Metrolink708: Engineer Day
Shelley J Alongi

 

The comfortable, cool weather this week has seen drama, Shelley’s new engineer, and late trains, people waiting for them, and no engineer drama, just fun. There’s the gold standard, and the freight baby. Wonder what next week will bring. More engineers and better conversations. Everyday at the station is enginer day! And it’s all shelley style.

Freight Baby

“there’s an engineer right out here. He looked at you. Go out there and give him a good wave!”

The usual hustle and bustle of the train station on that Monday May 10 early evening surrounds us; music drifts to us from the speakers, something about listen to your heart before you tell him goodbye and some other soft piano accompaniment croons to the Fullerton patio faithful. A cool breeze comforts me and Bob sitting on the patio in that back corner between the door of the Santa Fe café and the western part of the wrought iron fence. Bob is right. A freight train sits idling just west of us on track 2, heading east for Barstow. I should know by now where the trains are heading, and right now I don’t’ know it, but I will learn this later. Now I sit in a plastic chair snuggled in, my black and gray bag at my feet, my black soft-sided insulated cooler with the front pocket and the plastic inside liner sitting next to it. I carry quite a variety of things to the trains station with me sometimes. Tonight is no exception. The bag holds oranges, corn, raisins and almonds, all the fixins of a railroad night.

The eastbound freight train has snuck up it seems from nowhere, or did I notice and just deliberately ignore it? Contact with the 708, “a little guy” someone says, doesn’t go well. I can’t get that engineer to talk to me.

“If he won’t talk to you,” Shirley lectures me on the patio between 5:50 and 6:00 pm while I wait to go see Cary, , “then don’t go over there.”

“I can just wave,” I say. I’m not letting anyone tell me to talk or not to talk to the engineers.

“You should lose glen’s number,” she says last week. “You don’t need it.”

Shirley the business class attendant on 784 think she has to give me advice on my engineer happenings. I can’t help it if I want to talk to them or try to anyway. After all it took me three weeks to get Glen to talk to me. I might not know what I’m missing. What if the engineer I say I don’t want to talk to is the one who has all the answers…the fun one, the best! Wait we already have the best! I discovered the gold mine sitting in the locomotive of the 608, the money-driven, friendly hard working guy whose number Shirley wants me to lose. No, I’m not losing Glen’s number.

But Glen isn’t here on this Monday. He’s off making money, being his friendly self, making new friends, answering railroad questions. No, tonight Glen, my bestest engineer in the whole wide railroad world is not here. Tonight another engineer sits on track 2 heading for Barstow. I should go give him a good wave, bob says, sitting in the chair holding his walker, eating his chicken strips, watching the graffiti strewn or LGP cars hurtling down the tracks. Tonight he’s watching an engineer who needs me to go wave at him.

“There’s an engineer right here,” Janice says, striding confidently through the open gate.

“You’re the second person to tell me that,” I say, now dropping whatever I think is so important and jumping to my feet. After all I’m the Fullerton engineer girl. I better go defend my reputation!
Okay, I’ll go. I’ll bite. What if he’s my Railroad Prince Charming! What if he’s my answer to all my academic questions! What if he’s the one who would meet me for coffee in L.A? What if I should go over there and see what all the engineer fuss is about. I’m the one who wants to go talk to engineers. Am I getting just a little shy? Me? Shy? Yes, of course. I make my way out of the gate holding my new straw purse, leaving my bags on the patio. At least I have the important things with me. I have the cell phone, the wallet, the Disney i.d., my keys, and my bells. The engineer of my post Chatsworth dreams waits. I go out to the track, a little shy of his window. Dave suddenly appears, Trucker Dave as we call him. A man and woman’s voices drifts to us on the cool night air a few feet west of us.

“He has his window open,” Dave says. “Janice is talking to him.”

