She Likes Trains: Flirting With The Locomotives
Shelley J Alongi

 

Where am I on this journey into trains or railroading and what will I learn. Where will it take me? Will it take me to a race track? Tonight, before starting this entry in my railroad journal, I’ve asked to be on Glenn’s son’s fan update list. He races trucks for ASA. In the back of my head I’ve always wanted to go to a race. The last one I went to was boring; I was young; it was either stock cars or funny cars. My mom loved funny cars. It would be fun, I think, to go to a race where I actually knew someone who knew someone who was involved with racing. So where will this journey take me? In this age of texting and Internet connectivity, who knows! I may be about to find out.

It is a warm, balmy evening this Friday January 14. It’s the first time I’ve been to the station since just before new Year’s Eve. Work hours and a transcription job have conspired to keep me away, for the opportunity to earn a pay check always inspires energy in a different direction, especially when I’m trying to keep on top of financial things. “OT today and then finish a 60 page transcript for my other job,” I text Glenn last Friday. “yea for the overachiever.” But who s the overachiever? Is it me? Glenn? Or his son? Tonight though isn’t really about overachieving, it’s about relaxing, taking it all in, and getting another hair of the dog that bit me two years ago: trains.

Tonight is the first night that many of the regulars have been together, since Dave Norris it turns out has been sick, and then had company for the holidays. The younger fans dot the platform looking at their computer.

“Is anything coming?”

I’m breaking into the conversation, idling my way down the platform, inserting myself into the railfan aura. The biggest difference between tonight and the night when I sat under the awning asking Glenn by text message what his favorite Christmas carol is and this night is probably the weather. The rest of the country is snuggling under fleece blankets and we’re putting away umbrellas and getting out shorts and T shirts. Don’t be jealous, I’d rather have the rain. I enjoy the rain. I’m sure my men of the railroad are happy for the nicer weather. I haven’t seen my men of the railroad for two weeks and tonight as bus 47 lets me off at dock number 4 I hurry over to the other side to meet my train, 608, at 7:04. Train 4 with its throbbing locomotives pulls under the bridge as I cross it, pushing its diesel exhaust up to us. Kids hang on the rails, wide-eyed at the big Genesis locomotives with their blue an white color scheme. I don’t’ know the engine numbers tonight, I only know that people don’t ask me if I need help finding the bridge and I guess I don’t because I make it over in time to line up for my train meet. Train 4 sits, blocking Dave Norris’s view of the engine and its number, but when 608 pulls to the six car marker on this comfortably cool evening, I have no clue to its number, only that the engineer has the right one, the gentle bell greets me, and the engineer is silent.

“Do I recognize you?” I walk up to the locomotive, the yellow safety line that isn’t yellow under my feet, waving my hand across its window, and get no response. I haven’t’ been here for two weeks. Sometimes Bobby takes Time off. I step back, waiting. The train idles, reminding me of those pre vocal days when all I had was a question bout whether or not the engineer saw me. Now that I know what they do up there in those cabs, I know the engineer sees me tonight. There is no verbal communication, and really that’s fine, but there’s always a bit of disappointment now because I’ve grown so used to the interactions. There’s no click of an opening window, just the idling of the FP59, the waiting. I stand in full view of that locomotive’s operator, holding my new Disney bag. It is a small black and silver one with Mickey heads on it, with a handle that can be adjusted to fit snugly under one’s arm or hang further down. It is a versatile little thing, something I’ve been looking for, it seems, for over a year, something I can take with me anywhere and easily reach my essentials, phone, keys, ID, money, and bus pass. It fits easily into my red and black backpack which fits snugly over my shoulders now. I am with bags, it seems, like anyone with a job, you always need the right tool for the job and my variety of bags is endless. At some time, they all accompany me to my train meets. In my left hand against my forearm rests a giant soda cup from Del taco, and my cane, nothing to give me away as a train fan, really. I don’t wear any train apparel, I’m not carrying a yellow railroad bag. I only have my love standing by the tracks, the ones I hate to cross, the idling FP59, and a silent engineer.

“A new friend?” I wonder later to my Face book page. “We will see.”

