We are sad to report the passing of Guitar Whitey on the evening of July 3rd. He died at age 97 while walking to the park in his hometown of San Luis Obispo. Whitey was one of the last of the “bridger” hobos who rode behind both steam and diesel. He is featured in the PBS documentary “Riding the Rails” which describes the lives of teenagers hopping freights in the 1930s. He was the only one of those interviewed still hopping trains in the 1990s! He was an intelligent kind soul, a great musician and good friend of the BBCRC, attending our Railroad Days celebrations the last few years (often unannounced, he just walked up the road from the South Weed bus stop after coming up on his own from Dunsmuir). His 2002 autobiography “Ridin’ Free” is in the BBCRC library and worth a read. In June 2015 we took him out for a spin on the “Bindlestiff Express”, possibly his last of many illicit railroad rides over a long career of habitual trespassing!
