[

STATUS:HOBOCON_2 // ARCHIVED]

<KC_TO_CHICAGO>

The second annual Hobocon. Sold out.

The origin ride proved it worked. This one proved it scaled — a longer route, a real talk track, and a train full of people who bought a ticket to a conference with no venue.

In July 2026, 68 hackers, makers, and security researchers boarded a train in Kansas City and rode it all the way to Chicago and back. Two days of real talks, real demos, and real community at 79 mph.

HACKERS ABOARD: 68
DAYS ON RAILS: 2
SCHEDULED HOURS ABOARD: 22
MPH TOP SPEED: 79
DEPARTURE: KCY
DESTINATION: CHI

Lightning talks in the observation car, the hallway track that was literally the hallway, a hotel night in the Loop, and a return leg that somehow got weirder than the way out. No booths, no badge scanners, no lead-gen funnels — just the community and the Midwest going past the window.

> cat ride.facts

[WHEN]: July 17–18, 2026
[WHERE]: Kansas City ↔ Chicago, by rail
[OUTBOUND]: KC Union Station, 8:40am Fri — into Chicago ~8:00pm
[RETURN]: Chicago, 9:50am Sat — back in KC ~8:51pm
[LODGING]: The Allegro Royal Sonesta Hotel, Chicago Loop
[FORMAT]: Lightning talks, demos, and workshops as we rolled

// scheduled Amtrak times, as published. Amtrak being Amtrak, actual mileage varied.

> cat /archive/hobocon-2/original-site

<THE_ORIGINAL_SITE>

The site that sold this thing out, exactly as it stood on the day of the ride — the schedule, the hotel, the call for presentations, the ticket FAQ. Frozen, dead links and all.

SOURCE: hobocon.org

CAPTURED: 2026-07-24

> OPEN_FULL_SNAPSHOT.html

// self-contained copy — no scripts, no build-dependent assets, so it keeps rendering long after the pages it came from are gone

> ls /sponsors

<WHO_MADE_IT_POSSIBLE>

Hobocon is community-driven, not profit-driven. These folks funded tickets, logistics, and keeping this weird, beautiful thing alive.

[PRESENTING_SPONSOR]

[COMMUNITY_SPONSORS]

> tail -f ride.log

<THE_RIDE_LOG>

Photos from Hobocon 2, in the order they happened — Kansas City out, a night in Chicago, and back again.

OUTBOUND

KANSAS CITY → CHICAGO · FRI JUL 17

The full Hobocon 2 group posed together on the polished marble floor of the Grand Hall at Kansas City Union Station, under the arched windows and the Union Station Stories sign, some holding antennas and telescoping poles — The whole con in the Grand Hall at Kansas City Union Station, about half an hour before departure. Nobody had boarded anything yet.

An Amtrak Midwest locomotive numbered 4611 standing at a sunlit platform at Kansas City Union Station, with attendees walking along the platform toward the cars — Amtrak Midwest 4611 at Kansas City Union Station, twenty-five minutes before departure. Sixty-eight people walked down this platform.

A hand holding the printed HoboCon zine, a neon collage cover with an Amtrak Midwest locomotive, a hooded figure, and cut-out lettering reading HoboCon — “An Alternative Hacking Guide to Fun Transportation and Obscure Fellowship Throughout the Midwestern United States.” The zine, printed and handed out on board.

Four attendees posing in the aisle of the train car beneath a Hobocon 2 banner taped to the bulkhead, one kneeling in a red vest, another in a BSides Kansas City shirt — Under the banner, taped up over the bulkhead with painter’s tape and left there for two days.

A sticker-covered laptop open on an Amtrak tray table with a small hardware board and knobs resting on the keyboard, window seat and daylight behind it — The tray table as workbench — laptop open, hardware parked on the keyboard, coach window doing the rest.

An improvised communications setup at a train window: antennas mounted in the glass, coils of coax and ethernet strung from the luggage rack, a handheld radio, phone and power bank on the tray table — Hobocon 2’s network, such as it was — antennas in the window, coax and ethernet coiled off the rack, a handheld and a power bank sharing the tray with the coffee.

The interior of a packed Amtrak car full of Hobocon attendees, several turning to the camera and throwing hand signs, bags stuffed in the overhead racks and green LED strips running along them — The whole car, mid-afternoon. Green LED strips zip-tied along the luggage racks, every tray table occupied, and a coach that stopped being Amtrak’s somewhere outside Kansas City.

A Hobocon II bandana draped over a train seat back, illustrated with a steam train and hacking motifs and reading KCY to CHI, July 17-18 — The Hobocon II bandana, hung over a seat back for the afternoon.

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis seen through a train window, framed between overhead catenary wires, a lattice transmission tower and downtown buildings — The Gateway Arch through the window on the way through St. Louis — the far end of the Hobocon 1 route, reduced to a waypoint on this one.

Union Pacific Big Boy steam locomotive number 4014 stopped on a siding beside grain silos, with crew in hi-vis vests standing around it, photographed through a moving train window — Union Pacific 4014 — Big Boy, the largest steam locomotive ever built — sitting with its crew as we rolled past. We caught it on both legs of the trip.

CHICAGO

FRIDAY NIGHT · THE LOOP

The Chicago River at dusk looking between downtown high-rises, a bascule bridge crossing in the foreground and the sky going pink behind the skyline — The river, about twenty minutes after getting off the train.

A group walking away from the camera along a Chicago sidewalk at golden hour, backpacks and bags on, elevated train tracks and lit street lamps ahead — Walking to the hotel under the L, still carrying everything that came off the train.

An old fashioned in a cut-glass tumbler on a restaurant table, with floodlit downtown Chicago high-rises filling the window behind — First drink of the night, the Loop lit up outside. Day one, done.

A selfie packed with Hobocon attendees standing in a CTA L car holding the grab rails, the system map and destination display visible overhead — Onto the L afterward. A train conference that spent its night off riding a different train.

RETURN

CHICAGO → KANSAS CITY · SAT JUL 18

A tall banner standing in the aisle of the train car reading HOBOCON 2: ELECTROMOTIVE BOOGALOO, KCY to CHI, July 17th and 18th 2026, in green pixel lettering, with the packed car behind it — HOBOCON 2: ELECTROMOTIVE BOOGALOO. KCY ↔ CHI. The banner rode in the aisle both directions.

The full Hobocon 2 group posed on a sunny station platform between two Amtrak Midwest trainsets, holding a Hobocon 2 flag in front and waving two more overhead — The whole con on the platform at a stretch stop, all three flags out, both trainsets boxing everyone in. The Amtrak crew who worked this train are in here too — honorary hobos by the end of day two.

Two attendees in the train aisle, one holding up a boxed Lionel Norfolk and Western model boxcar hand-tagged in white paint pen, the other wearing a large 3D-printed railroad-crossing-signal badge on a lanyard, a phone filming them in the foreground — The CTF trophy: a Lionel Norfolk & Western boxcar, hand-graffitied for the occasion and handed to the winner on the last stretch into Kansas City.

A wide selfie down the length of the train car with dozens of attendees cheering and giving thumbs up, the Amtrak cafe car attendant standing in the aisle among them holding a paper bag and laughing — Last stretch into Kansas City. The cafe car attendant is in the middle of it — one day working this crowd was enough to make him an honorary hobo.

END OF LINE · KANSAS CITY UNION STATION

Huge thanks to everyone who showed up, spoke, sponsored, and made it happen. If you rode Hobocon 2 and have photos, slides, or hack logs from that weekend sitting in a folder somewhere, send them our way and they go up here.

> READ_THE_HOBOCON_1_LORE