One of my memories is that during WWII four of us neighborhood 8-9 year old kids would latch on to the side of a slowly moving Boston & Maine RR coal train, ride it for about 4-5 miles to a point where it would typically start picking up speed and jump off. Then we would start walking back down the tracks picking up spilled coal to be burned, helping to keeping our houses warm...
One thing we didn't need in addition to our perpetually empty stomachs would have been a cold house...