Metrolink111: Slumming It With The Guys The engineer factor, can she find the train, a stressful day, plans, a supportive Metrolink agent, Glen and a smile. Slumming It with the Guys “I want you to know,” says Larry the Santa Fe historian, “I finally got a chance to read one of your things and I’m upset with you!” “Why?” I want to know having a slight indication about what is going on. The conversation takes place at Noël wood around a table where Larry has gone out of his way to address me. I’ve just finished a spectacularly boring Hawaiian chicken sandwich. I’m working on my second soda but I know I won’t finish it. “Because the only one you care about in railroading is the engineer!” chuckle. Laughter. I still can’t figure out which one he read but I’m sure it was the gushiest one up there and these days there’s no telling which one that is. But yeah I guess you could say it’s all about the engineer with me. “It was an engineer that got me here,” I explain later to him as we stand on the platform yearning for freights. “I know.” So now I’m slumming it talking to the railfans, the rest of the guys, because it’s the engineer who holds the power in my star-struck eyes. Maybe I should do some research on engineers. Hey they are the ones who pull the levers they have the ultimate power. They can make that train sit there or not. Can I Find the Train Her name is Rosie. She is a petite, oriental, 69-year-old ball of energy. Tonight is her first attendance at the Southern California Train Travel group meeting. She is a bundle of nerves in her own words. She is taking the Metrolink 608 to San Clement. Do I Know where to catch the train? Yes I know where to catch the train. It is 6:30. She is going to miss her train. No, you’re not going to miss your train; it hasn’t even left L.A. yet. Where do we catch it? Track 3. Go past the fence I’ll show you. What fence? Oh the restaurant fence? Yes the restaurant fence. You’re so efficient, Shelley, you know where to catch the train. I’ve only been talking to the engineer for a month. I think I know where to catch the train. It’s 7:00. You have two minutes. Go an stand down there because I’m not paying attention anymore. I’m concentrating on finding the engineer and if you stand here you’re going to miss your train. Thank you, Shelley, you’ve been so sweet and helpful. She’s not being sarcastic at all. She really means it. Sweet on the Engineer A freight shrieks through the station. It passes. I step back a little from the tracks, the bell of 608 sounds. I follow it. The brakes hiss. I wave, conscious that he might be late and they might be leaving. “Hello,” Glen says, once again extending the scepter. “Hi. Are you late?” This time I’m anticipating his words. I don’t want to confuse him. It may be too late for that. I imagine he smiles. “A little bit.” “How was your weekend?” Ok now I’m getting personal, asking the locomotive engineer I’ve adopted to bear all. “Busy,” he volunteers. “I worked Saturday.” “Trains?” “Yeah,” he says. I bring my hand to my mouth in some undefined gesture, I bring it out again, maybe blowing a kiss. Maybe he doesn’t see it. Maybe I’m just excited that I’m talking to Glen the locomotive engineer, my first engineer love. NO tears for this engineer. Not yet. Of course trains, silly I chide myself. What else does an engineer do? Um. Maybe he works somewhere else? Yeah, I chuckle quietly to myself, I think this guy loves trains. Are trains his life? Will he snuggle me in beside him and shriek across country? Oh wait rail speed doesn’t exactly lend itself to shrieking across country if we’re on a west coast train. If he’s gently caressing east coast Avella trains between Washington D.C. and Boston with confident cool hands then maybe. Well, for now, here I am looking up into his eyes, or I imagine I am. “How was your weekend?” Brave, Glen. I won’t tell you I spent all day Saturday writing my last week’s moments with you or station things. I won’t tell you I moved a room mate in today, Monday. I won’t tell you that I worked Sunday though I could tell you that. We’re sitting there, maybe he’s got his hands on the window looking at me through his fingers. Curt says he does that at the station. The conversation is quiet, amiable, gentle, no engine clatter obstructs his words. I’m smiling. Maybe blushing like the schoolgirl I’ve suddenly become. “Good,” I say. “It was good.” “Good?” he repeats. Wonder what he’s thinking. Probably nothing really it’s just my imagination. Silence. I lovingly caress Glen’s very existence with my heart, and mind, his vast experience attractive. “I’ll be on your train on Friday. Your morning train?” “yeah?” He seems excited. “You’re going