Conversations With Glenn: Sweet Train Engineer Tonight, Sunday December 5 is a cold, rainy night. He has a two hour drive and he still has to pack. I don’t get to ask him about a railroad grip, next time I’m going t ask him that, and about wying the train, and about who pays for accommodations when he’s at the away terminal. If my presentation seems a little disorganized, it probably is. I’m still on cloud 9. I go tot talk to my engineer and it was unexpected. He called me back! I’ll live on it the rest of my life, or at least until next time. The time as I finish this is 11:16 pm. I hope he’s at his point by now and can get some sleep. It is cold and rainy. Hopefully it’s not snowing on the Cajon pass, he says. Let’s hope not. He is the best. “It’s called wying the train,” explains my engineer as he pulls his car into his driveway and makes his way into his house on this cold rainy night to pack his bags for his trip to Lancaster. “I’ll explain it to you next time.” I’m the happiest middle-aged adolescent railfan in the world! I really did get the best the first time. I guess there’s nothing like your first. At least, not for me. I can only speak for me. I sure hate to let him go, but it must be done. He has to be up at 5:00 in the morning and at work at 6:07 to run three trains then have a four hour break then run a fourth train. He is a busy man. He’s helping to put together a kid’s racing team. And he returns my call. It’s 8:00 in the evening I’ve pretty much decided I won’t get to talk to him today. On Tuesday I ask “may I call Sunday?” by text and get no response as usual, nothing out of the ordinary, and not distressing. He is a busy man my 40 year veteran of the railroad. “Sorry I couldn’t talk to you earlier I was in a meeting helping put together a kid’s racing team.” “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I know you’re busy. You’re not sitting around waiting for my calls.” He gives me that Glenn chuckle the one that says okay well anyway! Glenn is just awesome! I know what it’s going to be like when I finish talking to him so I prepare myself. I get all my chores done: laundry, transcript edited and invoice sent, cooking, cat box cleaning, and cat food refilling all done. I am going to be useless. I will sit and stare out the window, my head in the clouds, my heart missing its train beat, my love requited, my train fix or is it my Glenn fix satiated. Maybe it’s all those things. Pearl will climb up in my lap, I’ll have the answers to my questions, and I’ll be happy, living on the kiss of the engineer, till the next time. OH this man is my railroad best! Who knows what he thinks of me? He thinks he’ll explain wying the train the next time! I guess he’s not going away. I tell him he’s the best. I guess he believes it. He’s not worried; he is busy and he can’t talk today but he will talk to me. Am I surprised when my phone rings after 8:00 my caller ID announcing that my engineer is calling? I jump for joy! I forget to be stressed. I’ve done that all day. I’ve gotten my work done, prepared for my question, and called. John my room mate is sitting at the table when I make the call to voicemail. “1 ringy dingy,” I tell him, “2, 3, 4.” “Guess it’s going to the machine,” he says. Yes, it is and I leave a message. I sound poised, I think. Have a good week if I don’t’ talk to you if you want to call me back you can, I’m writing a story and I’ve got an engineer with messed up signals. And have you talk to Mo? We haven’t seen her in a while. I usually don’t’ get there till after the 608 but the regulars haven’t seen her. Just wondered if you’ve talked to her. That is the extent of my message. I go back to work, looking up freight yards, Union pacific yards to be exact. Guess I've got to do my homework. When Glenn tells me two months ago he’s at Taylor I tell him I have to look up my yards. “Yeah,” he says. That’s my sweet t e Glenn. Straight forward. Do your homework young lady! Oh no that’s a Carey phrase, young lady! But Glenn gets it right the first time He says I like trains. So I better do my train homework! I answer my phone and know he’s driving. “Hey, Glenn!” I forget to be nervous, but I take up an old habit, a pacing habit. I pace the living room throughout the entire conversation. And Glenn, as usual, is gold! “I’m ready for your question,” he says, reminiscent of the time when he said “lay it on me.” I’m sort of ready with the question. Sometimes when I ask him questions I sound like I know what I’m talking about. Tonight I search my memory. I’ve written my question down and I’ve taken my little shorthand notes but I’m so flustered by the fact that he called me back that I’m off guard, this is what I wanted isn’t it? “Ok I’m writing a story and I have trains late, waiting for signals that are messed up. If you’re waiting for signals to be fixed do you have to go onto a siding? Sit on the main track?” The question gets a long answer. I pace the floor taking it all in; this is engineer gold. Southern California railroads operate on CTC, he says, Centralized Traffic Control. I’ve heard that phrase. I understand it. Metrolink is in San Bernardino, and BNSF is somewhere else now. They control the train movements all the way to Kingman, Arizona, he says. They moved all their