Conversations With Glenn: Southern Pacific Whatever
Shelley J Alongi

 

“the Southern Pacific,” he says, driving through the desert to Lancaster with the jack rabbits and the abandoned aerospace buildings, on this cool, Sunday night between trains. He continues, his words coming to me on my fancy phone, looking for just the right one, “historical society or something. Southern pacific whatever!” he finally gives up in exasperation. “They’re having a convention this weekend.”

I chuckle. In a profession full of all kinds of people and attitudes this is the undoing of all of them. Yeah, sweet engineer. Southern pacific whatever!” You just shamed all the academics by not remembering. My tease on the rails, serious responsible railroader, engineer of my dreams, you are the best. But, you knew that.
On this peaceful Sunday night at approximately 11:00 PM September 29, one night before his forty-third railroad anniversary, I lie sideways on the twin bed in the spare bedroom of my Anaheim apartment, comforted by the fleece blanket. Brandy curls contentedly in the crook of my left arm. My right hand rests near my right ear, holding my fancy phone. Glenn talks to me, his voice quiet and informative as usual.

“Shelley,” he now says. “I’m in Lancaster. Do you want to call it a night or do you want me to call you back??

Why does this always make me feel like a teenager? If he’s got a family and a host of responsibilities and I’m encumbered with a rent payment that’s painful even if I do love where I live, if he has way too many pets and a job where it doesn’t pay to blink, here we are again, soothing all my fears and making me act like a grownup child.

Glenn, I say in my head, I will always want you to call me back.

“I’m awake. The cat is curled up here,” I say to him now. You need to get some sleep. I don’t want to be responsible for that,” I remind him needlessly, hesitation written all over my words. “But, call me back.”

“Okay,” he says.

I get up, put my phone in my pocket. Brandy gets up, too. I go into my kitchen, looking for something to do. It always helps when I’m anxious or excited about something for me to find a project to keep me occupied. Should I call and tell him not to call me? Time drags. In my refrigerator is a large pot of beans that has been sitting way too long. I fill it with hot, soapy water and run the rag around its stainless steel rim. It’s appropriate being made of steel and all. I rinse the pan feeling enormously productive.

Okay, I say in my head, reaching for my phone. I’m going to call and say don’t call. Get some sleep.

Hand on my phone, ready to make the call, the harp beckons me.

“Hello.”
 
“Were you sleeping?”

Why does he sound like a child? Does he always sound like that to people he talks to? Probably.

“No,” I sputter into my fancy phone.

Why would I be sleeping, scream the flashing words on the sign in my head like an old cartoon. You said you were going to call, didn’t you?

“I was washing out a pan,” I explain, holding my phone and a dish towel like a practiced multitasker.

Silence.

“I was doing dishes.”

“Yes. Yes. Yes!”

Ok. Now, I’ve heard everything, maybe.

“Why are you so excited about me doing dishes?”
 
“Here I was worried about you sleeping and you were doing dishes.”

This does not sound like the serious railroader calling 65, Harold, 67, 71, 73, whatever. My friend with the signal calling voice that says “we’ve got locomotive 858” or “Metrolink 221 clear.” The engineer of my dreams excited because someone was doing dishes? Cute.

“Well,” I counter tease, “the cat wasn’t going to do them.”
 
“No,” he affirms, conceding the point.

“Get some sleep.”

“One more story then I’ll let you go.”

I’m all ears, me who in my unadult fashion has talked the engineer into calling me when he should be sleeping. I guess I figure with forty-three years experience he should know whether he can handle it or not. Why did he ask me in the first place? Because he’s friendly? Yeah, I bet that’s it. It works. I just feel like a guilty child being caught with the engineer.

“When we were on the Starlight, people were chasing the train. You would think we were celebrities or something. Well, Shawn looked out his window and said there’s Mel!” it seems Mell Miller, the late Mo Miller’s husband, chased the train and caught it just before abandoning the chase at Bakersfield.

“Oh!” I laugh. “He said he saw you.”

It seems like glenn always has a story to tell me about Mel. He wants to know if I’ve seen him. Now, this time, he’s seen him. I’ll usually text and say “saw mel today” at Fullerton. Glenn is the king of the conversation starter.

“That reminds me!” I tell him. “The other day I saw him and I said do you recognize this picture? He takes my phone and looks at it for a couple of minutes. He turns it around and he says is that Glenn? Well, haha I’ve never had anyone respond quite like this. Yeah, I say. Well, he says I’ll be damned! I don’t know why! But, yes, I saw him.”

