Welcome back to another episode of Jailbreak Overlander. I’m Richie, and this is Jailbreak. And in this episode, I find myself in the high desert plains of Wyoming once again. Driving alone in dirt, dust, incredibly arid land, looking for wildlife, buffalo, antelope, anything. And didn’t really have all that much luck. And then, strangely, in the middle of the high desert, I come across this large body of water. Didn’t know what it was. Started looking into it a little bit and found out it had a pretty incredible story that went with it that most people would never know.

So I found my pictures of the wildlife, and that was cool. But the story that I uncovered from the locals and from history was even more incredible. It’s about the most dangerous railroad track in America you’ve never heard of. Going to want to sit back, relax, and check this out. So I found some buffalo, and I got some decent footage. And I’ll tell you what, they’re enormous, and I was way too close, and this is not a zoo. And that was that. I started to move on. I hit the trail again, and I found some wild horses with their colts, which was awesome.

Grab some video, jumped back in the truck and started making dust once again, heading down the road, like I said originally. And I found this enormous reservoir at the mouth of the Wind River Valley Canyon. And the story that this involved was interesting. So it was time for me to hit the pavement once again. So I had to air up my tires, which is a little bit of a chore, but I do it a lot. The truck’s got enormous tires on it, but on these high desert roads, it can drive you crazy if you don’t air down.

So I do air down quite often. Fortunately, I have onboard air, so it’s a pretty straightforward setup. To put all. All 437s back up to 40 psi takes about two minutes per tire. I use an extreme air magnum in the back, the kind you find in Bradley Fighting Vehicles. This is the entrance coming out of Thermopolis, Wyoming, into the Wind River Valley Canyon. And I’ve been down this road numerous times. When you’re driving on this road, you go through the mountain three times in tunnels that were made from what I’m told in the late 1800s. And it shows.

But what I’m going to talk to you about is the world’s most dangerous train route. In my opinion, what the conductors or the engineers have to deal with on this particular route is unbelievable. You’re driving a train next to a river at the very base of a mountain. That is constantly dropping boulders the size of semi tractor trailers, small houses, etc. All the time with nothing to stop it. And apparently it’s taken out several trains over the years. And I’m going to show you what I found here. And let me just add this in. Not only does the train have to skirt this mountain valley at the very base or the basin, it also goes underwater for quite a while.

I’d never seen such a thing. It made no sense to me. And yet this train runs daily on that little track with almost zero margin for error. It’s a pretty interesting story, so you’re going to want to check this out. First of all, this trout filled river right here is phenomenal. There were rafters going down it, there were fishermen in it, and there were also rocks that had come down the mountain, like the one in front of you, the size of a house or the ones to the left that are just the size of an 18 wheeler.

But why, why quibble about size? Right now the train track skirts the base of the mountain with, like I said, no room for error. Anything goes wrong, the train train goes over. Now bear in mind these rocks are loose and rocks were coming down as I was videoing. It seems like a train would be the perfect thing to set off a landslide. And apparently that’s exactly what happens. It’s pretty crazy. Just looking up the mountain you can see enormous, enormous slabs. This slab is probably a hundred feet tall that are already broken away and are dropping large boulders absolutely everywhere.

The side of the mountain was littered with rocks everywhere that make their way down. It’s just, it is what it is. It’s gravity in full effect. And it comes raining down on the train track. The trees up there are pretty scarce. That would be the only thing that would help keep the rocks from falling down. But again, they still come cascading down whenever they want. And not even mentioning snow. I wasn’t there when there was a snowpack up there, but that is a thing. The train track is a single track and it goes through the mountain several times and the valley and I will show you the late 1800s, early 1900s tunnels that they built.

I’ll show you that in depth. I got really into the tunnels when I saw them. You’ve got your standard bridges, again, no room for error whatsoever that go for long stretches. But this one valley, the train has to go over this bridge through several hundred plus year old tunnels that are exactly as they were when they were built a hundred plus years ago. And then it goes underwater. So it’s a pretty precarious route and there’s been lots of disasters over the years, but the entire thing is just utterly beautiful. Utterly beautiful. As long as you’re not train conductor.

It, it, it, it. So you just saw the train enter the first tunnel on its way to go through three more. This is the tunnel on the roadside and they are exactly as hand built by somebody back in the 1800s. The road is divided from the track by the river. The river is moving. Sometimes it’s deep, sometimes it’s fairly shallow, but it’s always filled with fishermen, trout rafts and rocks. There’s always a new rock in the river that comes cascading down the mountain. It is pretty crazy in my opinion. And yet the train rolls every so you’ll notice everywhere there are enormous piles of rocks.

These are from landslides, rock slides, whatever you want to call them. But on top of this one is an original tunnel made back in the either late 1800s or very early 1900s. Trying to get history on this was almost impossible. And I tried, but just looking at all of it, it’s beautiful and rustic and old timey and yet it still has a modern day train going through it, delivering supplies to Wyoming every single day. So when you pick up parts for your car, or you stop in a Walmart or you grab anything from the store, the lumber yard, a train made this trek through this original tunnel right here.

