OUT OF WORK AND OUT OF LUCK. In Don Brown's The Train Jumper Ed "Collie" Collier encounters hobos, misers, racists, and even some kindness while riding the rails during the Great Depression. Collie leaves home in search of his older brother, who has run off. Battling hunger, hostility, and wrathful weather, he meets an unlikely ally in a young drifter. They jump a freight train, joining thousands and thousands of young boys and men who try riding out the Great Depression by riding the rails.