Flares to stop a hobo? Not on the WP. Back in my urban hobo days, a friend and I caught the eastbound local desert switcher out of Winemucca. There was a scraping sound on the front of our empty boxcar whenever we went around a corner. The train stopped in the middle of nowhere during the night and the crew came back and said the load of large-diameter pipes on the car ahead wasn't properly secured and had shifted. They were concerned about the load, so they handed us several flares and asked us to monitor the load and if the load shifted again to light the flares to alert the crew. I'm pretty sure that policy remains now that they've merged into UP (heh heh).