I'm sure Dick Greenhaus is correct about the "blinds" meaning riding in a closed car. First I think it ment a platform car with slat-like sides where there was a small gap between the slats. Animals were shipped that way, I think. Later riding the blinds would have been a box car. Riding the blinds was a good ride because it ment that you couldn't be seen by people in stations and on the ground as you passed and you were protected from all the soot, dust and flying gravel from the train and tracks.