Those are the original timber timbers, the original hardware, etc. Etc. In that small roof on top of it is all that protects the train when a boulder happens down. And as you can see with your own eyes, boulders happen down an awful lot. I thought these tunnels were phenomenal. Like I build things, so when I look at them, I think of ways I could have built it better or worse. It’s hard to tell, but these are the real McCoy. Cowboys and Indians were looking at this at one point. Just like I am right now. Just like you are right now.

And again, the train has to pass through three of these. And on the roadside when you’re driving, you pass through three of these as well. And they are rough. It’s not smooth concrete walls inside like we’re used to in the city with lights. It’s exactly as they built them back in the day. It’s pretty amazing that they’ve stood the test of time the way that they have now. This pat part of the pass is apparently where a train derailment happened due to rocks being on the track at one point. And I’ll show you that later in this video, but the tunnels really interested me and I really wanted to fly a drone through one of the tunnels, but it would have been incredibly illegal and incredibly irresponsible.

Imagine a train being taken out by some city boy with a one pound drone that somehow took out a locomotive. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I wasn’t taking the chance. And you can’t do that anyway. The amount of room or margin for error is non existent. The train has the track and then it goes straight down into the river. As you can see, it passes through the natural rock numerous times and goes for a good distance through all of them. And I mean, the scenery is just absolutely stunning. The first time I came down this road, I had never heard of it or seen it before, like most people haven’t, and I was awestruck.

I found myself down here about six more times and I just kept filming and filming and filming. Now here’s where my inquisitive nature paid off. I had to get over to that side of the river and I did. And I didn’t know what I was looking for. And I stumbled exactly on the best break of this entire video. These tunnels that the train passes through weren’t the first try. Apparently they had tried to make a tunnel a little bit higher up the mountainside and it didn’t work out. And here it is right here. And this is a cl.

You have to climb up here to get to this. So instead of doing that, I flew a drone up there and I couldn’t believe my good luck. You can see that it’s caved in a couple of times over the years, but I was able to get really good detailed video footage of it with the drone. And then I thought to myself, I can’t even see the drone, so why not try to fly the drone all the way through this tunnel that I can’t see the other side of? Sounds like a terrible idea, right? Well, I was married once, so terrible ideas aren’t new to me.

And I did indeed go for it. I can’t see the drone. I know where it is generally because I can see the screen, I can see what the drone sees. But I had to try to fly through this, so I did. This was amazing. Now, bear in mind, this looks really small inside, but it’s enormous. I don’t understand how the camera is lighting up inside the tunnel, but it is. And I don’t understand why it looks so small, but it does. And I couldn’t believe I successfully flew the drone blind through this tunnel over the landslide.

Didn’t hit the walls, didn’t hit the ceiling, didn’t hit the rocks and made it out. When I started going through there, I basically committed to the fact that the drone would indeed be lost. And somehow it wasn’t. But you know what? That just wasn’t good enough. I had to find a way to get up there and videotape this with one of my cameras. So I did. Now I’m jumping over this fence. But that’s because I already talked to the one guy who actually lives way back there, that’s the gate to his house. And he said, I’m heading out, I’m closing the gate, but have at it next time you’re up here.

Grab some car coffee. And he actually followed my other YouTube channel, which was Crazy Richie from Boston, which has now been taken off of YouTube because they don’t like things that I say. But I digress. The wind coming through this tunnel was unbelievable. And this is the same tunnel you just saw the drone fly through. And it’s massive because it was, was originally built to fit a train. Now I’m climbing through here, it’s freezing, it’s unbelievably windy and it’s dark. So I pull out The Canon EOS R6 and a night, a night core flashlight. And I assumed that it would be full of bats and whatnot.

But it was too cold for bats apparently. But, but there was bat guano or bat all over the place. And it stinks. It smells like ammonia. Those rocks are at least 2 foot in diameter. They’re enormous. When you see me come out of here, you’ll understand how big this is. Again, it was made for a locomotive. It had caved in a couple of times and there wasn’t much in here. Some animal bones, tumbleweeds, and lots and lots of large old antiquated timbers. But to me it was amazing. And the other thing that’s amazing is somebody built this probably with hammer and chisel or large hammer and chisel or some sort of a steam powered drilling apparatus.

But the railroad, railroads weren’t particularly kind people. These were the original Bill Gates and Elon Musk’s of the world. And money was more important than the people building these tunnels. If you’ve ever heard the expression, you don’t have a Chinaman’s chance in hell back in the day, that came from sending a Chinaman into a tunnel to light the wicked of the dynamite, to blast the rock out of the way to make tunnels. You light the wick and you don’t have a Chinaman’s chance in hell of making it out of the tunnel before the dynamite goes off.