Who knows. The engineer gets the highball, starts to pull the train away, hesitates, I do not wave, I don’t want to confuse the engineer, let them figure it out. I’m just standing here sucking on my straw, not sure if I’m nervous or not. I might be nervous but only about meeting one engineer. It’s been so long since I met my number one engineer, and things are so different now. I work later shifts, I don’t’ show up as consistently and so sometimes I don’t’ know who will be on my train. I haven’t gotten any new contact information. Every locomotive operator is different, they’re not all going to put their heads out the window and give me their phone numbers, or ask me if I’m standing in the rain, or tell me I should be at home, dry, out of the rain. No, Amtrak is looking for introverts Glenn says, and so it may be that I found an introvert, or it may be that I have to give this one time. Time seems to be passing now, the train pulls away, and I head back to the bridge in the quiet night, remembering that it was this time last year that Glenn went to Riverside and I was left on the platform distraught and anguished for all my own reasons. They had nothing to do with the engineer, or did they? Well not in a physical kind of way, only an emotional one stemming back to September 12, 2008 when Metrolink train 111 met Union pacific train 6512B, and not successfully. . Read all about it in “Heartbroken by the Railroad.”

It seems that Bobby was bumped once before and so it may be that he has been bumped again. If my schedule allows, I will find out soon enough.

I head back over the bridge now, looking for familiar faces, going to stand with the younger railfans all discussing rail pictures that they’ve submitted to railpics.com and have been rejected. Ken, the father of one of the teenage railfans whose name happens to be Shelley, and I talk about the merits of hamburgers. We discover that we both have an affinity for the In and Out burger. We discuss marketing, responsibility for this or that, and then I make my way down to the group I’ve not seen in a while, the usual group, Tom the schoolteacher, Jeff, the one who says I would be married before the end of 2010, who, it also seems, has been sidelined for the last three months with a kidney stone and company. Jim, a retired school teacher has just had a pacemaker put in, and so it appears everyone has had some kind of event which has kept them away from our beloved trains. Dave has been sick, it’s been cold and damp, and then his brother visits from out of town. Dave, I learn from Kathy is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma. My father comes from Oklahoma City, I say, and the conversation turns to family ties. There aren’t any, but once again I’ve found another connection between trains and common roots. Trains may just be the thing that unite America and no one knows it. Maybe in this age of technology that keeps us isolated in our offices and bedrooms, living rooms and even outside on our cell phones, train watching provides a place where people can still get together and engage in self discovery and reconnect with each other.

the railroad show where I bought my first switch key, Dave informs me, is February 13, he says. I remember that day last year, Sunday February 14, being overwhelmed by all the things people collect from the railroads, then calling glen and then heading down to the station to wait for train 4 hoping he would call me back. He didn’t that day. I’m still talking to him. Interesting!

What’s interesting now is that I think I’ve decided to buy more switch keys, simply because I want to hang them on my bag and I’m emotionally attached to the switch keys that hang on my lanyard and don’t want to put them anywhere else. All the keys I carry now are attached to an engineer in some way. The only one that really doesn’t have an engineer attached to it is the Chicago & Northwestern key, the coolest key, some say. Maybe it does have an attachment because it helped restore the Glenn magic the week after that drama in March. The Union pacific key represents Rob Sanchez who ran freight for the railroad before running Amtrak and then Metrolink trains till his death in September 2008. Cary and bobby ran freight for the Southern Pacific, and Glenn for the Santa Fe, those two keys hang on my necklace, cuddled by silver and brass bells. I need some new keys, ones that I actually want to put on my bags. I think really I just like the keys! A lady at work likes the keys too. She asks me once what they were for and now has something to look for at garage sales, she says. I tell her about the railroad show. Wonder if she’ll be there? I know I will.