We walk down the cobblestone pathway along the tracks to the window. Janice introduces us. Why does Janice always introduce me to engineers? It’s harder to locate the freight engineers because they are one track over and there’s no designated spot for them to stop the engines. They can stop them wherever they like it seems since they don’t have to load passengers. I’m never quite sure where the window is because the freight engineers when they come in on a red or have to wait for a new crew pull the trains just about anywhere maybe depending on how long the train is. They usually stop the engines between the bridge and a few yards just west of the Spaghetti Factory. This time he is about three quarters between both of them, a straight shot down the cobblestone pathway to anywhere. Listen for the idling engine, and hope you find him.

“She’s trying to hook you up,” says Larry on Friday when I ask that same question. Janice the railroad matchmaker? Janice is the one who works for a theater, she is a naturally social person. She’s just pushing the outgoing shy adolescent railfan toward the engineer’s window. I’m sure I’ll find it on this side in time but on Monday here she is doing her Shelley engineer duty. What fun!

“Wave at him,” someone says. He waved back at you. It’s funny but I’m still not quite sure the engineer can hear me though I know he can. I’ve seen plenty of interactions between the kids on the platform and the other railfans who talk to them. At this point I don’t’ know where the rest of his crew is, but here’s the engineer and everyone wants me to talk to him. I don’t even remember now how it gets started but here I am.

“Do you like to watch trains?” he asks. I’d peg him at about age thirty-five. Someone says hi and I think it’s me. I always wave, it’s what I do now that I’m not afraid of waving anymore. Why do I always feel like a school girl? Isn’t meeting the engineer becoming routine? Yes, sort of, but only if it’s a Metrolink engineer. This is a BNSF engineer. This is my first BNSF engineer sitting in the cab. There’s Norm of course but he’s not sitting in the cab right now.

“She likes to watch trains,” Janice says. I think he says something about do I like to watch trains all day or did I spend all day watching trains or something.

“I like to talk to engineers,” I say.

“Good deal,” he says.

“Are you waiting for 4?”

“Yeah,” he says. At least he’s not telling me that 4 is on its way.

“It should be here any minute.”

Oh no wait! Now he is telling me 4 is on its way. What is it with engineers? They ask me if I’m working and they tell me that 4 is on its way. Oh brother! My sweet engineers! Do they teach you this stuff in engineer school?

“Glen will tell you that,” Mo says once, “because you asked him not to.”

Well, 4 is on its way. People line up along the platform waiting for it and talking, wheeling their bags and suitcases. The shrill polite beep of the horn on the baggage car tells us to be careful; Annie or whoever is running the cart tonight is on her way so make way for the queen, please!

“How long have you been running trains?”

I always have to ask every engineer that. Cary tells me he’s been running them thirty years. Bobby, my engineer on the 608, has been running trains fifteen years. Glen has been running them for thirty-nine years, he tells me, but it will be forty, soon.

“I’ve been through here eight years,” this one says.

Now the all important question. But not before Dave asks if he’s waiting for 4 to leave, to get ahead of him. Yeah, he says.

“What’s your name?”

I have to know that. Remember the day after Glen left and I met the new engineer on the 608 or tried to everyone asked me if I knew his name. I guess I kind of cheated the first time. I knew Glen’s name. His name is why I went and met him. That magic moment when Richard said “Glen” and I was on my way back from Chatsworth after laying flowers for Rob Sanchez, knowing that it was now finally time to go and meet the engineers, only six days after that day. Sitting on the patio back in October of 2008 and wondering who these people were I had to know the engineer’s names. Count them. Cary. Frank. Sam. Kathy. Glen. Ulysses. Norm. Bobby. John. Some of these names you may not recognize. Kathy is one of the few female engineers, one I haven’t met yet but who might have been on the 5:24 Ocean Side train and may be on the riverside 708 train. Ulysses was my first Amtrak engineer, the one that made me realize that I could probably go say hi to Glen on the 608 since I knew his name. I didn’t quite know how to find him then but I was sure going to try. Norm of course is our BNSF guy who sits with us on the patio. The rest are Metrolink engineers, John and Sam are extras. Bobby, Cary, and glen round out Shelley’s engineer social dance card. Glen has the number one spot, Cary has number 2, followed by John, Bobby, Frank, and Sam. These are the ones I have talked to the most. Frank I’ve only talked to twice and Glen said he was out of service. He may be back working by now. I have to find out. But none of them are here tonight. They’re all tucked in bed somewhere, or partying somewhere else, or both, or neither. Right here, right now, a youngish BNSF engineer sits waiting for an Amtrak train, talking to me. He is about to add his name to my dance card.

