Brave Dave's Big Fat Freight Hop - Part 1

Hi I'm Brave Dave and I like adventures. Way back in 2005 I did a little bit of freight hopping with a guy in New York state. I filmed it and I called the video Hobo Living. In 2013 I did a little bit more freight hopping, this time by myself in eastern Canada. I filmed it and I called the video Canadian Catch Out. In autumn 2016 I did a big freight hop, this time right across Canada. I filmed it and I called the video Brave Dave's Big Fat Freight Hop. And that's what you're watching right now, Brave Dave's Big Fat Freight Hop. And here's an info blast for anyone who's interested in a little bit more detail. You get that? No of course you didn't, you've got to use your pause button. Oh and lastly here's the compulsory disclaimer and warning for all the impressionable kids out there. Don't freight hop. Freight hopping is bad. If you freight hop you could die. Freight hopping is dangerous, illegal, dirty, smelly, frustrating, exhausting and stupid and you shouldn't do it. Let other people do it instead and watch them on YouTube from the comfort of your own home. Okay cool right here's the video. Did I mention its name? It's called Brave Dave's Big Fat Freight Hop. My name's Brave Dave and 17 and a half hours ago I stepped out my front door in England and now I'm in Montreal and I feel like a bit of a tit talking into the camera on busy streets and stuff but I'm waiting for a guy called Jim who I've never met before. I've been chatting to him online and he's going to help me out and get me started on my freight train adventure. And just for the record I haven't slept in nearly 40 hours. I'm not feeling too marvellous to be honest but hey I should get used to having no sleep. I've got three weeks of freight hopping ahead of me. How you doing? Good. Good to see you. Yeah man. I've never seen you in my life before. I know exactly. This is Jim. Here you get some fuel. Yeah right. Throw yourself in. Oh thanks. Check this out. Jim sought me out with a knife for killing bears. Talking about a map. Oh wow. Is that CNN secret? Everything. Every railroad in the country. So one is all railroad. Yard channels all that other ---- that's all in there. I even got a phone this time. This is going to be so useful. Anywhere in Canada that's got signal I can get internet. Exactly. It's so annoying. It's on the LTE network which is all over the country. We are there and I want to go off the map. Flip it over. Yeah you can flip it over. That's an accomplishment because that's a long way to go. Yeah. I don't want to end up there. In a week or so I'm going to be over there. I drove from Vancouver to Montreal. Yeah. And it took five days. It's half past 10 which in my mind is half past four in the morning. So last time hang on I camped there but I walked to it from. You walked along the rail? Yeah. But I can drop you all the way down to this end. Agent J let me shake your hand because you've been an absolute angel. Thanks so much I really really appreciate that and I'll I'll see you at the end as well because I'll be back for a few days in Montreal. Yeah send me a message man. I will. All right let me grab this hulk of a bag. This has got to be the heaviest bag I've ever worn. And so it begins. Right I've got to get out of these lights. Get into those bushes and disappear like a ghost. A freight train going by right now. Listen to that unmistakable sound of the freight. Back on the old familiar track. There's at least seven guys up on the bridge at the moment. I'm gonna sneak forward and hopefully climb into those trees without anyone seeing me. Okay then time to make, ow ----, time to make a bed. Good morning. 6.35, 22nd of September, Thursday. I've only had five hours sleep. Every one and a half hours a massive freight train will go by. The plan is today I really want to get to Toronto by tonight and then catch a train out from there and then I'm heading northwest of Toronto and it's all new territory for me. So there we've got our tracks and I'm waiting for a train to come along there and go to the right except I've got to make sure it's the right train. That's where it gets complicated. I'm gonna get some more sleep because I deserve it. Right there's a train pulling out. That's the direction I want to go. I don't know if it's a train that I want. Listening to them on here but I really don't know what I'm listening for. I keep on hearing 06 which is 07 and there's a train on here 0721 that goes to Winnipeg. Is that the one? I have no idea but this train is now reversing so hopefully it's just