controlling equipment to Illinois but that didn’t work out because the dispatchers in Illinois didn’t know what the railroads were like in California. Wow that’s a great history lesson. It’s my engineer being thorough. So the dispatcher sits up there and sets the signals for the control points where the switches are and there’s a system for responding to signals that don’t seem to be right. I’m confused already. I’m sure I’ll figure it all out but he’s talking, I’m pacing and drinking it all in, hoping I get it right. He finally clears up the signal colors for me, this is a conversation I’ve been wanting to have with him for a while. Last night, Saturday, Scott and Brett from the railfan group at the station start to help me sort it all out. Tonight Glenn puts the puzzle pieces together for me. Several things that have puzzled me are terms for signals and color sequences. A flashing yellow means proceed at the speed assigned to the track you’re on and the railroad you’re operating, yellow means be prepared to stop at the next signal which is red. So the sequence is the same, if you see flashing yellow, yellow, red. Green is go. Okay that’s pretty clear but it’s the yellows that have always confused me since Chatsworth, and the other question I have is do trains move on yellows? Yes, they do. This was the whole Chatsworth problem, he says. Glenn always brings things back to Chatsworth. I guess he knows that’s what my first interest was so he relates it to something I know. He says the engineer, whose picture hangs here in my living room though he doesn’t know it, whistled the two stops before the station and proceeded as if he had a green, because he was too busy texting, he says. Oh we’re not going there my sweet train engineer. I know all that. I don’t mean this in a rude way and I don’t say that to him, but I know he was texting, I have the messages on my computer. Let’s not talk about Chatsworth tonight my love, I want to ask you about something else. Okay, I say, when you would come into the station I would write everything down whenever I go there about what happens and the conversations I would have with you and one time you came in and said “we have issues” and I said I know, because the signals weren’t working properly and the switches weren’t being aligned by the computer. In that situation you’re sitting on the track waiting for your turn and you have to wait your turn. “That’s exactly it,” he says. The trains don’t necessarily switch to a siding if there is a signal problem. They do have to call the dispatch, he says, if the signal is red, say, and it shouldn’t be. He was in on a red once. I think the biggest thing I learn tonight about the signals is that you have to know what they are, how fast to go, and where you are. Don’t you worry about the train behind you? I ask. Theoretically, says the 40 year veteran of the railroad, everyone should know what they’re doing and no trains should hit each other. Well, we know that doesn’t happen, though on a good day it does. Once I ask him “is it a good day up here?” and he says “So far.” Yep, we know and we hope that every day is a good day. When they aren’t good, call dispatch, go at the proper speed and take a number. Okay so I do have another question then. What are the terms approach and advance and diverging? These come up in conversation, I don’t necessarily ask him about each term. He says approach is you’re coming to a flashing yellow and you pass that signal in advance of the second yellow, which should lead to red. So I think that the approach and medium phrases are used for different railroads. It’s still a little confusing; I’m glad he’s not confused. Diverging, I ask, that’s not based on a signal color is it? I guess I don’t see the colors so I’m not sure. “No, no, no,” he says, it’s based on the fact that you know you’re going to be going onto another track and so green is clear and there’s nothing in the way. You can go at the speed assigned to the track. He says the speed on the curve just before Fullerton is 55. I think he says freight is 30. He gives me numbers; speed assignments. He’s the engineer. He’s the best! He’s gold and I know more now than I did last night, though I know why engineers carry the rule books with them. Every railroad is different, though there are some standards. I’m just figuring them all out. Glenn is helping me do that. “I’ll give you an example” h says. If you’re lined up for Hobart, which is a freight yard on the way to Los Angeles, the color is green. That signal would be set at the eastbound Fullerton junction sign. I know right where that is; I’ve walked up and touched it. Someone on Friday was trying to climb the new signal ladder. It wasn’t me. “You’re making me think about it,” Glenn says, when he talks about the control points that way. State College, yes, I know that one, La Palma, yes, I know that one, and Maple, he says. This is the one he can’t remember. The important thing to remember right now is that these are control points where signals are set by dispatchers. Intermediate signals, he says are the ones between the control points. So much to know, so little time! It's brain food! Glenn is feeding the academic part of me though he’s not what I would classify as an academic. He is primary source material. He is Glenn. He is gold! He is the human part that you can’t take out of railroading. He sleeps and eats and drives in the rain and returns my calls. Yeah! So what trains do you run now? He’s getting ready to go into his house. He says he has to leave by 9:30 on Sunday night to get to Lancaster by 11:30 and be up at 5:00 in the morning. He runs the 208 from Lancaster to L.A., the 205 from L.A. to Lancaster, and then the 214 back to L.A. Then he gets his break. At 6:30 he’s back to work running the 221. I’m not confused about that. “I remember when I called you two months ago and you were at Taylor you said your rest time was 1:30 to 5:30. 