to ride into town?” Sure, Glen! I’m leaving the north Fullerton forty and going into the big time, L.A. but only to catch a train to San Bernardino. “Yeah. The 607?” “yeah,” he says. He powers up the engine. I lift my hand in farewell, showing off my brand new red nail polish. “Okay, Glen,” I say, imagining a gentle parting, “see you tomorrow.” The bell sounds; I execute a final wave, a blessing, a parting of the waters for the passing of Glen’s train. No one ever greeted a locomotive engineer like this or sent him on his way with such tender adoration. I hope he never reads any of this. It makes my intellectual interest in trains seem paltry. Ah but maybe it is the personal connection with a human running that train that makes my passion for trains that much more personal. I just did learn the difference between the Ph and the PHI. I don’t even ask him the locomotive number tonight. Tonight it’s all about him. Larry is right. Tonight the engineer is the only one that matters. Maybe tonight Glen is the only one that matters. In truth, if I hold to my promise of telling the truth in my online writings, part of me does wish that someday he will read this. The cure for What Ails Today Tuesday can two minutes of an engineer’s time cure me? It has been the day from hell. I wake up at 1:00 in the morning sick because I’ve moved in a room mate and it’s stressful. The room mate isn’t stressful; the whole idea of giving up my one room is stressful. It’s not unworkable; it’s just stressful. I don’t get to sleep at all hardly and that’s my own fault. After talking to Glen last night I drink a Diet Doctor Pepper and eat ice-cream. That’s a silly thing to do when I have to get up at 4:00 in the morning. I manage to get up at 4:00 in the morning but not to make it out my door without gagging on some stress related thing. I leave the house at 5:15. Glen must be thirty minutes into his shift by now. I hope he hasn’t had a night like mine. I know this will all pass. I don’t’ like feeling ill and stressed. Taking my two buses, I arrive at Anaheim and Lincoln and go to Starbucks where I have oatmeal for breakfast. It is good. Work is a bear. A call takes three hours. The system is causing trouble but I’m determined to get this lady her two reservations. I book one package the whole time I’m there and Chris in our sales service specialist department books another one. I don’t want to take the credit by the time it’s over I just want us to get this lady a reservation. She deserves it. I don’t care who books it I just want her to have a great vacation. I sign out to lunch four hours into a six hour shift. My lunch time today is a half an hour in length. I think I want pastrami; it sounds good but I spend half an hour waiting for it and don’t have time to eat it before getting off work. I wait to eat it almost get caught on a call, sign out and call a cab. I have to be home today at 3:00 for the cable guy so we can run the computer into the next room. At home, waiting for the cable guy, I collapse into my green recliner, exhausted. Glen might be on his way back to L.A. by now. I hop he hasn’t had a day like mine. The computer move goes without a hitch. They do need to give me a new wireless router but that’s it. I go to the station. I need to go to the station. I need a break. I need to see Glen. Meeting the Engineer The three year old boy dances with anticipatory glee on the platform waiting for train 608, not to board it, but so that he can wave at Glen its engineer. It's my instigation, really. I've noticed the boy and his father standing on the platform, the boy, Miles is his name, wearing a Thomas the Tank engine hat. "If you stand here you can talk to the engineer," I say. Poor glen he's going to hate me, unless he likes celebrity status. He must like something; he talked to me two weeks ago and he loves trains. He even worked last Saturday, his day off, on Metrolink trains as I find out later. The boy's father wants to know how far I'm riding on the train today. "I'm not riding the train," I say. "I'm talking to the engineer." "I will follow the bell," I say, and I don't know why I do this, maybe it's because so many months ago when I sat curled in the corner grieving the death of a metrolink engineer that I never met I was wanting to be part of the action, too; there's always something that makes me want to be part of the action of whatever interests me. I'm giving up my private communion with an engineer, but not really, I suppose. The boy and his father are only going to be in town a few more days; they're heading off to Vegas where they currently live. Right now they're in Fullerton house sitting for their parents and so tonight the