As part of the TRAVELS & TRAVAILS series:

Riding the Rails

1997, 72 minutes

During the Great Depression of 1929-36, when 122 million people lived in the United States, four million of them were homeless, wandering across the country in search of a place they could eke out a living. Of these four million, 200,000 were children and teenagers, many of whom followed in the tracks of the hobos and jumped freight trains. A number of pundits at the time likened their experience to a grand adventure that would build character, but in this documentary by Lexy Lovell and Michael Uys, the survivors describe what it was like to be cold, hungry and away from home while riding in crammed boxcars or clinging perilously to the undercarriage of a speeding train. At turns heartbreaking and inspiring, this film is an elegy to a generation abandoned by the American Dream.

Please Note--This film is RATED TV-PG, with hard scenes of destitution and displaced kids in danger.