So there’s your little history lesson for the day. There was tons of bat guano on the ground, but no bats whatsoever at all. And Maya was going through sensory overload looking at all this stuff with nobody around in the wind, just blowing through at a good 40, 50 miles an hour, some old timbers laying there. It’s just amazing. I love this stuff. It’s. And as you can see, Bad Dog was there in 1994. I was tempted to carve my name in the side, but I didn’t, just out of respect for the history. Now this is the other side of the tunnel, the one that I originally flew the drone in through this side and the wood, the entrance, it was a me.

It was in really, really good shape for wood that was over a hundred years old. There were thousands of swallow nests up top that make them make their nests out of mud. I don’t know exactly what their names are, but this is the original cave in. There’s another one in the middle and another one at the end. And it could have been done purposefully. The landowner told me that this was built in the late 1880s and seeing how he’s the only person that lives back there, that entire valley, the one dude that lives there, I’ll take his word for it.

Again, Ron, I appreciate you letting me back there if you happen to watch this video. So I was losing daylight and wanted to get out of there before I couldn’t get out of there anymore because I still had to four wheel my way out of there, climb my way out of there, make it over the fence again. And bear in mind this pile of rubble in front of me is a good 7, 8 foot tall pile. The camera doesn’t show how big it is, but it’s enormous. It’s over my head. I climbed out of there and the sun was still up, so that was a good thing.

Didn’t break an ankle. That was a great thing. And my truck was still there. That was phenomenal. But I got some really great footage and it was awesome because it gave me an idea exactly what those tunnels the train goes through look like. Like exactly, exactly. What are the odds? I was so lucky to have stumbled upon this, but I’m pretty good at stumbling upon things once I really start looking. It’s crazy how nice and small and tight and neat it looks through the eyes of the drone, but you just saw me walk through there with a regular 35 millimeter camera and it’s entirely different.

I just find it strange the way the drone frames it. At any rate, I put an RFB sticker on his gate for him. There was a bunch of other stickers, and made my way out of there, leaving a light footprint, putting the trash in my pocket. And I couldn’t help but notice another pile of bones. Wyoming has piles of bones everywhere. Don’t lay down too long enough in Wyoming. Something will eat you. So this is what the train goes through. And I just showed you the other version of it. It’s amazing how this all holds up over the time.

And it’s amazing that the train still comes down this track daily, daily, without fail. Those train engineers are some brave fellas, especially seeing how this happens in 2010. It’s happened numerous times, but trying to nail down the exact dates is almost impossible. And I don’t know why, but train companies are always shady, always have been since they started. They’re just like the oil barons, the gold guys, etc. Etc. But even though this happens more than it should, the train still runs every day. And here’s an idea what it looks like. Actually going down the track in a train, it’s pretty crazy.

Now, imagine you come around a corner and there’s a rock the size of the train sitting in front of you. What do you do exactly? Crazy stuff. But I thought it was incredibly interesting. But even with all everything I just said, it’s not even the worst part of it. It’s just. Train also goes underwater. So even with all the monolithic rocks that are ready to slide down and block the track or land on the train at any given time, the train engineers still have to deal with, well, you guessed it, water, and lots of it. There’s an actual dam that’s on the other side that creates this river.

And the train goes under it, which I thought was incredible. I didn’t believe it, but it’s true. Trying to get good footage was difficult because there’s a power plant, because there’s a dam. So I didn’t want to break any laws, but I got the best footage I possibly could. And it’s better than any footage I’ve seen to this day. I think I’m the first one to make this video. But there’s the damage. The train goes under this entire landmass, all the way under this road, under the water, there’s an air vent. Those are every now and again.

And it comes out the other side of the valley, so it’s no longer in the mountain range. And then it heads back out into the high desert dodging buffalo and antelope and whatever else jumps in for of trains in the middle of the desert for no reason. But things do. It was amazing. And it wasn’t even something I was looking for, but I thought it was phenomenal and I wanted to get it on video and tell you the story as I was told the story. Basically, it’s pretty amazing stuff. Getting a massive train through a valley the most precarious way humanly possible.

And for almost 150 years that’s just what it’s done. Now, if anybody listening happens to own a train line and your feelings are hurt because I called you an oil baron or a robber baron, it is what it is. You help Join the country. Country. Join the country together. But you also put a lot of people’s lives at risk for profit. Yeah, I just said that. What a dick. It’s beautiful out here. If you can deal with the heat, dust, snakes, spiders, scorpions, long desolate roads with nobody else on them, I can. You probably could too.

Or maybe you could. I don’t know. There’s beauty absolutely everywhere. If you look for it, you will find it. These guys were really far away and they could still hear me or they knew I was there. I’m zoomed in with a. With a zoom lens. At any rate, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, make sure you hit that like share and subscribe button below. Leave a comment and I will return the favor. I am out.
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