father whose name I never learn, and the boy gleefully looking for trains, stand here, waiting, just like me. I don’t' know how many times I have to explain to them that I just talk to Glen, but they get it. "We'll stand next to you," says Miles. He is a gregarious, social boy; I find that out later when we cross the bridge to wait for train 4. Glen tells me 4 is on its way when he pulls his live, sensual engine to its marker. Confidently, as he’s done so many times before, he sets the brakes. Somehow tonight I don’t' notice the brakes so much; I'm a little further back than usual. I don't go up and touch the train tonight, I do not invade Glen’s personal space. Maybe it’s not really his personal space, he’s inside with the switches and all that room, the radio, the windows, looking out like Brandy my silent, observant white cat, drawn to the action outside, his eyes flitting from the girl with the yellow train web bag to the little boy with the Thomas the tank engine hat, maybe to the palm trees, the stairs, the spectacle on the platform below him. I wave as usual, anxious to start our interaction tonight. After all I only have two minutes. “You have company,” I say, referring to the boy who wants to see the train. Because I’m standing a little further back than usual I don’t quite catch everything he says, but he does say hello and then says that train 4 is on its way back from L.A. Miles sees him; they acknowledge each other with the usual train wave, hand out the window, acknowledging the supplicants below, including me, I suppose, even if I am a regular. This is his lair after all he can ignore whom he wishes, though I don’t' think Glen even if he is quiet ignores his fans. He certainly hasn't been ignoring me. I have a feeling this particular Metrolink engineer who has been railroading it seems almost 40 years has lots of followers somewhere and I'm not his only train-related crush. I'm sure he's seen it all before. The man must smile only a little some days and then he must wonder just what is going on. It may be that he doesn’t think of any of it. He runs the train he doesn’t have to imagine anything. Glen is the train,. “Saturday,” I ask him, “did you work freight trains?” This is a throwback to yesterday’s admission that he worked Saturday. “Metrolink,” he says. “what line?” The boy still dances on the platform. “Ocean Side,” he says. On Saturday there are two trains that go toward Ocean Side and two trains that return from Los Angeles to Ocean Side. Does he run all four of those trains? That would constitute about an eight hour shift and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen enforces an eight hour work day. Well, I guess I’ll just have to ask him. There’s been something I’ve wanted to say to Glen today because my day has been so stressful and so throwing caution to the wind, throwing out my tendency for self analysis, I say it. “It’s nice to see you,” I say. After all I’m standing twenty feet below him, I can run away if I need to. I say that because it is nice to see him. All day through the struggles and illness and stress I’ve wanted to see him, knowing this was my high point. “Have you been talking to your engineer?” one of my coworkers asks me in the bathroom earlier that day. How did she know? If I’m putting all my eggs in one engineer basket, today I don’t care. It is nice to see him and since I only have two minutes I figure I shouldn’t waste them. “right on,” he says. He sounds a little surprised but then there’s my tendency for self analysis again creeping into the picture so I’m going to throw it out and just say you know what? I said it and its’ true. It is nice to see him. “See you tomorrow,” I say. The bell sounds, the train slides smoothly away and we retire to the other side of the track to see train 4; after all, Glen said it’s on its way. Plans Thursday is a typical day; there’s no stress, no major disruptions of my life, the room mate so far is working out fine. We seem to keep opposite schedules, it’s a happy medium. It’s nice to come home sometimes and have the place smell like someone actually cooks here during the week. Heck, she works at Round Table Pizza, so sometimes I get pizza for free. Can’t complain about that! The system at work has been a little dicey and so I’ve gotten off on time and now I’m heading down to the station. Where else would I go? I pull up a chair on the patio waiting for my cue to cross the bridge and wait for Glen’s train. “I have so many questions,” I tell Janice and the others. “I don’t know what to ask him first.” “Ask him the most important thing,” Janice says. “You don’t have that much time.” It is true. “Tomorrow,” I practice in front of