yard and I realize we're all drunkenly marking cars. I’m like, “He’s here, you’re here, I’m here. Who’s watching the gear?!” Somehow drunkenness got the better of us.

We get back, gear’s gone. We’re searching the bushes. Those folks definitely robbed us, but it was our own fault. They didn't pull a gun on us or anything. They were really nice to our faces, but once they got the opportunity… I mean, I get it. We had gear, they didn’t. They didn’t get much. We were all pretty broke.

Everything was gone besides the two cans of paint. We threw ‘em in the fire. They exploded all crazy.

We rode to Laredo and got off the train when it stopped for Border Patrol to do the check. They shake down those trains pretty hard. We just walked the service road towards them. We had no gear, so they didn’t think we were riders. They were like, “the fuck you guys doing!?” We’re like, “going home.” Luckily, we still had all our passports. They were like, “Well, you’re not smuggling shit, you don’t got shit on you!” And we’re like, “no shit.”

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Rails Editor — Connor McFarland

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