Conversations With Glenn: Sweet Engineer Confusion Short, sweet, a little distracting, the signal calling voice, I’ll talk to you later, and numbers. The engineer didn’t throw the book at me, I tell my Face Book followers, he threw numbers. Sweet glen.” Numbers, enough to last a lifetime, his lifetime and mine. He knows his numbers. He’s still my number one engineer. But sweet glen I’ve got my work cut out for me and all in five minutes. The conversation gets off to a bit of a rocky start, it’s the cell phone thing this time, not the cab to ground thing. No, I’m not yelling at glen over the clatter of MPIS, but this time the tables are turned. It’s not the star struck railfan who is confused; no, this time it’s the engineer. This is the one with grayish red hair and glasses, brown eyes and a tattoo of Yosemite Sam on his arm; oh yeah I don’t think I’ve told you about that one yet. No matter. Today, the engineer with forty years experience is in the break room it sounds like, confused. Well, sweet glenn with all his life time of cats and stories and whatever, has answered his phone today. Yahoo. So how do I confuse this veteran of the railroad? It wasn’t hard, I guess. Some have said I’m unforgettable, I’ve been called one of a kind, but now I’m just confusing. The former freight and Amtrak engineer, the one who once or twice ran Chicago’s number 4, the man whose wife has 22 cats, two birds, three children, two houses, and all the sweet information I crave, is confused. False signals and broken switches couldn’t confuse him; it took the lovesick star struck adolescent railfan to confuse the experienced engineer. But don’t worry. After a lifetime of sitting and waiting for trains, yelling “she likes trains” out of his window, he recovers nicely. “Hello," he says. Not, yeah, not what’s up, today a simple hello. I’ll buy that after three months of not talking to him, I’ll buy it. “Hey!” Okay I’m not sweating with nervousness as I stand in my living room sweating from heat instead. Today is Friday May 14, he must be on his break, I stand there, my heart isn’t pounding if you can believe it. Glenn is somewhere, I can hear someone talking. “It doesn’t look like the trains are in distress today.” Silence. Engineer contemplations. “What?” he says. This is the 21st century, no static on the line, no clattering engines, just a love struck railfan talking to a locomotive engineer, phones resting in hands, me actually half undressed, It’s my day off, and him, well, he’s just doing his own thing, now he asks me a simple question. “It doesn’t look like the trains are in distress today,” I repeat patiently. Anything for my engineer. “So far,” he says, comprehending, “it’s not over.” Glenn, using his signal calling voice, responds to my comment much as he did a year and a half ago or so when I asked him if it was a good day up here. “So far,” he said then as now. The difference is that this time I have Twitter texting me Metrolink updates on my phone. When I first fell for trains and engineers, bob the ring leader at Fullerton told me that I knew my Metrolink trains. No, I don’t, I said. Well, now, I guess I do. And so now here I am standing in this warm room with Mitch Woods on the computer tickling the ivories, doing some fancy finger work of his own, bringing back childhood memories of playing music with guitars and bases and drums, finding my own way in the keyboard world. Today I am finding my way in the world of locomotives and this is where we go after I clear up my number one engineer’s confusion. More silence, someone talking. “Do you have five minutes?” “Do I have what?” Yeah it’s a good thing I don’t run the railroad. I’m kind of laughing though. He sounds so normal. “Five minutes,” I repeat. “Yeah. Go ahead.” Serious, railroading glenn and me, actually not fainting. Five minutes turned into twenty and now I’m the happiest star struck lovesick railfan in the world. “I wanted to ask you about engines.” I want to ask him about a lot of things. Racing team, his daughter, how are the cats and the birds. But I ask None of those questions today. Today it’s train talk or nothing. I’ll buy that, too. A man with a purpose, a woman with a question, and the engineer with the answers. I explain that I got to go into one of the locomotives at the OERM. “I wanted to know,” I’m a little lost but I’ve got to sound like I know what I’m talking about, after all I did ask for five minutes. “did you operate one like that?” I try to sound academic for my unsophisticated, friendly engineer. It’s hard to describe how he sounds to me from a vocal perspective. If people read voices I have to say that sometimes I can’t read his. He doesn’t sound annoyed, angry, in a hurry, gentle, maybe he just sounds like Glenn. Maybe he’s doing something. He’s calling signals. He has a very distinct voice maybe it comes from yelling over freights, or smoking cigarettes, or the voice God gave him. I’ll buy that, too. It’s distinct, just how it should be for my first locomotive engineer. If the first is the best, he’s still the best. “You mean the 98?” he wants to know, not having any idea of the history and the drama playing out in my head. Today it’s calm. “Yeah. The 98.” “yeah I’ve operated ones like that before.” Now he sounds pleased, almost as if he might be smiling, perhaps like he’s gone back thirty years in memory. He did say that he loves trains. Maybe he’s happy someone is asking hima bout his experience? Sometimes he sounds detached or in a hurry, now he sounds happy. It brings me pleasure to listen to this response. When I went to run I was hired on at Samos. When we went to Barstow. we took 7 F7s off and put the 5900s on and went with them all the way to Chicago. Now I’m the one who is confused. Freights? No, he said 5900s and no, he says, when I ran 4, but 4 used to be 18. He did mention 18 to me, the first of many numbers. The grand canyon routes used to be 26 ad 27, 4 was 18. When talkig to me out of fullerton, he used to confidently confide that 4 was on its way. Guess he used to say 18 is on its way. But now I’m standing here talking numbers. “The 5900s have six cylinders?” “they have twenty. I think they have twenty.” Now is he confused again? I’m confused this time because when I think the OERM 98 I think six cylinders because one of the guys at