“Jason,” he says, ending my suspense. He’s a cheerful guy. I imagine he smiles.” You have a good day,” he says as the lights of 4 approach. Dave and I walk down talking about trucks, wondering where Curt is tonight. Bob and Janice go talk to their friend in the cars, not sure who is there tonight. I can never keep the crews on 4 straight. Simon works the sleeping car. Then I think there’s Freddie, less and Henry. I think they’re conductors. I can barely keep my guys straight. Now they sit and talk and we stand and talk. The weather is comfortable, gentle, unseasonably cool for May. Yes it’s May already. Smells of cooking food from 4’s dining car mingle with those of the jasmine blooming in the planters along the platform. Somewhere the holding car for waste puts out its own odiferous offering, and somewhere else the smell of oil and metal floats on the air. Further down at the east end of the platform the Genesis, bays throbbing locomotives hum and hiss, somewhere a radio crackles, the engineer sounds two blasts on the horn, the click of the car doors sounds and the train moves. Slowly gaining speed number 4 leaves out of Fullerton once again, revealing the idling freight train. Jason will bring that locomotive 7594 into gear soon, as soon as the Amtrak exits the block and gives him enough leeway so that the two trains don’t meet unexpectedly, if they are on the same track for long at all. I’m not sure which train turns where, I’m sure they are both on their way. I wave to my newest engineer, the one they had to coax me out to see.

“He’s not looking,” says Dave, and then he opens his window again.

“Bye,” he calls out cheerfully, coaxing that engine into life pulling its long line of freight cars. I don’t remember how many locomotives were on that train, probably at least four. Four is the standard number of locomotives on a freight it seems. I stand and wave. See what I would have missed? My first freight engineer in the cab! I remember sitting timidly on the planter in February 2010 when an engineer waved at us from the track. I was stoked! There was no verbal interaction but it was the first sign that my self consciousness about waving to engineers was starting to ease…that is if I can find them. Tonight there was no four year-old child talking to the engineer. Tonight I was the one talking to him. Now maybe next time I won’t be so timid about talking to freight engineers. We’ll see.

“I’ll write you down in my book,” I tell Jason, and so I have. Here he is and you’ve just read about him. Wonder when and if I’ll see him again.

“Oh he won’t be here for a while,” Dave Norris says. Probably not. He’s been running through here eight years. I hope it won’t take another eight years to see him. The truth of the matter is that these guys are in and out of here in a flash and most don’t stop. We’re just a place for freights to hurtle through here at top speed or at least manageable speed, not a stopping point unless they’re waiting for a passenger train or a second freight, or picking someone up as often happens with one of the BNSF employees. Sometimes a freight headed for San Bernardino will come through here on track 3 and one of the guys, Tim is his name, will climb aboard and go along with the crew. That must be nice. I want to go in a freight train some day. But for here and now a freight engineer who has been coming through here for eight years waves goodbye and leaves me smiling on the platform. Apparently Janice said to Jason before I came over there that “Shelley likes to talk to train engineers.” She tells me this on Thursday May 13 as we sit in our chairs on the patio on the comfortable evening.

“Tonight I Came to see if I could find another freight baby,” I say and start laughing.

“Not tonight,” Dave the Trucker says. We’re sitting here now waiting for my double cheese burger. It is almost 6:30. I’ve missed Cary’s train because I’ve gotten off work at 5:45. But on Monday, I stand forward of Cary’s window. He doesn’t talk to me for some reason, I might look like I’m just drooling over trains. Standing so close to the locomotive I flinch as the horn blows. I step back, not because I am afraid I’m too close, but simply because it is loud!

