Traces of Ghosts Who Rode the Rails

When the Great Depression hit America in the 1930s, more than a million men and women were forced to seek food and work—thousands of miles from their homes.

Riding the rails.

The only way they could afford this travel was by hopping a freight train, illegally. In just one year, it is estimated that 6,500 hoboes, as they were called, were killed in accidents or by railroad “bulls.”

These bulls were the brutal guards hired by the railroad companies to make sure no one but paying customers rode on their trains.

Many people who became famous later rode the rails. Including the Novelist Louis L’Amour, TV host Art Linkletter, Oil billionaire H. L. Hunt, the Journalist Eric Sevareid and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

Hopping a freight

Because the bulls were always on the lookout, hoboes were forced to hide near the tracks. As the trains picked up speed and past them, they had to run, then grab hold and jump in the moving boxcars.

Unfortunately, sometimes they missed, which resulted in lost limbs or lost lives.

When the hoboes reached their destinations, they had to jump off the moving trains before the bulls could arrest them. If caught they were often beaten, some so severely they died.

In the small town of Attalla, Alabama, several rail lines met. During the Great Depression, thousands of hoboes traveled through this area.

Mountains around Gadsden and Attalla

Riding the rails was dangerous enough but south of the Attalla rail yards the area was even more treacherous. For this community is surrounded by mountains and down the tracks are steep grades—which meant some hoboes plummeted to their deaths.

Today, passenger trains no longer travel through Attalla, and the freight trains are disappearing as well but the ghosts they brought still linger. For decades strange sightings on the south section of the tracks have been shared.

Countless ghostly figures in worn clothing, carrying knapsacks are seen strolling along the tracks.

Even more dramatic is that strange lights are seen in the surrounding mountains when these figures appear.

Two hoboes walking the tracks after being released by "bull."