I remember when I was a child of 12-13 (possibly younger) and living in Texas, 3 boys about my age went missing not far from where we lived.
I did not know them, but they were found A couple of days later in Colorado.
They had been walking somewhere and saw a train moving very slowly.
They made the decision to hop on the train and hop off again a mile later so as to avoid walking, and it seemed like an ok thing to do.
It ends up the train picked up speed and they were never able to “hop off”.
Years later when I was in college,, a fellow that lived next door to me ended up being one of those kids.
He was a great guy and we became good friends.
I used to laugh at that story, as he said they were thirsty, hungry and miserable, and being in shorts when they got to Colorado they were very cold.
The entire story was quite something.
He even described having to use the bathroom on a board and putting the fouled end oh the board out the boxcar doors to “dump it”.
The last I heard he was a civil engineer inspecting bridges, dams and the like.
Growing up in Northern Virginia during the 50s we’d go down into the storm sewers and wonder around. Or take our bikes up on the beltway as it was being built.