Charlie Buchanan runs away and hops a train out of town. It's 1932 and he's destined to meet the man who will change his life.
Riding the Rails is a gritty historical-mystery fiction set in the Depression-era. Two hundred and fifty thousand children left home in the 1930's to jump on freight trains, to see the country and look for work, never fully understanding what life would be like riding the rails. Charlie Buchanan is one of these children who runs away from home and from a financially ruined and disparaging father.
Charlie becomes a tried and true hobo of only nine years of age and finds that hopping freights is a rather dangerous proposition. He learns life’s lessons on his journey, facing gangs of youth who prey on travelers, old men called ‘wolves’, railroad bulls ready to beat and maim illegal rail passengers and learns that he’s not alone; he is among many who seek their fortune in a country ‘that is dying by inches’.
He meets Moses Pulani, called by his hobo name, ‘Gypsy’, an outcast even among the hoboes and tramps. Moses has escaped to America to hide among the migrating homeless. After Moses is thrown in jail for murder, Henry Bledsoe, a local reporter, singles Charlie out to ‘get the story’ and unwraps a mystery that surrounds the man.