Published: July 09, 2008 09:52 am         

Police blow whistle on train-hopping trio

San Marcos — Three people taken into custody at the railroad tracks on Wonder World Drive Monday afternoon had been train hopping, police said.

Donald Lee Ponder, 34, and David Shannon, 25, were arrested for public intoxication and criminal trespass and Tapley Holland Ward, 20, was arrested for public intoxication and interfering with railroad property.

According to San Marcos Police Detective Byron Mobley, the three had been illegally traveling on a southbound Union Pacific train when police were called around 5:30 p.m.

"Apparently they were riding the rails," Mobley said, adding that both Ponder and Shannon "were familiar" to Union Pacific Railroad. One had received a criminal trespass warning in El Paso and the other in Houston, he said.

"They tried to hide when officers got there, they ducked down into a car," he said. They were finally flushed only after an officer climbed up and into the train car, he added.

Mobley said one of the men claimed he was a transient while the other gave a Houston address. He said Ward told police she lived in Austin.

     

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