“It was an accident,” Cary says. I wonder if it was. Does one run a train thirty years and accidentally blow the horn? Dave Norris says possibly yes since the controls are operated by buttons now instead of cords. You know the gesture where you hold up your arm and make a fist and pull it down signifying pullin on a cord, this is where it comes from, I suppose. Wonder if steam ships are the same or even the ones that run now. I don’ want to get interested in ships. I get too emotionally attached to whatever I interested in as you know. I think I’m happy just being interested in trains.

“I have to work later,” I tell Dave Norris on Thursday.

“Too much work interferes with…”

“Engineer watching,” I say. He laughs. Train watching, engineer watching, engineers who run the cool trains. Engineers, I say, are better than pictures. Since it was an interest in the engineer and the locomotive that got me into trains why wouldn’t I meet engineers? Online I found a lon list of locomotives preserved by the Santa Fe. Glen ran some of those engines. I want to ask him about them. Asking him about them may make the engines for me more personal. Knowin someone who runs the trains makes my interest in the locomotives more personal. I could be interested in trucks, in buses, in cars, and in planes, utI am interested in trains. I was interested in planes at one time but the pull now is trains. I really think it is because the people who are interested n trains have helped me understand them. Lilian says that’s how she got more interested in dog shows. The people who were interested in them helped her understand how the whole system works. A train engineer, Rob Sanchez, contacted her online to ask about Italian Grayhounds, she knew him, he died tragically perhaps due to his own mistake, I met her and now here I am interested in trains. Dogs and trains do go together I suppose. Glen likes dogs. Funny I’m not a big dog person. Do cats like trains? Well Dave Noris has a cat, Bucky, so I guess dogs and cats like trains, or maybe people who like dogs and cats like trains. Trains, they appeal to everyone on some level and now, for me, the trains call, comfort, caress, and some of the engineers know my name.

“I want to take my kids on the Disney cruise,” says one of them, bobby, on Wednesday May 5 as I stand talking to him. He has seen my i.d. Now he knows I work for the Travel Company. So I look up the cruise line phone number and bring it to him on Monday, the same day I meet Jason. “I am your Disney connection.”

“How long have you been running trains?” I ask him.

“fifteen years.”

He ran freight for Southern Pacific. Now I have two Santa Fes and two Southern Pacifics. If I collect engineers, as Dave Norris tells an energetic woman two weeks ago, then I must sort them by category. Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, funny how I classify them by freigh company and not passenger carrier. Santa Fe did carry passengers for a while. I think Southern Pacific did and Chris Castle in Chatsworth tells me that Bob Hildabrandt, Rob Sanchez’s conductor, worked on the Southern Pacific. I haven’t met any engineers yet that ran for the Union pacific. I’m sure I will, just give me time.

“I ran freight for Southern Pacific,” Bobby says. “This is better,” he says about running the Metrolink line, giving his easy laugh, “a lot better.”
Oh the Drama
The trains tation this week is full of happenings one might want to read about in future days. Ray doesn’t climb the clock tower this week but someone tries to disrupte the Bible study on Tuesday. I’m not sure of the whole story. On Tuesday I go down there and get some food, talk to Chrissy, say hi to Rochelle who says her daughter is getting married on Thursday. I meet her mother and aunt who sit behind one of the pillars sheltering themselves from the cool breeze that keeps afflicting us this May. I don’t ever remember the wind being so persistent and so chilly at this time of year. It probably was that way it’s just that I don’t remember it. Friday Rochelle tells me that someone went and got Deryl to help out, a tall guy who drinks just as much as any of them do here I suppose. There are a lot of people here who drink and cause trouble or just drink. I drink Diet soda but I don’t’ kno if that counts. Some might think I cause engineer trouble. Yeah, okay, but this guy disrupts the study and Rochelle wants to punch him.

“I want to show him the Jesus who made the whip,” she says. She is referring to the telling of Jesus driving the animals and sellers of them out of the temple. I get the feelin she was pretty upset. Between the music, the broccoli and cheese, chili, and tacos, something is said and though I don’t know it, I know that it was drama. I’m sure I’ll learn more about it as it goes on.

