She Likes Trains: Engineer Numbers Starting to meet all my engineers out of the cab. Everyone's super helpful. but, you're still the best one. when you leave the fleet you'll still be the best. :): His is the first number I got, and it’s been almost three years now. It is true. I am starting to meet them, and get their numbers. It’s been a long journey and it’s just the beginning. So, lineup guys, behind the number 1 engineer. Everyone is super helpful, but he is still the best. No matter. Bring them on. As one says once, I’ll get my chance. For now, I’m happy with just getting the numbers. “Hi, Shelley!” It’s Friday night, cool, crisp, I’ve worked all day, gone to Baja for dinner. Yes, I’m back there now, usually on Wednesdays and Fridays, and sometimes other days. But tonight is Friday, and I’ve made friends in a casual kind of way, with the cook. I tell him tonight he’s the best bean and cheese burrito maker, ever. So, who am I trying to butter up? I don’t’ know; not anyone, really. I just believe in complimenting people when I particularly enjoy something they do. Tonight, sitting here on the metal bench with the arm rests, feet from the front of the locomotive with its flat end and the rails stretching out before it, I get what I’ve wanted for so long, I get acknowledged by the engineer. I know this one. We have been talking on a regular basis, whenever he replaces my regulars on 608 or 606 and now 642 and 645. I’m learning that certain people run certain jobs when they’re available. And so, I don’t know all the Ocean Side extras, but I know the regular extras. Sometimes my conductor connection says he’s working with this one. This one, John, asks me, whenever I see him in his two minute stops, if I’ll be there tomorrow. There was a time when I was there more often, I hardly ever missed a day when Glenn was on the line though I don’t think I talked to him before he was on it six months. I think I got him the last six months. Circumstances have changed for me. I live further away, though I have the hours I want at Disney, I get up early and it sometimes takes a while to get home from the station. I sometimes get rides from one or two of the railfans, mostly wally, the talkative one. I don’t mind him; I find him amusing. On occasion we go to dinner. So far, he doesn’t let me pay. Kind of old fashioned, I guess. I always make a good effort, but so far I haven’t paid when I’m with him. When I first met him it took a while to get used to his constant chatter. But, I learned, interrupting was fine, and he is always good for a story or two. But he doesn’t make it on Fridays. I make reference to the fact that we haven’t seen him around much, lately. He’s been going other places, he says, something about a sister-in-law, and such things. It’s not like I’ve been there regularly, between running errands and not wanting to spend cab fare or make lon bus connections. lately. But, tonight, here I am after work. It is a cool, crisp evening, one of those chilly spring nights. I enjoy them and remember them fondly when summer nights become sultry and warm. This lovely Friday, April 27, I’ve made a special trip to the station. I have to catch this engineer, and luckily there is an extended lay over, or I may have missed him. My other train meets are gone by 7:10 or 7:15, but this train departs Fullerton at 7:45 and so tonight, I’m here with a mission. It seems years ago now that I stood at a similar spot with a similar mission. The mission at hand was the getting of a telephone number. Yes, telephone number from my favorite engineer. Now, I have four numbers and I don’t call them very much. However, I’m here on a mission, waiting for Jon to reappear on his way to hop up in the cab. In this secluded place, well, for me anyway, far from the action on the north side of paradise, I wait. conversation goes on behind us. In fact, one of the railfans tells me earlier as I’m walking to this spot that I need to turn around and go the other way. I ignore him. It always annoys me when people think they know where I’m going and try to give me directions to a place. I just ignore him and go on my way, taking my spot, waiting. A freight train passes behind us. Track 3 is separated from track 4 by a combination of a low brick wall and wrought iron fencing, they are parallel to each other, though 4 is a spur and 3 is the main track. This track connects to the switch, the Orange Sub, I think it is. If you walk to the end of this platform, there is a fence that keeps one from plummeting to the street below. The fence ends at the edge of the platform, and there is the rail stretching out endlessly, it seems. I’m not sittingnear the fencing tonight, the locomotive faces it. I’ not sure of any markers on the ground I’ll have to investigate that. For now, I sit here, waiting. “Hi, Shelley.” Here he is. “Are you riding with us?” “No,” I inform my regular extra. “I came here to find you. I really did come to find him. I knew he was on this job. “I lost your number!” Careless, Fullerton engineer girl. Indeed! Removing papers from my bag a few days earlier I discover that, oops, it ended up in the trash with my receipts and other various discarded items. This is a far cry from the care I took to get Glenn’s number, writing it down in my notebook, then writing it down again before putting it in my phone. It has transitioned between three phones, and in a box somewhere is a slip of paper with it written by hand. Now, this time, I have to get a number, again. This time I have the luxury of a second chance. Then, I didn’t. “Oh, no,” he ejects into the cool evening, over the clatter of the MPI. I always forget what number this engine is; it’s usually the same one, or a different EMD, but tonight it is this one, my despised MPI. I think I despise them because of the noise and they sound as if they’re going to fall apart. “More horse power,” Bobby keeps reminding me. “I know,” I keep repeating. It’s the same conversation overand over again when it comes to these things. “DO you have to run this locomotive?” I ask Pat once, intercepting him as he returns to his position. “Coming to hang out with Eddie?” he asks me. “NO. Just came