She Likes Trains: Engineer Vacation Today, Wednesday February 1, 2012, I hoe you’re enjoying your much deserved time off and your ride over the Tehachapi loop, sweet Lancaster baby, a trip that has, if all is on schedule and there are no delays, come and gone by now. This truly is an amazing grailroad journey for me, though it’s not over the famed stretch of track over the “loop” where you can see both ends of the train at once. From sitting on the patio to standing timidly at the side of the locomotive cab, to gaining more confidence, being shown private train videos, and making new friends! Who knew! Now you do. Sitting at track 4 just beyond the Metrolink or ADA ramp, a warm, windy night, not so warm as to be uncomfortable, but warm enough so that railfans shed sweaters and jackets to experience the pleasant winds and watch trains. It is a weekly occasion for most of them, sometimes a daily one, but for me, I have made one trip here since going to dinner with 642’s crew three weeks ago. Now I sit here, having completed many hours of transcript work, working less hours at Disney because of lowerd call volume, but making more money than I’m losing and meeting deadline. Three weeks ago when I sat here just wondering if I could go to dinner with this crew, my voicemail was the bearer of great news, a message from my favorite engineer and an okay from my second job to get back to work. That work has kept me home, away from my beloved trains and their handlers, away from political discussions, historical ones, always gossip Fullerton station style, bad attitudes, fun, teasing, and trains, orange, blue, white an blue, new cars, old cars, strangled whistles, helthy luscious blasts from K5s or the like, larger than life personalities, and love. The Santa Fe Express café sees a turn over in staffing, Chase the woman who took Wendy’s place, is gone. I have forgotten the new guy’s name. Freights pull past us, and then the amazing thing happens. There are so many parts of my own personal railroad journey that are amazing to me. I think they have to do more with the people who run the railroad than the trains, or the people who stand along the platform doing the train dances, or writing down the numbers. It’s all pretty spactacular coupled with the powerful machines that somedays you wonder about; will they run today or not? How much deferred maintenance is interfering with the schedules of those commuters who might just want to go home and barbecue for their families, or make a hot date, watch movies, or trains, or humans congregating on the platform, young,old, pretty, “hot mommies” as someone says once, or just silently sitting with a black railroad grip that says Tegirl. Who knows what goes on behind those glass windows and steel doors. Tonight, sitting by track 4, I’ve escaped the north side of paradise with Mikey trying to take my potato chips without asking. I am forced to draw boundary lines. “I’m just teasing you ,” he says. There are things one doesn’t tease me about; I don’t back down; I stand my ground. You can tease me about a lot of things, like the Indian Chief, that’s what they call him, does when he says I’m going over on the other side for the engineer. “three of them,” I respond casually, picking up my bag and slipping its clawlike handle over my shoulder. “Why you shameless hussy!” the man ejects into the evening, leaving me laughing as I make my way between the brick wall and the bridge leading to the south side of paradise. Indeed! Really, it’s only two engineers, but I’m trying to make it a third. James has left our little circle on Shelley’s dance card, but only in person. He is not forgotten. Anyone on a railroad crew who takes timeto help me understand something or provide entertainment gets on my list. Tonight he probably runs some other train and eats somewhere else. Eddie informs me a few days later that the little restaurant, Halizco market that saw me accompany James and him for dinner, my only meetingwith the married engineer with children, has closed its doors. James indeed had his last meal there, seviche, and I got a phone number. That little restaurant will hold a fond place in memory, but tonight, that revelation is all in the future, and my night is just getting started. It is quiet on this side of paradise, only the traffic sounds coming to us and the faint hooping and hollering of Valerie who sits at the east end of the platform informing everyone that it’s her birthday. Dave later says it was Sunday, but here it is Friday and she’s still celebrating. Whatever she’s doing, she’s done it for a couple of days, they tell me. She hails me from across the tracks as I walk down to track 4 to meet my new crew. Tonight I sit and wait, the locomotive pushes the cars in, the train stops. Eddie opens the door. “Now you show up!” he announces to me as I sit there on the bench, the wrought iron gate behind me, track 3 silent. I start laughing. “Bobby showed me pictures of you in florida in a two piece bathing suit swimming with sharks!” Well, at least it was a two piece