“You can write about that drama,” Dave Norris tells me on Friday. I tell him that I write about my railroad adventures and so now the drama, unknown, thogh I did get a glimpse of the start of it, has now been recorded. Hope that guy gets some help. The tacos were good though, that’s for sure.

Thursday Dave, Shelley, and Dave Norris stand by the café watching workers between Uclid and Brookhurst work on some track. An Amtrak train approaching Fullerton at 8:20 pm, train 589 heading for Los Angeles Union sation blows its horn furiously, warning the workers of his approach.

“why does he do that?” I ask.

“It’s a rule, Dave Norris says. “He’s gots to.”

The lights from the high rail truck working on the tracks come to us. Are they moving? Dave Norris doesn’t think they are moving. He gives it the one eye closed test, measuring the light against a vertical plain. If the light moves away from you it’s moving, he says. Apparently it’s not moving. Later on that night,a bout 10:15 or so, Curt tells me later, the Christmas parade comes through there. The Christmas parade is made up of all the lights and gadgets that make up the track working equipment. Guess I missed the Christmas parade. That night, I miss Bobby. I go to his train but there is another engineer on it. I know it’s a different one because he stops the bell before reaching the marker for the five car stopping point. I go up to him with his MPI, noisy, clattering thing. He might wave but he definitely doesn’t talk. I know that because I say the usual thing when I know there’s an MPI in the station. “They gave you that one!” NO response. Someone asks me if I want the train as I walk away, there are several who approach and I turn and push them away. I’m walking away from the train. It is leaving and so am I.

“Thursday Is my day off,” Bobby says on Friday. Mercifully there are no bands tonight. Life is good! “I work every other day,” he says. He works just like glen, but he doesn’t ask me if I have worked today. Give him time, he probably will. One thing he does is say my name out the window. Cary still calls me Young lady. I don’t think any of the others know my name though they might recognize my face. It doesn’t matter. Glen knows my name. He is still my alfa cat.

There is a woman engineer on the 707 this week. She doesn’t talk to me. In fact, Curt says later, it looks like she’s having a conversation with someone, hopefully not on a cell phone. If she is hopefully it’s business related. You’re not supposed to have the cell phone in the cab in use for anything but business related activity. Tonight, Friday, when I make my way down to the west end of the platform to see who the engineer is on this train, she brings it in ringing that bell insistently. This is the sign to the conductor that they are late so let’s get the heck out of Dodge.

“She waved and smiled,” said curt, the small, slender girl looks stressed, anxious. Maybe she’s missing a hot date. Maybe they’re just late. Women are always stressed. This one is. A woman comes through on the 707 last night, Thursday,but I’m on the patio that night.

“She looked straight ahead,” Janice says as she comes through there, “she’s not going to wave at anybody.”

It was probably the same girl, who knows. All my engineers. Line em up! There’s a lineup on Sheley’s track for an engineer. You always have to wonder which on it will be!

Shirly on Wednesday is the target of a bird with a mission. The bird unloads on her hair, her jacket, and Gen in the café won’t give her any napkins to clean up the mess. Shirley tells a lady sitting in the corner on Thursday not to sit there because of the incident. Shirley is always telling someone not to do something. Maybe it’s her nature or her job. I’m sure she wasn’t happy about having bird poop on her clothes. Gen is on attitude watch, Jose says. Apparently Shirley is going to talk to his boss, the lady who owns the café. She’s the one who told me my plaque for Rob Sanchez was too controversial to hang on the café wall, so now it hangs here above my computer getting noticed by people who walk through mydoor.

“Who’s that guy holding the puppy?” someone asks me. Maybe Rob’s plaque belongs right here for now, in the only place that will treat him with respect, even if the final report says that he caused the accident by texting.

“I’ve only gotten one text from one train engineer,” I tell a group on Friday. I am sure to defend him.

“Hope he wasn’t running the train,” someone says.