the museum has told me today that the OERM 1956 which is the OERM 98 originally has six cylinders. Ok maybe we’re not talking about the same locomotive. I don’t know how I got into my head that he was talking about the American Locomotive Company one at the museum. Of course he’s not talking about that one. That locomotive was used to test safety devices for engines by the Department of Transportation till it came to live in the Orange empire Railway Museum in 1983. Glenn is talking about 5900 class locomotives. No matter, glenn is talking about locomotives and he used to run 5900s. “They have two UP engines up there,” he says again referring to the engines housed at the Orange Empire Railway Museum. “Oh yeah that’s right,” I say, light dawning. “I saw them.” I’ve managed to make my way to the hallway standing between the bathroom and the linen closet. I start for my computer but think better of it. I don’t’ know if those numbers are in an email or if Kimberly wrote them down. “I have them in my notes,” I say. I don’t want to waste my engineer’s time looking at numbers on my computer. The only numbers I want are his numbers. “The Metrolink engines are 12 cylinders,” he says again. “The new ones are 16.” “The MPIS,” he says for some reason. The what? I think he’s talking about N.P, Northern Pacific, not sure what that has to do with anything. Now I’m the one who is confused. “The MP36s” he says now, more numbers, this time clearing up my confusion. “Oh the MPIS,” I gush, my understanding now as clear as my favorite bell, not the MPI bell. I hear the beep of the microwave, it sounds like one. There is more silence. “Are you there?” he asks me. This conversation is becoming so adolescent; informative, confusing, cute. “I’m here.” I walk into my room and clear a spot off my bed, pushing the quilt and a flece blanket back against the wall. I sit on the sheet, listening. Here’s my Glenn with me. I’m all his; all ears, all star struck. I close the window that leads to the outside and the noise in the court yard one story below. I don’t want to miss any more of his words. I have so few opportunities to talk to him I have to put myself in the quietest situation I can find. He can be wherever he likes; at Taylor in the break room, in the cab of a locomotive, in his kitchen or bathroom brushing his teeth, chilling somewhere in his house, that first time I talked to him. I’m the one who has to be prepared to remember, hear, and listen. Today I’m trying to do all three. “I guess my biggest question is,” I say, because I still need to do my research, “is what the differences are say between running the modern ones and thirty years ago. I know they’re operated by the computer. Is there still a control stand?” “Yeah it still has a throttle,” he says. I imagine sitting before the control stand on the Alco98 reaching up with my left hand to grasp that handle, the visual transfers to Glenn’s hand, maybe Cary’s or bobby’s, though I’m talking-to Glenn so we’ll just leave it there, maybe it’s not a touch screen? No matter. He’s sitting there controlling that engine, except he’s not, he says. The computer runs the engine, we just tell it what to do, it decides when to do it. If the engine smokes, he says, now the computer controls the speed so the engine won’t smoke. I asked about the brakes, I think I understood that the engineer could control the braking. That’s what someone on the platform told me so maybe I’m just finally getting it, at least partially. But I’m still confused. The engineer doesn’t have the power. Not like it used to be, insists Dave Noris, the man who says an engineer’s job was harder in the “good old days.” “Well it’s nice that they give you some power.” He’s quiet again. Confused? “I’m being sarcastic,” I say. “It’s nice that they give you some control over the train.” Never in a million years did I ever think I would be having a conversation with a railroad engineer, one who ran freight for Santa Fe, ran 4 for Amtrak, and maybe ran other trains for Amtrak who is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and now runs trains for Metrolink and is the number one engineer. Whatever I think or don’t think, here I am sitting here, trying to take a tape recorder off a chair, picking a piece of cardboard off the floor with cat sand on it, it was sitting under the recorder on my rocker. I was going to sit in the rocker but the cushion had sand on it, sand that a restless Brandy or pearl put on it when they climb up on the chair. I’m cleaning up cat sand and my engineer who comforts his controls every night is getting ready for lunch. “well,” he says, this conversation is over, “I’m getting ready to eat my lunch. I’ll have to talk to you later.” “Okay.” “Have a good day.” He always tells me to have a good day. Happy New Year he says the first time I call and wake him. Enjoy your day off,” he says when I call for the second time and ask if I can call and ask about trains. Enjoy your day off,” he says when I catch him in the locomotive cab. “Enjoy your evening,” he says in Frebruary when I talk to him the day after his train without him on it hits someone in Sylmar. Now he ends the conversation with his usual close. He should work for Disney. “have a good day.” A good day? It is an awesome day because you picked up your phone and talked to me for five minutes, five minutes that turned into twenty minutes of confusion, information, loveliness, perhaps the most relaxed conversation I’ve had with him despite the trips and dips, and my sweet, classic Glenn. He’s the best. “You, too,” I say. Thank you for talking to me.” I don’t know why I was brave enough to get his number. Maybe it was because he asked for mine when I asked if he would meet me for coffee in L.A. I’ve gotten so much better. I’m always glad I got that number even if it does make me crazy sometimes. He’s my number one engineer. He is the best. Short, sweet, a little distracting, the signal calling voice, I’ll talk to you later, and numbers. The engineer didn’t throw the book at me, I tell my Face Book followers, he threw numbers. Sweet glen.” numbers, enough to last a lifetime, his life time and mine. He knows his numbers. He’s still my number one engineer. But sweet glen I’ve got my work cut out for me and all in five minutes.
Copyright © 2011 Shelley J Alongi |