Word: training
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...uninspired sign featuring a cartoon CSX conductor--one of those corporate image-enhancing niceties that until a few weeks ago blurred into the desolate industrial landscape like so many slabs of sheet metal. For whom the sign's message is intended has always been unclear; CSX trains only carry freight, and it's too far away for motorists traveling the nearby interstate to view it. In hindsight, though, one can only wonder whether the sign is intended for that small population of train jumpers who somehow make Flint a destination...
Just a few communities south of Flint, in the rural lakefront enclave of Highland Township, train jumping has been elevated to the status of an art form. For generations, on any given weekend during summer, as many as three dozen kids might jump a train, eventually reminiscing the joy rides into tall tales. To be sure, getting onboard isn't that tough. The trains routinely stop at the Hop-In Grocery for a coffee break. But when the train gets going, it really gets going. The wheels clank heavily against the tracks and the cars rattle and shake fiercely...
...Highland Township teenagers who hopped the CSX train on June 18 were far from pros. Afraid to jump off at Holly, they froze and wound up 25 miles north in a rough section of Flint. One of the boys, Michael Carter, 14, ended up dead. Another, Dustin Kaiser, 15, was beaten brutally before taking a bullet in the head. And the third, Nicole, 14, whose family asked that only her first name be used in this story, was pistol-whipped and shot in the face after being forced to perform oral sex. A few days later, six suspects, four...
After a few hours of hanging out and listening to music, the four teenagers decided to take a walk. They wound up near the tracks, but the thought of hopping the train didn't dawn on them until it began pulling away from the Hop-In Grocery and picking up speed. It was only then that a sweeping glance at one another affirmed a quorum for mischief. As they sprinted toward the train, Tester tripped, finally climbing aboard some 20 cars behind the group. Discouraged, he jumped off a few miles later while his friends, riding atop the boxcars, thundered...
...particularly distressed about being alone in the city, they had but one real goal: getting to a phone to call their parents. But this conflicts starkly with the spirit that had them freewheeling across the neighborhood. "There are just too many pay phones between where they got off the train and where they were attacked," says Flint police sergeant Thomas Korabik. "They are trying to make themselves look better...