building up and it'll come out again and I'll have a bit, little bit more time to decide what I'm going to do. I can hear the train coming. I've got to get that huge backpack down there. How exciting. That one's a good one. Let's see what the back's like. Oh ----, ----, ----. Oh I need to cool down, I need to stop sweating otherwise I'll still make a paste of all this stuff. I should probably stay hidden, but I need the breeze on me at the moment, I need to cool down. Use your brain on me, never forget who you work for, otherwise you'll sat on a train like this for 10 hours. You'll blast your brains out of the captain's house, amazing. You'll have a job well done. They can't see me, they can't see me. You might be thinking every day, why are you hiding? You're not feeling well, you're not well then. I'm not going to hide in that hole all day long. There's a guy up ahead looking at the train, I don't know if he's looking at people like me or what, but he's not going to see me in here. I'm speeding up again, which is good news. Save on to spot him though. Do you see him? Train's completely stopped. Oh ----, two guys over there. I was going to get off and go and explore the rest, some of the other cars to see if there's better places to hide. Oh, there's another train coming, I see. Hi, it's going to be very quick. It's starting to move. I'm going to get out of the way. I'm speeding up quite quick, aren't we? I could easily get left behind. I say it should be timed for my videos, but it's amazing how fast these things accelerate. I've been on here over three and a half hours. Okay, now we're reversing back into that yard. Crap. I hope they don't offload this grainer that I'm in. Well, this isn't good. A CN worker's just walked past my car. Obviously he didn't see me or anything. And now he's uncoupled the car up front. So basically I'm being dumped here, which sucks. I've got to make sure that whichever train leaves this yard, I am on it. Okay, I've been here for about an hour or so, but that train's air brakes have just gone off. Which means it's about to move. But if that does start to move, what the hell am I going to ride on? I need to go find a rideable car quick. With this enormous bag. Right, just double check. I haven't left anything. Okay. Double, double check. It's sweltering. 10 to 2. And I don't know if it's leaving or being added to another thing. If it's moving, I'm grooving. Okay, let's have a look. Is that a lucky number? Oh man. No, I don't think so. Okay. How about... Oh for ****'s sake. It's in wood. ****. Do you know what? I'll ride in this, I've got no choice. Welcome to my new home. That's the one I was on before. Okay, let's see what happens. 5 to... 5 to 2. I've never ridden one of these ones before. It's very flat. Looking forward to getting about 2,000 miles in that direction. From the mountain. 4 to 4. I just posted on Facebook, because I love the fact that I've got internet on a freight train. I love that. I've got a Canadian phone, making a hotspot so I can use my phone. Wi-Fi. Just chatting to people on WhatsApp. What are you doing right now? This is it. Such a great day. So sunny. Slowing down, right now. Look at this abandoned old station. Ernest Tower. It's like storm cloud gathering. How cool is that? Hopefully we don't go through a storm whilst I'm stuck here. Because there's not a lot of shelter in this thing. After hours of rattling metal and the hissing of the brakes and stuff. It never stops. It's like eerie how quiet it is. Maybe even more eerie, because I'm still wearing earplugs. So it's like really quiet. Actually, let's climb up here and see what's in this one. Yeah, that's a little bit deeper. Wouldn't want to fall into that. That hissing noise tells you, get the hell back on the train. Because it's going to go without you. Hear that strain? Building up. Just think of the absolutely insane power in the locomotives at the front. But it does get your heart pumping to just see the train going off. And imagining it going off without you with your bag. Just on it like that. And you're just stood in the middle of Canada with nothing going ----. And now it's starting to rain. Brilliant. I don't think this is much cover. Stucking out the way of it. Big Canadian rainstorm coming up. Ah, nice temperature now. Now that it's rained a bit. Quarter to six. We've stopped just outside the entrance of the yard. Just been talking to Stobe. Hobo Stobe. On Messenger. Telling him what's been going on, where I am and what's happening. Ten past seven. There's a big clatter. Off we go again. No idea