Freight Train Riders of America facts for kids
The Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA) is a national group who move about America by freight hopping ("catching out") in railroad cars, particularly in the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada, and have sometimes been linked to crimes and train derailments.
History and background
The FTRA is sometimes claimed to have been founded by a group of Vietnam veterans in 1984 in a Montana bar. Members of the FTRA claim to be a loosely knit club of people who share a similar lifestyle, organized for mutual support. FTRA members are most frequently encountered along the BNSF Railway's Hi-Line, which stretches from Chicago to Seattle, often sleeping in switching yards, bridge underpasses and boxcars along the route.
An offshoot of the FTRA, known as the Blood Bound Railroad Gang, distinguishes themselves by wearing red bandanas, as opposed to the FTRA's black bandanas.
In 2011, Gus Melonas, a spokesman for the BNSF, said the "FTRA and associated act[s] of riding and living on the rails have gone largely extinct."
See also
- Robert Joseph Silveria, Jr. (the "Boxcar Killer")
