cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/36305825

Train hopping is still a thing in the US, I suspect because freight trains are slow.

But what about Europe? Even the slow trains are fast. Although I say that only having seen passenger trains. Are there freight trains that are slow enough? What about controls? The article mentions thermal cams being used to spot train hoppers. I might expect Europe’s tendency to push for safety to manifest as rigorous controls.

UPDATE: found this→ https://hitchwiki.org/en/Train_hopping#Europe

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/36305703

Would like to add this to my lifestyle.

“Working remotely as a software engineer, the 25-year-old spends his free time combing through open source railway data and online forums to determine which trains to take, when they'll slow or stop, where to hide in wait and what type of train car to jump into.”

A friend and I used to do this years ago. We didn't ride for very long usually but we did it initially with the intent to access abandoned buildings/areas we couldn't normally access or would take too long to walk to or have security at the obvious entry points. These trains would go very close by a lot of these areas and it made super simple to just hop off and head to the building. Getting back from the places could be more difficult if we couldn't catch a train back but we always had plans.

Different countries in Europe have vastly different electrification systems. Most use either 25 000 V AC or 3 000 V DC, but then there's the 15 000 V AC used by German-speaking countries, Sweden, and Norway. And the French-Dutch 1500 V DC.

And France uses 25 000 V on all of its new lines as well.

Electricity can jump about 1 cm per 1 000 V, so Finnish 25 kV overhead wires can shock you at a distance of 25 cm, south-French 1.5 kV overhead wires need you to be under 1.5 cm away from the line.

Converting to inches and feet: 1.5 kV needs you to be closer than an inch to the overhead wire in order to get electrocuted, while 25 kV can jump almost a foot.

It happens regularly that young people die when they climb atop freight wagons and get too close to the sstructures holding the overhead line. They only know to avoid the line itself, but don't understand how.far electricity can jump nor that it's not only the wire that is "hot", but also all structures up to the isolator.