Adventures on the Rail

I'm reading a book, "Marina" by Susan May Warren. One scene has the character jumping on board a moving train. I thought Papel lost his grip and fell under the moving locomotive. But a few paragraphs later we find that he made it to the platform and now has to follow Edward to the open box car. They climb the ladder and belly crawl to the next car. It's a scary scene as each one of the men could fall off the train at any time. They make it and fall into the open box car. They have to determine where to get off. Oh did I tell you that it's in the middle of a war against Germany and it's a German train?