“He wasn’t,” I assure them. “He wasn’t running the train.”
Social Butterfly
“I got lucky,” I tell Dave and his family now sitting down at the east end of the platform on Friday. I’ve made my rounds, the foamers who sit on the benches under the awning just before us. They are better than Tv. Elena sits there watching her son who is part of the group as the freights pass and the foamers rise to greet it calling out the names of cars and clapping as the train passes. I’m content just to wave. Sometimes the engineer blows the horn. Such sweet acknowledgement! Now I’ve moved down to the west end, perching on my wall, my black and gray bag sitting with m, drinking Diet Doctor Pepper, occasionally sipping from my newest Starbucks acquisition, a clear water bottle. Someone teases me about it having vodka in it. NO way. Engineers would not approve, at least not on the clock when they are strictly governed by rule G. At least they better not approve. Afterward? Another story, perhaps, but right now I’m commenting on how lucky I am.

“I met the best first.”

“Sometimes that’s how it works,” Dave says.

“He is the best. Can I keep him?”

“Only if you take the cats,” Dave says.

“I’ll take the cats.”

Somehow this makes me teary-eyed. Part of me misses Glen. He is the emotional connection to the reason I got more than casually interested in trains. But the others are so much fun whether they respond or not.

“Why don’t you tese me about the other guys,” I tell Larry sitting on the patio, the one who always teases me.

“Larry wants to go to Chicago. Do you want to go with him? You can get the economy room and share the bed,” Simon says who is sitting on the patio waiting for number 4 so he can go home to Albuquerque.

“I’m sleeping in the cab with the engineer,” I say. Here we go, teasine me again and this time I admit I started it.

“Did I miss a signal? I’m sorry!”

“You were on top, you shouldn’t have missed it!”

“I did ask him which hand operates the throttle,” I say, and that’s enough. Bob dissolves in laughter, someone says something about a joy stick.

“He answered the question,” I say. If the engineers take me seriously I’m okay. If they don’t then I really will be in trouble. I think they do.

“I have to put on my academic hat,” I tell Dave, “I’m going to call Glen tomorrow.”

“You’re going to crank call the engineer!” he says.

“I may be back down here. I’m either going to be really happy or not. I may be back down here to sooth my anguish.”

“I get anxious about calling him,” I tell the president of our NFB Writers Division, Robert, last Sunday.

“Just do it,” he says.

I do text Glen on Sunday May 9. “Hi Glen. I want to call you on Saturday to ask about trains. Caught up here. If that doesn’t work you can tell me. Stay safe.”

No more teasing allowed, though I think, somehow, Glen might be the biggest tease.

Whatever Glen is, he is the gold standard, along with Cary. Friday before I make my rounds, amid the announcement of the 785’s late arrival due to a medical emergency in Santa Ana, I approach Cary’s train. The 785 as usual has been late most of the week. But this is the most interesting of detailed of reasons for its tardiness. Never mind that now. Cary is here.

“Hi young lady,” he says.

“Hey. I have to tell you. You and Glen are the gold standard in engineers,” I say.

Cary does something he hasn’t ever done since he started talking to me in October. He laughs. He has a great laugh.

“I made bill Cosby laugh,” I tell curt who meets me on the west end and tells me about the stressed engineer on the 707. He does have a great laugh.

“I guess that’s a good thing,” Cary says.

“Everyone is different,” I respond.

All my engineers are different. They are friendly. They smile, they wave, some of them don’t talk, some of them clearly arent’ interested in talking. But Glen is the best. Glen And Cary share the gold standard. They both ask people where they are goin if they look lost and they both talk to me. That’s something! Weekend good wishes pass between us, the bell on the FP59 sounds its departure and Shelley’s engineer week is over.

The comfortable, cool weather this week has seen drama, Shelley’s new engineer, and late trains, people waiting for them, and no engineer drama, just fun. There’s the gold standard, the freight baby. Wonder what next week will bring. More engineers and better conversations. Everyday at the station is engineer day! And it’s all Shelley style.

 

 

Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"