Okay, first things first. Don’t tell anyone! Not for a while, at least. If Mom and Dad found out about it they’d kill you. And everyone else would refuse to believe it anyway. I know, I know! It isn’t every day three kids in their early-teens jump a freight train and ride it from West Allis to Chicago but I implore you; just sit on this one for a while, okay? You’ll know when the time is right. Trust me.

But it was bound to happen sooner or later, right? I mean, the railroad tracks have been at the foot of your block for as long as you’ve lived there, separated from the neighborhood only by that narrow thicket of scrub brush, cattails and wild flowers where you often played when you were little.

The tracks themselves were completely off-limits—at least at first—because Mom was afraid of the trains and no doubt haunted by gruesome mental images of her children being ripped limb from limb, and their parts strewn over hundreds of square miles. She wasn’t entirely mistaken here. The trains could be dangerous. Often they would lumber through at a snail’s pace, but when they were really “haulin’ the mail” they would rattle every window in the neighborhood. Let’s face it, getting hit by one of those babies would be harsh.

But as you grew older, and discovered that crossing the tracks—very carefully, of course—at 96^th Street was an amazing short cut to your St. Aloysius Parish school, Mom and Dad finally gave in. Their acceptance didn’t mean you had free rein, although that was clearly the way you interpreted it.

Sometimes huge portions of trains would sit unattended for days on end, and when they did they quite naturally became temporary playgrounds, as was the case last Wednesday, when you, your brother Michael and your friend Mike Olson started for downtown West Allis to do a little back-to-school shopping for the coming term. The boxcar you chose was open like all the others and empty except for a filthy collapsed cardboard box sitting in a corner. It was like all the other boxcars you’d been in and nothing to get terribly excited about. But that didn’t keep you from loitering a bit before moving on.

Then came the first indication that something was amiss. It was a barely noticeable shudder, followed almost immediately with a groan from the undercarriage of the boxcar and a gentle lurch forward. The train was moving, and it took all of 3 seconds to arrive at a consensus. You would just ride it to 76^th street, or so, and hop off. That would put you only a couple blocks from your destination and you could pocket the bus fare! There was no cause for alarm here; the thing was going so slowly that jumping off would be a piece of cake.

Well, how’d that work out for you guys?

The train started moving at a clip that brought all discussion regarding a quick exit to a halt. But your theory that it would probably stop somewhere in the Menomonie Valley near downtown Milwaukee was immediately embraced as “Plan B” and you settled in for the ride. Shopping in downtown Milwaukee would be more fun anyway, right? But around 70^th Street the train veered to the right and headed southeast, and you were headed for neither West Allis nor Milwaukee. And the train kept picking up speed.

It continued through Bay View, Cudahy, South Milwaukee, and Oak Creek, at what you estimated to be a little over 600 miles an hour! At one point your friend Mike narrowly avoided a beheading when he stuck his head out of the door only to find another train bearing down in the opposite direction. While that triggered a laughing jag for several minutes, it also made you realize that you were now entirely at the train’s mercy. And if it didn’t slow down soon there was no telling where you might end up…or when.

But about an hour or so later the train finally slowed to a crawl and that’s when you decided to hop off. You were relieved to have it over, but had no idea where you were. All you knew for sure was that the track at this point ran between two chain ink fences bearing signage declaring it to be the property of the U.S. Navy (and forbidding the trespass thereof). You sprinted to the nearest way out.

Eventually you came to that Sinclair service station on Sheridan Road. A man sitting behind a battered metal desk looked up and asked if he could help you guys with anything. You really only needed answers to two questions, the first being: “Where are we?” Given the dirty and disheveled way you looked, the guy would have been justified in saying merely “Earth.” He might also have figured you for escapees from a juvenile detention center or maybe even a nut house, and called the authorities. But instead he calmly told you that you were in North Chicago, Illinois. Then the follow-up question: “Is there somewhere near here where we can catch a train to Milwaukee?” He told you where the North Chicago depot was, and said you could catch a train there, but that you’d probably have to transfer to another one in Waukegan. You each had a little money because you were supposed to be shopping for school clothes, so a train back to Milwaukee was entirely doable. Plus, this time you’d be traveling in style. So you thanked the man and left for the depot.

As it turned out, he was right. The Illinois Central would only get you to Waukegan. It would be The Chicago & Northwestern Railway that would take you the rest of the way. The first train was simply a commuter train, basically a bus on rails. But that second one was the real deal, and quite plush…at least by your standards. On the way to Milwaukee you guys sat like royalty drinking Coca Cola and paying no attention whatsoever to the sneers of the grey-flanneled businessmen with whom you shared the lounge car.

In the end you made it home without any additions to your school wardrobe, but with a memory that will stick with you forever. You were even able to catch a late mass at St. Al’s, which was good because it was a holy day of obligation and missing it would have been a mortal sin…and Mom would have made you go to confession.

Someday, many years from now, you will finally get around to telling this story, and when you do, it will be mostly with art. You will do your research and discover that the last train you rode that August day in 1967 was called the “Shoreland 400,” which was part of a fleet of C&NW “400s;” so christened because the famous first one traveled the 400 miles from Chicago to Minneapolis in 400 minutes. By 1971, the “400”—in all its variations—will cease to be. But it will always be chugging along in your memory…and one day you can share that memory with everyone.

The “400”    1992    John T. McCarthy, Jr.     8-color silkscreen

For those of us who reside in the future: here’s a link to all that’s left of the 400 tradition – Shorewood’s Ghost Train:

http://www.villageofshorewood.org/742/The-Ghost-Train