to say hello. But do you have to run these things?” “If I want to get paid, I do,” he says wisely. “They’re quieter,” he says about the EMD when I tell him of my preference. He says something about having to climb up one of them like a monkey, but I don’t remember which one he’s talking about. I think it’s the PHI, the independent cab of the EMD he’s talking about. I’ll have to ask him again. But now, back to the number story. Three days earlier I’ve gotten Jon’s number, because he wants to go to Disneyland with his Chinese wife. He says she’s never been there. “Call me any time.” We talk about different ways to get there. He has done his homework. Well, if you wan to get into the hotels, let me know. Finally, I may have met someone who can afford those hotels. Or maybe if he has money, or if others I kno have it, it’s because they don’t spend it on Disney hotels. No matter. He gives me the number. Is there a discount for disabled veterans? He asks me. Disabled veterans, no. But I’ve learned a little more about him. He has a Chinese wife. And, he was in the military. Slowly but surely I get information from these guys, and it’s not always about trains. A Pampered Chef director I know told me once that I’m good at finding out about people, finding out who they are. I’m only good at it if the person interests me. I like stories. The clencher is, the story as to be attached to someone who does what I’m interested in, whether it’s trains or not. This is just my latest interest, and I don’t think it’s going away any time soon. It make take a hiatus on occasion, but it’s there, strong, and burning like a light not hidden under a bushel. Now, I hold out a pen and paper. He takes it from me and writes it down, again. “Are you riding with us?” “No. I don’t always do that. I pay my own fare I don’t have money to do that all the time.” “It adds up,” he says. “I just came here to find you,” I say again. And, I did. He prepares to hop up in the cab. I get up to return to the north side of paradise. These are my happiest moments, worth the wait every time. There’s just something about talking to these people that I enjoy. He gives me back my pen. We shake hands, his fingers delightfully warm against my cold ones. I haven’t noticed how cold they are till now. For me it’s a connection with the human running the machine, better than a picture. It is my picture. “Bye,” I say. It doesn’t realy matter who it is anymore, it’s always the same. I am learning the stories. One has a wife with to many cats. One has a daughter. This one has a Chinese wife. One has a wife and two little children. I have the numbers of the ones whose stories I know. One is on a second marriage and has two girls. I don’t have his number. It’s really fine. But if someone goes out of their way to give it to me, I shouldn’t lose it. So, I make the trip over to this side of the platform, a long way from sitting on the patio, wishing I knew some from this group. Two days later, on my break at work, between the microwave and the refrigerator, waiting for lunch, and with a dangerously low battery, I leave a message. I give him information he needs to get my discount. I don’t know if he’ll use it, but it’s there. I leave another voicemail a few days later but that’s for another story. This time, I put the number in my phone. I don’t always make it here as regularly as I used to. My trips to the station over the next few weeks are sporatic, but have a routine of their own. I sit in different spots, reading my book, fending off offers of assistance to walk where I’ve been a hundred times in the last three years. I go spend time at Knowlwood drinking soda and eating the world’s best hamburger. I don’t always goa cross and meet the engineers. I’m not sure why I don’t do that in the afternoon trains. I’ll have to go over to the south side some day in the next few weeks. I always just seem to try and make contact on the other side. Maybe it’s because there isn’t any fencing on that side blocking the locomotives. There is the construction of a parking structure and walk way going on and that chain-link fencing sometimes blocks access to the cab car on this side, unless I tread on the platform against the tracks. No, it’s ok, I’ll make contact on the other side. Besides, they have to ask me if I want the train. In fact, one does this on another cool Tuesday. “DO you need this train?” he asks from his lair. “No.”I am delighted. “I just come to talk to you guys. To the engineers.” “Oh. That’s nice,” he says. I smile. They always seem so surprised when I tell them that. “What’s your name?” “Carl,” he says. There, anther name for my book. My book of engineers. In a completely unrelated conversation, one engineer tells me that someone in management isn’t paying attention to “The rest of us.” This casual statement is so right on that I almost collapse in laughter in the parking lot of the shopping center as I make my way to my next errand, whatever it is on that day. My amusement is two fold: I know the feeling about management not paying attention, and, I, it seems, am always paying attention, at least to these guys. I have names of more I have to meet. So, I guess I should just get to it! Enjoy my books, my sodas, my lovely days at the station checking out the scenery on freights, and talking to my engineers. Back at track 4, I make my way to the end of the train, barraged by the mandatory teasing from Eddie, the conductor. “What are you doing here?” “Stocking your engineer!” “Oh, my God!” He feigns drama. I smile. No, not stocking, just getting the engineer number. Starting to meet all my engineers out of the cab. Everyone's super helpful. but, you're still the best one. when you leave the fleet you'll still be the best. :): His is the first number I got, and it’s been almost three years now. It is true. I am starting to meet them, and get their numbers. It’s been a long journey and it’s just the beginning. So, lineup guys, behind the number 1 engineer. Everyone is super helpful, but he is still the best. No matter. Bring them on. As one says once, I’ll get my chance. For now, I’m happy with just getting the numbers.
Copyright © 2012 Shelley J Alongi |