■   The journey from Charleston to Richmond is turning out to be one of the slowest legs on the trip. Instead of cutting straight over to Richmond, we swing far south to Collier before cutting northwest to hit Clifton Forge and, eventually, Richmond. At our first stop, in Collier, around 10 a.m., we switch from the cramped grainer to a boxcar a little further down the train.

Technically, the method for actually boarding a box is a different proposition from grainers, since box cars have no ladders. The first step is to find a box that isn’t sealed with the thin metal strips that signify a loaded car. Cars with open doors are the best, but rarest, find, but a closed door, which is latched but not locked, works almost as well. (Some boxes have what are known as “plug” doors, which have to be removed by crane or forklift or something. These aren’t rideable.)

A latched door requires a crowbar, which is used to pry the handle up and then force the door open, squeaking the metal slab back as far as it will go. Once the door is as open as it will get, the latch is used as a pivot point: the hopper grabs the handle and jumps, swinging his legs into the car and using them to pull his upper body in. This jumping method provides the most stability if the train did start suddenly moving. Once inside, it’s vital to make sure the door stays open no matter how much the train rocks — unless you have a keen desire to be the subject of a newspaper story with a headline like “Hopper found starved to death in boxcar on siding.” This is usually done by “staking” the door — driving a railroad spike into the track the door rolls on to stop it from moving. Many cars also have nailable metal floors (the floor is made of metal planks with softer material in the seams) and doors on these cars can be kept open by nailing a block of wood in the door’s pathway.

At Clifton Forge we stop again, around 3 in the afternoon, and we decide to hit a gas station lying within sight of the rail yard. As always when we leave the calming presence of trains, Rapid-T slides a notch or two down the wacky scale. The first argument is when I decide to buy a two-liter bottle of soda rather than smaller, more expensive versions. “I can’t drink it warm,” he says. No problem, I figure. I’ll get ice. The clerks asks how many cups of ice we want; I say three, figuring one for each of us and an extra. But when I bring the cups to Rapid-T, who’s busy ordering a taco salad at the Taco Bell in the store, he insists on having four cups — and grabs a soda cup and fills it with ice. I go to the register and pay for our food and soda.

Meanwhile, as the staff is putting together my burritos and his salad, Rapid-T asks if he can have extra sour cream. “It’s 25 cents,” the clerk responds and then, without pausing, squeezes more on, just as Rapid-T says “nevermind, then.” This was the only time the entire trip that the tension wasn’t Rapid-T’s fault, an interesting experience if just for the novelty value. Rapid-T’s fault or not, the manager is pissed, getting even more so when she spies the extra ice cup. “You can’t take a cup,” she says. “You have to pay for it.”

“It’s just a cup,” Rapid-T responds. “You don’t have any signs saying you can’t take them.”

“We charge for cups,” the manager says. “Pay for it or give it back.”

After a few more minutes of arguing, he hands the cup back over, and she throws it in the garbage.

With him cursing, we head back to the yard, walking to the bridge abutment where we’d left our bags, about 14 cars away from our box. (You never leave your stuff in the train, just in case it leaves.) As we pick our bags, we hear the hissing of brakes charging — not the type of sound you want to hear when you’re five or ten minutes away from the only rideable car. Like madmen, we tear down the tracks, with us both cursing now, as the train starts moving. Fortunately, it stops after a minute or two, and we keep on running, jumping into the car just minutes before the train lurches into motion again, heading out of the yard.

I see few signs of civilization for the next few hours, sitting in the boxcar door watching some mountains (possibly the Blue Ridge) saunter by. The highway parallels the railroad tracks for a bit, but soon we lose sight of it, and the occasional track side trailer park provides the only sign that there are other people in the world. (Train hopping can be rather twilight zonish at times; you pull into a huge railyard but see nobody for hours, engendering a sense, at least in those who haven’t really eaten or slept for days, that the entire human race has been wiped out.) Eventually, the cool wind blowing in is too much and I creep to the back of the car and lay down, wrapped in my sleeping bag, on a pad of cardboard left inside. (Note to self: send thank you letter to International Paper; the corrugated pad leads to one of the more comfortable nights I’ve had in a while.)

I wake up throughout the night to wander to the door and see the stars passing by, looking out upon a world that seems totally asleep. It begins waking up just as we pull into the first Richmond train yard, and I wave to some early morning commuters on their way to work around 7 a.m.