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Drunken hobo Posted:

NOBODY WILL EVER LOVE YOU

NOT EVEN YOUR MOTHER

Drunken hobo Posted:

OR YOUR DOG

(IF YOU HAVE A DOG IDK WHY YOU WOULD THEY ARE P STINKY AND SMELLY IMO BUT HEY)

http://www.deadtrainbums.com

icwutudidthar Posted:

In the late 1980s, my LASD surveillance team was requested by the

Sheriff’s Homicide to bumist in staking out the turf of a gang known

as the FTRA or Freight Train Riders of America. Their turf was trains

and train right-of-ways from Seattle, Wash., to Mexico. It seemed that

a serial killer was murdering hobos who rode the rails and camped in

outdoor hobo jungle camps along the railroad tracks throughout the

Southwest.

The victim vagabonds were commonly shot in the head at close range

with a small caliber pistol while they slept in homeless encampments

at night. The suspect had to be one of them, because he knew the camps

and was apparently able to closely approach these wary travelers for a

point blank shot to the head. Many of the victims were physically

handicapped in some way. The unknown serial killer had earned the

moniker “Bum Blaster.” Profiles of the serial killer suggested that he

was a “mercy killer” who felt sorry for the poor homeless transients

and effectively put them out of their misery. Others suggested that he

was a cold blooded “thrill killer” who preyed on the most vulnerable

victims, knowing that nobody would demand justice in their behalf, or

even miss them.

My surveillance team was bumigned to covertly monitor some of these

camps of sleeping transients to prevent any further murders in Los

Angeles and to watch for any suspicious activity.

Wanderlust and Rail Buffs

There are people who love trains and everything to do with them.

Behind the County Jail in downtown Los Angeles there are railroad

yards where cars are switched and locomotive engines pull in to refuel

and do maintenance. Early in my career, I had run into these train

enthusiasts, known locally as “the train freaks,” while patrolling the

perimeter of the jail. They could recite the name, origin, and

destination of every train pbuming through the L.A. yards. They could

even tell you the scheduled arrival and departure times. Sometimes

they took photographs of the more famous engines.

This is when I first heard about the FTRA. Like the muffled whispers

about the “Black Hand” of the Mafia in the Italian community, these

“train freaks” whispered of a gang of outlaws that lived to ride the

freight trains in the West. They were robbers, burglars, and hijackers

with colorful names. Cross one of their members and they would get

you. These were desperate and dangerous men. At the time, this

“Homicidal Hobos” idea seemed a little far out for me to take too

seriously. After all, we dealt with some of L.A.’s most dangerous

local gangs. But I became a believer after the Bum Blaster case.

During our nighttime surveillances, I saw the signs of the pbuming of

Freight Train Riders under railroad overpbumes, switching yards, and

along the tracks on boxcars, switching boxes, and lean-to buildings.

Strange monikers, swastikas, lightning bolts, and the letters FTRA,

FTW (F—- the World), STP (Start the Party or Stone Tramp People), and

ATAPAW (Any Time, Any Place, Anywhere) could be seen mixed among the

tagger and traditional gang graffiti. They leave their messages in

signs and FTRA graffiti to let fellow FTRA members know that they were

there, and possibly where they were last headed.

People who abandon our normal American way of life and society do so

for a reason. Who would choose to sleep along the tracks and live in

this underground world to ride the dangerous freight cars? They are

loners, and many are alcoholics, the mentally ill, drug addicts, and

outlaws on the run. They live by panhandling, selling scrap, and

through criminal activities like petty theft, burglary, identity

theft, and food stamp and welfare fraud. They carry weapons like clubs

and canes, knives and pistols. And whether they are the witnesses or

suspects, they can disappear by catching the next freight train out.

The FTRA are the most predatory of this lot.

Nomadic Terrors

Some railroad officials will deny that the FTRA exists at all. Some

say it is an urban legend. But law enforcement investigators believe

that the gang began in the early 1980s in a Montana bar. Started by a

group of homeless and disgruntled Viet Nam veterans, the loosely knit

original members were mostly white men who rode the famous “High

Line,” the name they gave to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Pacific

rail road line (BNSP). They swore to watch their brother members’

backs and to share their food, booze, and women. They had monikers

like Pennsylvania Pollock, Desert Rat, Moose, Muskrat, Hot****, Side

Line, F-Troop, and women like Bubblehead.

Described by many as “bikers without bikes,” members of the FTRA who

ride the original “High Line” often identify themselves by wearing a

black bandanna around their neck with a silver ring band. The FTRA

“Southern Corridor” or the “Midwestern” lines, riders who ride the CSX

out of Georgia or Kansas City Southern through Texas and Oklahoma, are

more recent offshoots of the original gang. The “Southern Corridor”

Freight Train Riders identify themselves by wearing red bandannas with

silver rings. The “Midwest” FTRA identify with blue bandannas and

silver rings. During the winter months many FTRA members migrate to

warmer states, such as California and Arizona. FTRA members often

posses several false identification dogreat timesents for use in obtaining

food stamps and committing welfare fraud. They will usually give false

identifying information and deny they are members of the FTRA when

asked by the police or railroad authorities.