Glenn chuckles at my story. I don’t’ know why, but I’ll take it.
 
Now, I look guiltily at the kitchen clock noticing that it’s almost midnight.

“We’ll do this again.”

“Good night.”

“I’ll go take a nap and then go to work.”

Sweet train dreams, number one engineer.

But, before we get here, me standing in my 1970s kitchen with a dish cloth and him in a motel room in beautiful down town Lancaster, the gambit runs from books to Tehachapi, and catching the train chaser.

Sitting at my imitation cherry wood desk earlier this evening, having left a voicemail, I dutifully wrap myself in some other project, trying to not think about whether he’ll call or not. It’s a bad case of me waiting by the phone even if I do take the phone and wait. I’m about to text a happy 43rd anniversary with the railroad message at 10:30 pm, having decided it won’t happen tonight, when the harp beckons me.

“did you already go to bed? Or, are you still up?”

“No. I’m still awake!”

Now, I get out of my four hour imitation leather desk chair with the high back that serves as a cat perch and pace the floor as I usually do during lengthy phone calls. The only lengthy phone calls I ever have are with Glenn the engineer.

I determined beforehand, even in the voicemail I leave giving the invitation to call, not to be so nervous. So, it’s me who starts things off this time.

“How was your trip, sir?”

The dispatcher with Valley Sub, a woman named Barbara if his addressing of her is her true name, has addressed him as sir, so I do the same.

“It was good,” he says, “except for having to come back on Monday, right?”

“I know,” I say sympathetically. He texted me earlier when I let him know about the current Tehachapi dates, that he will go to Sacramento on Saturday September 18 and return to work his job on Monday, September 20. He’ll then return on Tuesday, and then come back on Thursday to be in position for work on Friday. He will work six days, his next break being on Thursday. Call me, I say, being confused But, no, I respond again, I figured it out. Somehow in the voicemail I leave on Sunday I say that the texts were kind of confusing. But, as it turns out, in a story I’ll tell you later, I wasn’t confused at all.

“And,” he says, “we lost an hour because of the stupid Metrolink.”

I laugh. Here we go again with the job frustration. Now, Metrolink delays the Starlight’s detour over the Tehachapi loop. And, he says, he doesn’t think they had very good pilots on this trip, though I can’t quite figure out why he says that. Maybe it was the grade and how the train took it? It might have been something about the brakes. Just another clarification point I’ll have to address in another conversation. I’ll take that.

Before he returns to work his regular job on Monday, though, he has to get from Lancaster to Los Angeles. How does he do that exactly?

“I spent the night in Lancaster then took the Metrolink train from Lancaster to L.A. They didn’t’ have any problems. They took a girl off at Newhall, though.”

“Oh, I didn’t think you would drive all the way home and then drive to L.A. I didn’t think you were crazy.”
 
“I’m crazy.”
 
“Not that crazy.”

On the trip, someone in his family suggested he didn’t tell them they were going over the loop. Yes, he says, he did. And, the Europeans on board wanted to see the coast line. So, the Europeans rode the train for the coast and the nutty rail fans and the engineer rode the train for the loop.

There have been some pretty spectacular derailments over the years through that Tehachapi Pass. I’ll have to look them up. Even though they lost an hour because of the “stupid Metrolink” and arrived into Sacramento at 2:00 in the morning, it was a good trip, he says. He always seems to enjoy that trip; glad I could help.
Arriving into Sacramento at 2:00 AM, one hour later than I arrived there fifteen years ago or so now, they spent their days at a good hotel. Glenn never remembers the names of hotels. Or, maybe he does? The hotel might have been the Hyatt or the Marriott? It had breakfast and his daughter-in-law found it. Sacramento is a neat place, he says. They have a small zoo.

“I know. I’ve been there”

“You’ve been there before?”

He always sounds sweet when he asks questions. I really do enjoy this man’s friendship. When he talks to me, I feel as if he’s paying attention only to me.

“I sang on the Capitol steps.”

He seems duely impressed though he doesn’t say anything. I somehow think I keep surprising him, but I can never be sure.

Their short Saturday came and went. Sunday arrived, heralding Glenn’s return to Lancaster.


“Here it was Sunday morning and they were heading for the railroad museum. And, I was going to get on the bus,” whines my engineer sweetly. I’m sure I commiserated.
 
Poor Glenn
 
They were going to look at the railroad you were going to work for it.