bathing suit in his mind. Sharks? Well hanging with railroaders, trying to introduce myself to every engineer that will give me two minutes of their time or look out their windows while they’re waiting for their signals, or worry about me standing too close to the tracks as Randy did, maybe they’re the sharks? Maybe I am swimming with sharks! Who knows! All I know right now is I’m just sitting here. I don’t remember what I say, I am probably laughing. Suddenly, in the midst of Eddie making out of service announcements, people as they come down the stairs to the platform and disappear to their cars and such, my phone rings. Who would be calling me? My phone announces that the call is from Glenn! Glenn? Can you imagine my consternation? My pure unadulterated joy? It’s my favorite engineer in the whole world and he’s calling me! Monhs ago when Glenn textedme without prompting and I responded I told him he could call any time, not to worry. I’m the only one who can be worried about calling him, but he never has to worry about calling me. He does when he can, I’ll take it. Now my second question crosses my mind. Now what have I done? Am I in trouble? I’ve been leaving messages for him, something like this: Second job has me running on deadline and first job has me at 40 hours. Can't look up more Tehachapi information for about two weeks or call you about BLET but I won't forget. Enjoy your work.” made enough on my second job to pay off the IRS! yea! Got my rr grip back today It had unravelling threads so Redoxx gave me a new one. Start my last typing project tomorrow. Take care #1 engineer! Shelley and the Cats!” Hello! Made my project deadline one day early and she gave me more work! I'll sneak in trains somewhere. I'm taking tomorrow off. :): Let me know if you make Tehachapi.” sprinkled in between messages are a couple of voicemails. There’s always something to tell him no matter how inconsequential. I figured if he were sitting here with us watching trains I wouldn’t call so much. I don’t want him to go away. So many times we see people and then they just disappear. Now, time may take him away from me, but I’m keeping him around as much as I can, just make sure I don’t drive the poor sweet kind man crazy. I think that might be the job of others. Tonight, here and now, my phone rings. Eddie talks to his passengers and I pick up my phone. “Glenn I’m sitting on track 4 in front of 42. Well not in front of it!” Silence. Seems we’ve been disconnected Shelley and her brave engineer. I’m sad, and yet, I’m trying to meet an engineer, I’ve just missed my chance, and the conductor is now teasing me about where I’ve been for the last two weeks, and James isn’t here, and he has to go eat or something. “Okay,” Isay, “Glenn just called I have to go see what he wants.” “Ask him about Mr. 79,” I think is eddie’s rsponse. “Just ask him. He’ll know.” Hmmm, do I dare do that? I don’t’ know. Eddie walks away from his train, or does he go inside of it? I don’t remember now, I only know it’s me, the MPI locomotive, the cats, the humming of the power generators, the fence, the warm winds, and my phone. Is he going to call me back? I don’t’ know. I just don’t’ know. I stand here now, facing the fence, looking at track 3 and dial my phone. Writing this, several other memories of dialing glenn from the station come to mind. There was the day he bidded off the 91 line and the engineer looked out the window and said “Glenn isn’t here.” Did they all feel sorry for me? Did I look lost and lonely without my engineer? He started it. No, Janice started it. She showed me where he was in the cab he just yelled out the window “She likes trains!” Sweet engineer! And the same day calling him asking if he bidded off the route. I think the message between the lines was, why didn’t you tell me? He didn’t have to tell me. It was okay, Carey told me where he was and Glenn would have told me but he had things to do, he does have a life, even if it is a complicated one. James agrees with me; he says Glenn’s life is complicated. Sometimes I think my train journey is about Glenn. Well, the second thing comes to mind: calling him on January 1, 2010 and saying hello to him because we’re going to get crazy busy at work. Well we didn’t get crazy busy at work. And so now here I stand with the train behind me, dialing. “Hey! You hung up on me!” It’s Glenn. I know he’s teasing but as usual when he says something to me I always take him so seriously. “You didn’t,” he assures me. I tell him what I said about standing by the train. Now I pace the platform my engineer connected to me by the phone that sometimes drives me crazy. Glenn is so good to me. “So where are you? Hawaii?” Why is it that I always think Glenn is in hawaii? When I said that to him a year ago after the fatality on 221 he said no he was at home on vacation. “I’m at Taylor,” he says now. Taylor, I think only the old heads call it Taylor anymore, the torn up yard with only the south end in use by Metrolink. “I’m getting into the van to go to the station!” Is he getting into the van