what it's going to do. But I am packing up, getting ready to be able to bail if I need to. I'm still going to get my head torch ready. It's always good to be prepared. Back on the main line. Steve, it just shakes like that sometimes. And we are going into the night now. Into the night. I think it's about 150km to Toronto. Now this is fast. I just want to point out that this is not a comfortable ride at all. This gondola just goes crazy every now and then. Just that shaking so hard, so fast. I don't think it's going to let up for a couple of hours like this. So I'm just going to buckle it out. Freight hopping isn't all just chilling out, lying back and enjoying the scenery going by. Sometimes it's just hardcore smashing metal. And you feel a little bit vulnerable. Go! Time to go! There's a train coming on this second line. It's pretty cool when such a massive thing comes flying past you so close. Jeez! Trains, do not **** with them. He says, riding them through the country. But that's different. I woke up and I'm covered in ants. Right, it's 10 o'clock. I'm still here in the grass in my bivvy bag. Because I just can't be arsed. But I've got a lot of things to try and get done today. So I'd better get up. It's midday, 12.06am. I'm in the bus stop sheltering from the rain. I just took a bus for about 10km. And now I'm walking 3km to the south side of the yard. Which is where I think the train's going to come out. This is the south entrance of the yard. Looks like they're putting a train together right now. Well, it looks like it's relatively easy to get on there tonight. It's only half past three. I'm sat in a bus stop because it's the only place I can actually sit down. Which is next to main roads. I'm watching the train get built. I have to absolutely make sure it's the right train. If it goes the other way, I'm off to Detroit. Holy crap, that could be disastrous. It's five past five. I've been in that bus stop for ages. I've been texting a Canadian shopper, a guy on my forums. He's been trying to find out information for me. There's a big sign saying no trespassing. I really hope this isn't poison ivy. It's probably time to put a mask on. Is this it? I'm on. Shit. We're reversing back into the yard. So, it must still be building. In which case, I'll jump off this, get back into the bush where I was before. And catch it as it comes out again. We are speeding up. Moving forward again. Here we go. And here I am back in the grass. It's stopped and it's reversed right back into the yard now. And I'm going to run after it every time it comes out. And then run back in every time it reverses. Until finally it doesn't reverse and it goes off. Well, that's not an annoying sound. Holy ----. And that's why we wear earplugs, everybody. Hello. I'm Brave Dave. And tonight has been a bit of a ******* disaster. I'm on top of a grainer. And I'm now in the middle of this CP yard. So preferably I need to get out of here. It's just over a kilometre to the entrance. So that's going to be a bit of fun, isn't it? And it's not even going to make a good video because you can't see **** all when it's dark. It is twenty to two in the morning. So that's really annoying. Anyway, see you. Got to stay in the shadows. Because there's searchlights everywhere. Club lights, I mean. Two guys just there. Look at this. Okay, that's the locomotive doing all the pushing. That I've been listening to for so long. There's no more trains in front of me to cover me. Hmm. I've been seen. By a guy on a ******* quad bike. Shit. Now where the **** do I go? Jumped over a ditch. Ran through a bush. Got a face full of spiderweb. And now I'm in these bushes. Oh yeah, ----. I can see light. I've been blatantly on CCTV somewhere. Because they've seen me. Probably calling for backup. So my best bet is just to get the **** out of here. Which I will do. Ever so slightly suspicious. Provided they're not just watching me on CCTV right now. I'd like to think I'm out of the way. Oh man, I need a drink. My mouth has gone completely dry. Yeah, give me a shout while you're heading in there. And we'll all see you at the west tower bridge. I've dug myself into the undergrowth. I hid near the tracks before. And then they said something about, oh the trespasser is in that location. I was like, ----. There must be cameras as far out as that bridge. I'm just hoping that they think, right, he's gone. He's fucked off. Let's forget about him. They said something about they'd call the police as well. Bloody hell. If only I'd got that bastard train earlier. Don't hesitate, kids. Don't hesitate.