But, then, he settles into his extroverted self and has a nice visit with an older lady, he says, about eighty, he surmises. Glenn and all his girls. I’m happy to be one of them, rail nut friend and all.

He returns to Lancaster, runs trains, goes up to Sacramento on Tuesday by bus, arrives there about 2:20 PM. And, then, he and his daughter-in-law did laundry together. What a great way to spend one’s vacation. Gone probably a total of two weeks from home, glen has to find some time in his crazy schedule to do two weeks of laundry. Self-sufficient railroader.

One of the trips they made was to San Francisco to visit the Museum of natural Sciences. There, they went through several earthquake simulations. Was it the Whittier narrows? I asked. No. Northridge? Somehow, some way I got the facts wrong. Now, I realize, it was the Loma Prieta earthquake, the one that interrupted the World Series.
“Yeah,” he says.
My Glenn. Always patient. Part of it is the phone, the reception is bad.

“:How did it feel?” I asked.

“It felt terrible.“

I remember the Loma Prieta quake. On October 17, 1989 after the 6.9 quake, I walked past the library at Cal State Fullerton after practicing piano when I heard about it. That was twenty-four years ago, I think to myself.
“And then the one in,” Glenn’s particular brand of kind, sweet hesitation, 1909?.

“1906,” I correct my gentle engineer. “I read a book on it. Do you remember the measurements on that one?

“No,” he says, mildly, my quiet Glenn contentedly existing.

Some small effort turns up the fact that April 18, 1906, was the date of this momentous event. Its magnitude was 7.8 with about 3,425 casualties. This quake was almost ten points larger on the Richter scale than the Loma Prieta quake. It was much more destructive due to the following fire. You see, even when I talk to Glenn I learna bout other things besides trains. He always makes me do my homework.

And, then, they make the drive back to Sacramento. Glenn, worn out from all his adventures, falls asleep with his grandson in the backseat. My engineer sleeping peacefully, his glasses around his nose, it does present a kind image of my friend who hung the railroad moon and stars in his spare time on a Saturday night.
 
Waking from his peaceful respite, Glenn and his entourage realize it’s time to catch the train back to their real lives. The engineer who ran Amtrak trains for eight years or so knows they won’t make the train at Sacramento. This is their return trip, where he will work six days and his family returns home.

He could get a shuttle from the airport? Someone said. But, no, not to the train station. I don’t remember now why they thought they could get transportation to the Sacramento train station from the airport.

“I got a cab,” my engineer storyteller says. “A Russian guy.”

Ok, I think I know where this is going.

“Take me to Sacramento. No, just take me to Davis we’re not going to make the train in Sacramento.” There simply isn’t enough time.”
 
“You just said to take you to Sacramento,” insists the cab driver.
 
Hey, don’t’ argue with the highest paid Metrolink engineer in the fleet. My thought. Just listening. And, I know about the insistence of Russian cab drivers.
 
“I did,” Glenn assures the Russian. Now, just take us there.”
 
“How far was it from Sacramento to Davis?”
 
“About fifteen miles,” says the engineer.
 
“That’s all it cost? Not bad. That’s about right,” I said, justifying in my own head the expense.
 
“Well,” he concludes confidently, “he got us there. He went 72 miles an hour. We made the train.

Suddenly, in our conversation, the tables turn.

“So,” he says now, “it’s your turn to talk for twenty minutes. What have you been up to?”

He’s never asked me this before. It’s always been about him. For me, it always is. So, how am I supposed to top all that? His question stops me in my tracks for another reason. What exactly have I been doing? Working. Two jobs. And, now, that I seem to have a bit of a break on my typing job, reading, working on my book he keeps reminding me of, and listening. But, the week that has just passed has been the toughest work wise.

“Not much,” I confess to the man who has been everywhere except Massachusetts and Minnesota. “Monday was hard. I wood up at 3:30 in the morning and by the time I settled into typing it was 4:15. By the time 221 got to tie down I was on the floor. I was exhausted. It was the hardest day.”

“You work all those hours and then go to a second job on top of that?”

“No. I work from home and they send files over the Internet. I was behind so I typed one project in one day. And, then, I took it to work and proofed it between calls.”

“Wow,” he says. Guess I got his attention. His week was more trying, though, I think. Next time he asks me what I’ve been up to I’ll try not to be so nervous or unprepared.

Whatever I told him it took less than twenty minutes of my time.

At some point between dropped calls and playing teenage phone tag because of the Cajon pass and Wrightwood, he tells me another story.