2:00 to 6:00 he says. Same difference. It’s my engineer’s break! I remember when I told him to have a happy Thanksgiving he texted me back at 3:58 right in that time. I’m still pacing. I know he has to go. I’m being selfish I don’t want to let him go. But I have to et up early, too, not at 5:00 in the morning but close. I just love talking to him. I think it’s because this is the first interest that I’ve ever admitted to having or being absolutely curious about. I’ve always been curious about things but this train thing takes the cake. Do you know anyone that could help me by reading this story? To see what I should add or what’s not right? He thinks about this. Someone at Fullerton should know, he says. He’s right. Everyone there has been helpful. When I look at my story again I think I’ve gotten the basic concepts right. I just like to know that it’s read by people who know what’s really supposed to happen when signals get out of whack. He’s not going to do it. It’s fine. He’s still the best. Maybe someday he’ll read what I’ve written about him. If I ever get famous with my railroad stories, it will be because of him. Dave is educating me on my yards, I tell him. Then I tell him something I’ve always wanted to tell him. After Chatsworth, I say, when I came to the station, I always said I wanted to meet the engineer. They said well you’re not going to find one unless you go to the engine, and it took me a year, I explain. After that everyone was going to make sure I found you. Dave came over to take a look at you, he’s the one who moved to Fullerton to watch trains 40 years ago. I look at my paper trying to see if I’ve left anything out. So now he knows. Okay, I say, we’re done here, the big question was signals. There I more, I say, but this is it. So how are you doing? I ask him. Hanging in there, he says. It’s what men his age do; they hang in there. He’s a good guy. The conversation is over. I’m still confused, but less confused than I was before he unconfused me. Maybe I’m confusing him, I say. I don’t think so. I do ask him if he sees Mo. We haven’t seen her for a while. I’m the one who hasn’t been there too much because of later shifts, I explain, but they haven’t seen her either. Well, he (her husband) is retired and they were going to travel, he says. He talked to her a couple of months ago, but nothing since then. “She was wearing a wig,” he says. He’s the one she went to Los Angeles to see once and told him she had breast cancer. Oh, wait, I do say, I do have one more question. When you get to L.A. do you move the locomotives back to Taylor? I remember, I explain, that when you met me off the 607 that one morning when I went to go catch my train that you were still there so I didn’t know if you moved the trains or not. Sometimes another crew moves the trains, he says, sometimes he moves them. What happens is sometimes they start at one place then go to their second point then go back the other direction. It’s called wying the train, he says, and he’ll explain it next time. Well, I don’t get to the station as much as I used to and I haven’t been brave enough to get anyone else’s number, I tell him. I don’t get to see my engineers much so you’re the only one. Thanks for all your help. He doesn’t say anything. It is time for this conversation to be over. “This is my opportunity to make a mad dash,” he says. Yes, he still has to pack. I’ll think of him every Sunday night driving two hours to Lancaster. We keep trying to say bye but the phone is stopping us. I say something and he’s saying something to me. “I know,” I say. “I was about to tell you bye. Thank you, Glenn.” I don’t tell him he’s the best, but he is. “Bye,” I whisper. Bye, my sweet train engineer. The conversation is ended; worth the wait; my stress is worth the half an hour conversation I get. It’s the best. Don’t miss any signals, all my engineers, I would miss him. Tonight, Sunday December 5 is a cold, rainy night. He has a two hour drive and he still has to pack. I don’t get to ask him about a railroad grip, next time I’m going to ask him that, and about wying the train, and about who pays for accommodations when he’s at the away terminal. If my presentation seems a little disorganized, it probably is. I’m still on cloud 9. I go tot talk to my engineer and it was unexpected. He called me back! I’ll live on it the rest of my life, or at least until next time. The time as I finish this is 11:16 pm. I hope he’s at his point by now and can get some sleep. It is cold and rainy. Hopefully it’s not snowing on the Cajon pass, he says. Let’s hope not.
Copyright © 2010 Shelley Alongi |