Railroads During the Depression Era

In 1932, as the Great Depression deepened, President Herbert Hoover created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which provided emergency loans to banks, utilities, and railroads.  By March 1933, the railroads had received loans of nearly $3 million, more than any other industry.  As a result, the trains kept running.
 
Unlike today, many railroads crossed the country in the 1930's: the Santa Fe, the B & O, the L & N, the Southern Pacific, the Northern Pacific, the Pennsylvania, the Western and the Union railroads.  These frequent trains provided mail, newspapers, freight, and a means for rural residents to ship their product to market.  They also offered a way for teenagers to find adventure, seek new job opportunities, or escape poverty at home.  

 
   A Car of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, 1943
   Courtesy of Library of Congress; Gift of Errol Lincoln Uys, Michael Uys, and Lexy Lovell

"(We went) on to Bakersfield, where we took the Santa Fe Railroad with plans to get into Los Angeles.  That was the year of the Olympics, and the railroads has extra detectives and policemen available, so no unsightly 'Hoover Tourists' were able to get into L.A. on on freight trains."  Karl E. Hein, Rockford, Illinois 

Listen as John Steele remembers being on the road 



These young people went to the local freight train yard, where someone would hoist them up into the boxcar.  Experienced hoboes taught novices, showing them which engines were ready to hitch up train cars and how to catch a train "on the fly"--a dangerous undertaking--without getting hurt.  If they did not find empty boxcars, the teenage hoboes sometimes rode on the top of freight cars.  

"From then on we kept learning from others. One of the first things we learned was how to catch a boxcar, and not be pulled under the wheels."  Alton Finney, Evart, Michigan  

Experienced Hoboes Hoisting a Teenager into a Train, ca. 1933 


Listen to a first-hand account of boarding a train by "Pinky" Bourne  


 
Boy Hopping Freight Train, 1940
John Vachon (1914-1975)

"To be a hobo, you had to know how to get on a train while it is moving.  Some hoboes got killed by trying to get on trains that were moving too fast."  Luther S. Head, McDonald, Pennsylvania 

Listen as hobo, Frank Hubbard, talks about a fast-moving train 

 
Five Teenagers Climbing on the Catwalk ca. 1932.  Courtesy of The National Archives

"I was a hobo--June 1937"--going West--looking for work.  I met two teenagers in Dickenson, North Dakota who joined me.  We rode the rails for several days--at Vantage, Washington, we found employment..."  Tony Klein, Aberdeen, South Dakota 

"I carried a little gunny sack with things like peanut butter, bread, sardines or baked beans which I bought or for which I did some work."James R. Carroll, Springdale, Pennsylvania 



According the1992 oral history given by Albert M. Buss of Port Orchard, Washington, he would  sleep on the roof of box cars, rolled up in a blanket:  "That's generally the only thing [a blanket] that we took with us, a little piece of canvas like about half your size and a blanket.  We rolled them up, and the reason you roll them up tight and thin is so you could drape it over your shoulder in a "U" shape and tie it, because you otherwise needed both hands free to catch the train."  



Two teenage hoboes with their bundles ca. 1934
Courtesy of the National Archives 

Listen as Albert Buss describes sleeping while holding onto a train 
 
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