“You know I ran the Starlight from Santa Barbara to Oakland when I went to Amtrak in ’86, right?”

Yes, dear, I think with affection. I remember. I asked you this probably four years ago, now. So, has it been that long? Really? You haven’t’ given up on me and I haven’t gone away.

“Right.”

They called dispatch to get permission to watch a missile launch at Vandenberg. What a sight that must have been. There’s one for my book.

“I have a storage container,” he now says, casually, comfortably, railroad friend to rail nut friend. “It got condensation in it. My daughter told me that. Oh, no, I said.”

“I’m sure you said more than that.”

“I did,” he affirms. He’s never shy about his choice of language. He didn’t tell me what he said and I didn’t ask.

One of the books in his storage container was a book called Tales from the Rails, a book full of stories of famous people on the railroad. One of those stories was of Kate Shelley who saved the Southern pacific Limited, a passenger train heading straight for a washed out bridge. On July 6, 1881, a railroad trestle was washed out by thunderstorms between Moingona Iowa and Honey Creek on the Chicago and Northwestern route. Kate, about fifteen years old, heard the crash of a pusher locomotive that fell into Honey Creek and ran to get help for the survivors on the crew. A passenger train, the Southern Pacific Limited was stopped at Ogden due to her efforts and she was hailed as a hero, eventually getting her own railroad bridge in Boone County, Iowa.

“Have you heard of her?”

When this man asks a question it’s always so adorable.

I remember reading that as a child,” I say. “There was something about a lantern.”

“The book, it has railroad terms.”

“I would love that!” I enthuse. “That would be awesome!”

“Some of them I’ve never heard of before.”

And, he’s the railroad engineer.

We’ll have fun with Tales from the Rails. We’ll have to hook up one of these days and I’ll show you the book. We’ll have a trivia match.”

Now, he’s the one mentioning getting together? Will it take two years like it did for me to get his picture? If it takes two years, I can wait. This is what I wanted. Besides, he did tell me he’d tell me stories. Wonder what will happen before that? Or after?

“You can read it to me,” I say. And, as far as the trivia match goes, that won’t be fair. He knows more than me.

“the Southern Pacific,” he says, “historical society or something. Southern pacific whatever!” he finally gives up in exasperation. “They’re having a convention this weekend.”

I chuckle. In a profession full of all kinds of people and attitudes this is the undoing of all of them. Yeah, sweet engineer. Southern pacific whatever!” You just shamed all the academics by not remembering. You are the best.

Do you know Bert? A conductor in Ocean Side? He wanted me to drive up there this weekend. I probably won’t’ do that. I bet you he’s in there trying to sell this book.”
And, then, there’s the story that takes the cake. And, it doesn’t really have anything to do with trains, though it might.

“I worked Friday through Wednesday.”
“Oh, under my breath, “you did work that many days.”

“I was wore out. I was beat. On Thursday I took a vacation day because I can only work six days.
 
“Oh, that’s why you weren’t there on Thursday,” I say, almost like someone being caught listening to the radio, like a guilty child. I wondered where he was.

“Why?” Dave wants to know when I admit this to him on the platform on one of my numerous trips to the station after this phone call. “It’s out there for people to listen to.”

“I know. It’s not everyday you have a crush on an engineer,” I say.

“Depends on who it is,” he says.

He’s one of the most responsible railroaders I know. And, he’s not accountable to me. But, my curiosity is always peaked. I wondered why I didn’t’ hear him, there was a green signal, Glen doesn’t say color, or at least not on the radio. I wonder if he heard me. Or, not when he passes those signals.

“When my son came over at noon I was still in bed,” he said without shame. “I could probably have slept ten more hours.”
 
My sweet friendly engineer, I think with affection. He as so tired. Why didn’t’ he sleep ten more hours? I didn’t’ ask him.

“I can’t hang like I used to,” he says, “I’m an old guy.”
 
But, I bet he’ll try again. In fact, he does try again. But, that’s a story for another time.
“the Southern Pacific,” he says, “historical society or something. Southern pacific whatever!” he finally gives up in exasperation. “They’re having a convention this weekend.”

I chuckle. In a profession full of all kinds of people and attitudes this is the undoing of all of them. Yeah, sweet engineer. Southern pacific whatever!” You just shamed all the academics by not remembering. My tease on the rails, serious, responsible railroader, engineer of my dreams, you are the best. But, you knew that.

 

 

Copyright © 2013 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"