I take my seat on the bench behind Jeff and settle in for the long ritual. The little brass bell on my bag rings, drawing the attention of Ninja who now shows up with her Master, Robert the attorney. The bell attached to a tag that says Do You Know A Great Service Fanatic? Hangs on the metal clasp of the Disney bag, and now Ninja looks for food. Maybe she spies the Del taco cup sitting at my right foot. Robert asks if I had a meat burrito. No, I didn’t, I say. He laughs. Ninja is on a quest; a quest my cats understand: food. Finding none they head on over to Ninja’s favorite spot. Freights come and flirt with us, blowing their horns, clattering across the welded joint on the rails, pushing up their winds, warmer tonight, greeting the foamers, the night, the kids. Locomotives are the topic of discussion. What will happen to the shells of the super Liners? Will they be used as body shells for the new engines? The F-40s, including locomotive 800 sometimes brought in by Metrolink, are powered off the engine that supplies the power, set at a high throttle setting, Tom explains. I keep telling him that 800 is an old Sd40, but he thinks I’m saying 800s as in the Amtrak series. Someone who comes up to our group rescues me by telling him I’m talking about locomotive 800 from Metrolink. Thank you nameless person, a person I’ve noticed before but whose name currently escapes me. Union Pacific has bought a bunch of Sd40s they say. Amtrak seems to have begun a litany of repainting their locomotives every few years. Those dirty, grunt locomotives, romantic, inspiring endless hours of conversation, the engineers climbing up and down those ladders handling the dirty streaked hand rails with their gloves. Some of those lusty locomotives may not be getting regular visits to the wash racks, but they are all properly respected by old and young alike. Dirty, glorious machinery, whatever their color, whatever their converted number. Sd45 becomes 8700s, Sd40s are still running strong, and here we all are giving up a good dose of Friday night TV for a dirty, wind streaked, care-worn, love struck machine that holds my Alfa cat engineer and all the rest of my crews, all my nameless prince charmings, the engineer of my dreams, the right one whatever number he sports wherever he is. Tonight he’s heading home from Lancaster, still running the train as I sit there taking it all in; at least I think he is; I hope he is. I haven’t talked to him since December 5 and I haven’t gotten a text from him since December 24. No matter. He is my love; he is doing what I expect him to do. If he wasn’t I’d be wondering. “It’s okay,” I tell him once, “I know you’re not sitting around waiting for my calls.” My high-strung overachiever, my love on the rails; tonight is a good night. All my men of the railroad are off plying their trade, and here I am, just enjoying all of it. While they rock the rails and talk to dispatch, keeping a diligent watch for signals, ease the trains to a resting position and rub their eyes in anticipation for the weekend, the conversation turns to two station characters of notable dimension.

Agosto and Bolder, now there’s a combination you can’t refuse! Someone asks if they have both met. Yes, Curt says, he has pulled up on his bike, and joins the conversation. Occasionally someone walks by heading for the parking lot, the Amtrak slides in, the horn gives a robust, deliciously lush blast, there is an extra train on the weekends and the one we usually watch for is late tonight. Amid all this waiting and wondering, curt describes the meeting of the two station characters. They walk toward each other; they pause, exchange words, and go on. It’s the makings of a good boxing round, they say, hinting that I have the bell, I can be the referee. I give the bell a good jingle just for show. Yeah, they say, these two station characters, one who regularly gets restraining orders and one who always talks incessantly and tries to start trouble are now the subject of the ever shifting wind of conversation around here. From locomotives to boxing matches, politics to life changes, indisposition to engineers, it’s all covered tonight. Someone mentions something about getting sick while I am talking to Kathy about retiring or being tired, or what happened over the holidays. Sick? Who got sick? I never quite figure out what that conversation is about, but the freights come and comfort us, call to us, the locomotives streak past, the journey continues, and soon it is time to leave.

Diesel Dave gives me a ride home. His topic of conversation on the way home is a fifty cent cassette he got at the thrift store today, a Jimmy Swaggart tape. He talks about how after the big scandal when the preacher was picked up with prostitutes he couldn’t listen to that music. He seems to have no trouble now. The only song I can remember was one about life being like a mountain railroad with an engineer that’s something. Yeah, they’re something. Dave rattles on about them and I listen. I work in the morning. Tonight is my only trip in the previous two weeks to the station. It’s all good, it’s all social, informative, and one more step on my journey into railroading.

Where am I on this journey into trains or railroading and what will I learn. Where will it take me? Will it take me to a race track? Tonight I’ve asked to be on Glenn’s son’s fan update list. He races trucks for ASA. In the back of my head I’ve always wanted to go to a race. The last one I went to was boring; I was young; it was either stock cars or funny cars. My mom loved funny cars. It would be fun, I think, to go to a race where I actually knew someone who knew someone who was involved with racing. So where will this journey take me? In this age of texting and Internet connectivity, who knows! I may be about to find out.

 

 

Copyright © 2011 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"