A Delaware County man lived a hobo lifestyle of train hopping in his younger years, but he never considered himself a hobo, writes J.F. Pirro for Main Line Today.

“I guess I could be called a post-Beat Generation freight train rider. But hobo? No,” said the freelance home appliance repairman. “I didn’t go from town to town to earn my living. Not many people in tiny towns would invite you in to fix a washing machine.”

Known as Tim “Burma Shave,” the man shared his experiences before passing away at age 80 last spring.

Tim, a former Monsignor Bonner High student, would vanish for weeks, riding the rails “for the thrill,” leaving a wife and three children home in Delaware County.

He hopped freight trains for a quarter-century.

Once, when traveling to Chicago from Cumberland, Maryland. Tim threw his gear into a boxcar but couldn’t get into the next one and almost fell under the wheels.

“My gear went west, and I was stuck in Cumberland,” he recalled. “I caught another train back to Philly.”

Tim also appeared 20 to 25 times at a National Hobo Convention that’s convened every August since 1900 in Britt, Iowa.

Read more about Tim’s hobo lifestyle and how his life on the rails started in Main Line Today. 

This documentary from 11 years ago takes a look at the American hobo.