the group, “I’m going to be in L.A. can I meet you?” The plan for several weeks has been to catch a train to San Bernardino and meet a lady who owns a sandwich shop out there. Glen’s train gets in just in time for me to meet the 9:03 departure time. You can read all about our meeting in “Shaking Hands with the Engineer.” Soon it’s time to go and there I stand, waiting. Here comes the train, and there I am, waiting. Somehow I can’t hear him tonight very well. Maybe I’ve stood back a bit too far. I don’t always have to touch the train. I pop the question. “Tomorrow in L.A. can I come and meet you off the 607? I want to get a better sense of what you look like.” No, Shelley, you just want to find a reason to have two more minutes with Glen. Why not? Hey if I’m going to meet locomotive engineers shouldn’t I try to meet them? A year ago bob told me if I wanted to meet engineers I had to go to the engine. Well I did that. Now can I see him outside the engine? Yes, he says. “I don’t want to distract you,” I tell him. The last thing I want to do is disturb him if he’s still on the clock. He’s the engineer, he calls the shots. “You’re going to ride with me into L.A? Ok.” I’m a happy girl. I have a meeting with an engineer. I’ve missed part of the detail but I’m sure I can confirm in the morning and hey he’s Glen, he can always change his mind. There is at least one more minute in our conversation. “What happened last night?” I ask him. I didn’t make it down to see him I was delayed by the cable guy trying to fix my laptop so it would go online. I had the scanner on the computer running and just before I turned it off I heard the dispatcher acknowledge Metrolink608. I didn’t catch Glen’s transmission, sometimes the computer scanner doesn’t transmit the engineers just the dispatchers. I don’t know why this is, I’m sure I’ll learn. Standing there now I remember to ask him about it. “What happened last night? I heard you on the scanner at State College.” “A guy with a bike,” he says. “Was throwing rocks.” Metrolink608 was put into a siding at Control Point State college for inspection. All must have been well because here he is again and he’s telling me about it. The conversation ends, I wave Glen’s train on its way saying “See you tomorrow” and head off to get my ticket. Heading across the track I meet Andy, the Metrolink agent. “You need a scanner,” he says. “If I ever show up at glen’s train with a scanner I’m going to be really scared,” I admit, and I know someday I’m going to do just that. “He said I could meet him,” I gush. Andy helps me get my metrolink ticket. The machine has an audio feature and I know ho to use it but tonight I take assistance because the machine doesn’t talk when using a credit card, only when accepting cash, so I let him help me. Remember it was the fact that I didn’t have a ticket that caused me to meet glen, and so maybe I’m missing many opportunities to meet engineers by being so organized. But right now, honestly, Glen is all the engineer I can handle. I always experience thins so deeply that I have to enjoy this one till my schedule changes an I can no longer make it out to see him. He is my first experience with working engineers and I’m sure I can follow his schedules in the future. By the time we must part ways we’ll be friends. I think we already are. Looking at the experience from a practical standpoint, Glen’s trains 607 and 608 are the only ones that fit into my schedule. I’m sure there will be others, but for now, Glen is my engineer of choice. I tuck my ticket into my purse and start anticipating my morning ride with Glen. Now you might think that I’ve deliberately planned to meet his train in Fullerton on Friday October 30, but honestly, taking Glen’s train into Los angeles allows me to meet the San Bernardino train and get there after Libby’s restaurant opens. If I took the earlier train to Los Angeles I’d be there too early and if I took the next train to Los Angeles I’d get there too late. Train 607 fits perfectly into my day and just so happens to be operated by my very favorite Metrolink engineer. “I feel like such a school girl with a crush,” I tell Andy whose father serves as both engineer and conductor for the BNSF in Missouri. BNSF is one of the larger freight companies. Andy has been working for metrolink for seven months and he tells us that he enjoys the company of the railfans on the patio. Weeks ago it is Andy who looks in his book and tells me the train numbers that Glen operates. Tonight he only smiles at my interest in meeting the engineer outside the cab. I’m glad I make him smile. Tomorrow, Glen will make me smile.
Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi |