When Ryan Fyfe-Brown decided to train-hop, it didn’t take long for his also-ticketless friends to jump on board.
Fyfe-Brown, Jordan Marowitch, Marcus Samji and filmmaker Dale Bailey spent two months riding the rails and skateboarding across the southern United States, chronicling the entire experience on film.
The resulting documentary, All Aboard, premieres 6:15 p.m. Saturday at Metro Cinema.
The road trip started on a whim in the fall of 2014. A penniless Fyfe-Brown had just finished the second year of his science undergrad and wanted to take a trip to Vancouver but couldn’t afford a ticket out of Edmonton.
He rode the rails west for the weekend and was inspired to extend the trip. He wanted adventure.
‘It was a wild trip’
“I was just talking to Dale about riding trains across Canada and from there it was in Dale’s hands,” Fyfe-Brown recalled in an interview with CBC Radio’s Edmonton AM. “He was down to make a film.
“Next thing you know, we got a couple of other guys on board and the trip was a go but we were too late to make it for Canada. It was cold.
“It was October so we were like, all right, let’s go down to Florida.”
With their skateboards and minimal supplies in tow, the four young men set out from Jacksonville, Fla., and headed west, with the intention of hitting the Pacific Ocean.
Nearly out of steam, they made it to California, a full month overdue.
“We travel a lot together via skateboarding and this an opportunity to travel in a different way,” said Marowitch.
“Obviously, it’s pretty crazy. It’s pretty scary. It’s definitely illegal so we were definitely uncomfortable a lot but I really trust my best friend Ryan.”
They slept rough in the back of boxcars, in parks and cow patches — sneaking through rail yards to catch passing trains, doing their best to avoid detection. They were also waiting to get caught.
They wanted a taste of the hobo life, but had little experience on the rails.
“The glorified image of a guy running beside a train and jumping on it while it’s rolling isn’t the every day,” Fyfe-Brown said.
“If you’re in a pinch and you want to get out of there, then you’ll probably take that risk but you’ve got bags and everything on you.
The young men slept in boxcars, public parks and even a few cow pastures. (All Aboard/Facebook)
Trying to find a place to sleep every night proved to be surprisingly difficult, as was going weeks on end without showers. They hopped the wrong trains, got lost and had a few close encounters with police.
Warm meals, beds, showers, toilets and locked doors all soon became unattainable luxuries.
One of the original intents of the documentary was to be a social experiment, exploring the themes of street culture and living without shelter.
Bailey hopes that message they comes across to audiences, but adds, “It didn’t shine through as much as we had planned in the film.
The men skateboarded in every city they visited on their cross-country U.S. road trip. (All Aboard/Facebook)