with all his railroad colleagues, talking to his best station girl? “So what’s up?” It’s Glenn’s question turned around. What’s up, sweet engineer?: “I’m taking off February 1 and coming back February 4. We’re going to Mount Hood!” What? I stand there for a moment deserted by the railroad crews, n one in sight, being given cryptic messages by the engineer of my dreams. “Oh, you’re going on the Starlight!” It’s a good thing I remember writing him and saying “Let me know if you make Tehachapi ” He has done that. What a sweet man he is! “So are you going by yourself?” I walk toward the train and then decide that the noise wil impede my translation of Glenn’s phone. “I’m taking my son, my daughter-in-law, and a friend of the family.” Friend of the family? Not his wife? “You’re not taking your wife? Too many cats?” Glenn is quiet for a minute, maybe he’s thinking of the friend of the family, or the cats. “She has too many cats to take care of,” he says. Ok there’s something that he’s not telling me here. Why wouldn’t someone take their wife on vacation? Is this what a railroad marriage is like? Maybe it’s what his railroad marriage is like. And who’s the friend? And what business is it of mine? A friend! Ok, I’ll buy that. He’s calling me, I’m Glenn’s friend. I’ll buy that on any day. I worked hard to get him. I stand by the wall, this conversation a happier one. “Are you taking the baby?” “Yeah.” “His first train trip?” I think he says they went to Chicago on the train last year, but I’m losing him again, but only on the phone and not anywhere else. “So did you find out any more information about Tehachapi? Seems like you would know someone who knows.” “We’re going in sleepers. And I have the number for Amtrak.” Okay, that works. “You got the time off. I guess you can get anything you want!” So I think Glenn, the number 1 engineer in the whole fleet should be able to get what he wants. He can’t get a wife to go with him to mount Hood to play in the snow with the grand baby. Maybe I just think Glenn can get anything he wants. I certainly think he knows everything about the railroad there is to know. Maybe he doesn’t? All I know is he’s talking to me. He’s the engineer of my dreams and he’s right here. “I don’t’ know,” he says. “I don’t know.” It gets quiet. “I’m on duty,” he says wisely, quietly, with meaning, authority, pleasantness. He’s my Glenn. I’ll take him. “Okay.” “I’ll be talking to you later.” He always tells me that, and he always does. “Bye.” “Bye.” I disconnect the call, satiated, happy, just in love with trains and Glenn because he runs trains, and the fact that he’s called me as I’m standing by a train talking to someone else who runs the trains. So how much better does it get than that? The rest of this beautifully warm evening passes away, Mel is here tonight watching the dances down the platform. Vallerie continues her own show at the west end. I pull out soda and food and eat it. I don’t remember now what graces the railroad bag, but it must be edible and yummy. My fair will consist of peanut butter and apples, small but nourishing things while I pay off bills. Don’t’ worry I treat myself to the Spaghetti Factory, Baja California, yes I’m back there again once a week, Wednesday or Thursday, the day that Juanita works. I must temper my train skills now with sleeping and getting ready for the next day. I do work, and at about 9:15 I get a ride home from wally who picks up his son from work and drops me off at home, first. We wave goodbye and stop to engage in a longer farewell to Vallerie. Somhow she talks Wally into giving her a dollar, I don’t’ know how she does that. It is all a part of the station, this weaving together of foamers doing dances, patio faithful and those who wait for 4, the meeting of the crews, and the greetings of those who call this place some kind of home. It is where I met my magical engineer, the man who explains patiently the intricacies of the railroad and responds to my message about the famed detour of the Starlight over the Tehachapi loop built by Southern Pacific, for what reason I know not. Give me time I’l figure it out. “I thought of something when we got off the phone,” I tell Glenn now in a voice mail as I head somewhere along the platform. “I am the one who told you about theloop and maybe you knew it, or I could find it out. But I don’t’ know if this is true or not. So, it’s my fault you’re taking a vacation and you deserve it.” Today, Wednesday February 1, 2012, I hope you’re enjoying your much deserved time off and your ride over the Tehachapi loop, sweet Lancaster baby, a trip that has, if all is on schedule and there are no delays, come and gone by now. This truly is an amazing railroad journey for me, though it’s not over the famed stretch of track over the “loop” where you can see both ends of the train at once. From sitting on the patio to standing timidly at the side of the locomotive cab, to gaining more confidence, being shown private train videos, and making new friends! Who knew! Now you do.
Copyright © 2012 Shelley J Alongi |