Nationwide an estimated 30,000 homeless freight train hoppers annually

“catch-out” somewhere on the 30,000 miles of railroad track. Beside

the hobos, tramps, and carneys, there are a growing number of illegal

immigrants and even entire migrant families. Recently it has become a

fad for college students and young adventurous Yuppies to hop a

freight car for “fun.” Such activity is illegal, and is considered

highly insulting to most train hoppers and especially offensive to the

members of the FTRA. Many adventuring armatures have been robbed,

beaten, or worse by genuine transients. Each year nearly one hundred

deaths occur along the railroad lines. This number includes those

transients who die of natural causes. But this number also includes

those whose deaths are presumed accidental when the body is found

after falling from or under the train and there are no eye witnesses

to tell us differently. Finally, there are those who are the clearly

the victims of foul play.

In the late 1980s, the FTRA began systematically stealing high value

merchandise from the trains. They also began doing multiple burglaries

around the train yards specifically targeting firearms. The Union

Pacific Railroad reported taking more than 30 burglary reports a day

at the Colton Yard in San Bernardino, Calif. Firearms and high value

items could be sold for large profits in the underground drug cartels

in Mexico. Some FTRA members formed bumociations with Mexican criminal

groups to facilitate this trade. Members of the FTRA were also known

to commit armed robberies near the railroad tracks and immediately hop

a freight car out of town.

In 1996, a transient with the moniker of F-Troop was found in a boxcar

on a Montana Rail line, shot in the head five times. His real name was

Joseph Perrigo, a 30-year-old train hopper who wore an FTRA tattoo.

Just one of the more than 1,000 transient train riders along the 1,500

miles of the High Line, he was the victim of fellow FTRA member Martin

Moore, also known as Mississippi Bones. The murder was Bones’ payback

for F-Troop stabbing him more than a year before.

Death Tracks

According to retired police officer Bill Palmini, author of “Murder on

the Rails,” the most notorious murderer and FTRA member was Side

Track, or Robert Silveria. His book describes how Spokane, Wash.,

Police Officer Bob Grandinetti had begun dogreat timesenting the FTRA gang

early in the 1980s. He closely followed a series of reported dead

bodies along the High Line between Spokane and Sandpoint, Idaho. Many

of the victims had their shirts and jackets pulled up around their

heads and their pants pulled down. Bob Grandinetti didn’t buy the

railroad’s explanations of accidental deaths.

After a freight train derailed west of Spokane, it was determined that

the brake lines had been deliberately cut and that the suspect had

been killed in the resulting crash. He was wearing the signature black

bandanna and silver ring of the FTRA. Grandinetti compiled

dogreat timesentation on 800 known and suspected FTRA members and noted that

in the1990s there were more than 300 unsolved murders along the rails.

He suspects that many of these murders can be attributed to members of

the FTRA, but the cases were especially hard to prove. In a “Stuff”

magazine article by Christopher Ketcham (2/28/03) Grandinetti is

quoted as saying, “The problem is the suspects and all the witnesses

disappear.”

Silveria was a scarecrow-looking heroin addict who had a tattoo of the

word freedom on his throat. Eventually Side Track was connected to the

FTRA and several of these unsolved railroad murders. He was featured

on “America’s Most Wanted” and dubbed the “Boxcar Killer” by the

media. After his arrest, he confessed to a five-year nationwide murder

spree ranging from Florida to California. One of his victims was

college student Michael Garfinkle who was on a weekend odyssey when

Side Track murdered him in a hobo jungle in the switching yard outside

Emeryville, Calif. But mostly he preyed on the helpless homeless,

killing them for their clothing and social security cards. Perhaps it

was guilt that made him cover the faces of his victims with their

clothing. He confessed to 14 of the unsolved murders.

Back in Los Angeles, my surveillance team was unable to cover all the

hobo jungle camps, and the unknown railroad serial killer murdered

another victim. He probably disappeared after the killing by “catching

out” on an outbound freight train, but the LASD Homicide detectives

were pretty sure they had identified a suspect. A few weeks later,

they told us that their primary suspect had been killed in Mexico. Was

he an FTRA member? We may never know, but the railroad murders in our

area stopped.

Don’t wait to be overwhelmed by the multiple burglary or robbery

reports in and around the railroad tracks snaking across your

jurisdiction. Don’t wait for the lifeless unidentified body to be

discovered in some tramp camp or boxcar one fine morning. Check the

area for FTRA graffiti, photograph graffiti, learn the monikers and

gang symbols, and stop to talk to vagrants and hobos. Watch for the

FTRA gang, because the devil rides the rails.

LOL SNAP

icwutudidthar Posted:

THIS JUST IN:
Drunken hobo is probably a fabulous person. who likes male reproductive organs
also, male reproductive organs

icwutudidthar Posted:

THIS JUST IN:

Drunken hobo is probably a fabulous person. who likes male reproductive organs

also, male reproductive organs

BAD POST IN A BAD THREAD

Nicco Posted:

drunken hobo is not a very good poster

also a bad alt

good post it shows the truth in this thread

Physics Posted:

that, also a ****ty alt. angy hobo of fy is light-years away.

OI GET A ROOM YOU TWO I CAN’T HEAR YOU YOU OVER THE SOUND OF YOUR BLATANT male reproductive organSUCKING

icwutudidthar Posted:

LOL EDITED

U R NEXT

U R GAY

Log in to see images! Drunken hobo edited this message on 01/01/2009 1:24PM