She Likes Trains: Train Struck "I hate trains. I hate my job. I hate my computer. I'm moving to Montana. Not necessarily in that order. Some days more than others for more than one reason. And, if you’re working this weekend tell people to stay the hell off the railroad tracks.” I don’t know what Glenn thinks of me, some days. Maybe he’s just amused, or maybe not. But, he always just takes it in stride. I really do admire him, especially even more if possible after October 19. After fatality number 8, an accident they’re calling it, you’re my double hero. It was a strange day at my job. That day, I took what was probably the hardest call I’ve had in seven years of working for Disney. A man wanted to take his children to Disneyland. This isn’t such an unusual request, but it turns out he was terminally ill. The wife was in tears and so I had to explain her package, help make arrangements for new dates, and generally help her make some decisions. I don’t think I’ve had such a hard call. In adition to that call, the day was just strange. Impatient people, strange questions, all the things that make up the kind of day we call a full moon kind of a day. I remember these things because it wasn’t as hard as what I dealt with for the next two weeks. I’m sure it must have felt like a full moon kind of a day for Metrolink train 269’s crew. Certainly, it wasn’t just another day in paradise. It might have felt like a full moon kind of a day in Palmdale at milepost 68.42, or just a sad one. On October 21, 2013, an exchange of text messages occurred between me and Glenn, confirming what I never suspected, though I knew about the incident. Whether or not he would have told me I do not know, nor do I care to speculate. The fact is, he did. I cried for weeks. And, it occurs to me now at this writing that when I advised my friend not to waste energy on the dead bicyclist, I failed to heed my own counsel. My advice to him was unsolicited and my response made me, after all is said and done, laugh. But, it took a while to get there. So, here’s the story of the first fatality on my own level involving my favorite engineer. I’ve gone to see bobby and Carey after their fatalities. But this one was my personal milestone. This isn’t a re telling of the accident details. I don’t really want those. It is, instead, the recount of a journey through the debris of a railroad accident. That is, after all, even if I disagree with Scott Johnson’s assessment of the bicyclist’s negligence, what they called it. First, the backstory. On Sunday October 20 I slipped off a curb on Brookhurst and Lincoln, injuring a well developed calf muscle. The half mile walk down Brookhurst was agonizing for me. And, as usual, for some reason, I always feel compelled to tell Glenn important things that happen to me. I’ve always been a trusting soul to those I trust and reserve with those I’m not sure I know. I don’t know Glenn extremely well but I do find him easy to talk to. Maybe it’s because he forgets things. I could speculate on that for pages. The current story is that coming home from work I took Advil and retired straight to the recliner. Monday, I listened to the railroad radio, but did not listen in the morning. So, I did not know when I texted glenn that he would respond right away. If I had known he wasn’t there I may have texted him earlier. Who is to say. Nevertheless on Monday October 21st I sat down around 8:50 PM and started the exchange that led me on this journey through my first fatality with him. S: injured walking home last night grounded 2 days rr radio and online hard life I guess take care #1 engnr. Stepped off a curb pulled a muscle it would happen to only me. G: Sore ankle hum sounds like an issue good luck with that Hop Along Oblivious of the paperwork and the events of Saturday October 19 I text back my answer to his teasing. He’s still teasing me even now. S:Cassidy thanks In the kitchen, I note the reply but am unsure of it, so returning to my phone after putting away some dishes I read the following message. G: I have my own issue worked sat hit the 22 year old on the bike who was trying to beat the train sad way to check out Stunned, I hold my phone. Two years earlier he has essentially warned me this day is coming. On Tuesday January 18, 2011 train 221 hit a man out of Sylmar. Not listening to the radio regularly at that time I did not know that Glenn was not on that train. The next day I called and got him. It turns out he was on vacation and missed that fatality. He talks to me that day about taking time off to go to a Rolling Stones concert and misses a fatality on 4, the train he is supposed to run that day. I remind him that when he went to Lancaster, leaving the Inland Empire line that the following Monday he missed a fatality on 708. “I’ll remember that next time,” he assures me. I don’t’ know if he remembers it, but I do. Now, that day is here and I’m devastated, not because of the bicyclist, but because my favorite engineer has now racked up, after missing two on my watch, fatality or accident number 8. Now, I respond to his message, hardly knowing what to say. S: 269 crap sorry the idiot exactly that train was coming I wouldn’t waste any energy on him I’m getting that way don’t mind How did I first learn about the incident? The Internet was my informant. In an age where information is prevalent, if not always correct, and communication is made easier and more available, it was inevitable that I would learn of the incident on Metrolink train 269, Antelope Valley line. Witnesses, according to the Antelope Valley Times, put the accident at about 7:10 PM. Glenn works this train sometimes on the weekends. On the day I learned of the incident I did not know he was working that Saturday. I was not listening to transmissions. I worked a full day and learned of it only after work while sitting at Varsity Burger, enjoying my favorite double bacon cheese burger with avocado. Since my fancy phone alerts me to all of Metrolink’s troubles, I let the information sift its way into my mind, thinking briefly that whatever crew worked that train would have their plans interfered with for the next three days, at least. I remember thinking oh, no, not again! Returning home, after my half mile walk from the bus stop on Brookhurst and Lincoln to my door I put my things away. Turning on the iPhone I plugged it in and tuned it to the Lancaster stream. In the back of my mind was the thought of whether I would hear any transmissions concerning the incident. I didn’t hear any of the transmissions, they were just before milepost 69.2. It is entirely possible that had I been listening around 6:38 PM, which is the time the first tweet was sent to my phone I would have heard those transmissions since the transmitters seem to pick up starting at CP Harold. I can’t say for sure. What I can say is that I did hear the relief engineer call milepost 69. At that time I was still unaware that Glenn had been its engineer. “We’re passed all that, now,” says the engineer to Valley Division dispatch broadcasting to anyone who cares to listen on the Internet. I don’t know what the question was. On Saturday October 19, according to an update posted on bikinginla, a blog hosted by thewordpress.com, Manuel Korea, the 22 year-old bicyclist Glenn mentions in his text to me, set out on a group ride with friends. Approaching the crossing at Palmdale Boulevard and Sierra Highway, milepost 68.42, the gates down and the train approaching, he foolishly decided to try and beat that train. It didn’t happen. A train moves very quickly at any speed, and he did not beat it. No, another blogger insists, the witness who was on the train was wrong, and Mr. Korea, the deceased, in fact, did not participate in a group ride. You obviously might have been on the train he writes caustically, but you were not there. He was a block and a half behind a friend when he decided to try and outrun the Metrolink train and disregarded the crossing gate. Blame for the incident rests squarely on the shoulders of others according to many of the bloggers: the railroad for not providing gates that raise far enough to allow people to know, in the case of another bicyclist killed a week earlier by a train on the San Bernardino line, that another train is coming. Not sure, in the logic of logic, why the rider would need to know if a train is coming or not when the gate is dropped even slightly. As usual in most if not all situations it is easy and common to blame everyone except the rider for the accident. “Did they lynch the engineer?” Dave at the train station asks when I tell him that I spent all night soon afterward reading the blog and the reports I could find online. “No,” I reply with emotion. “No. I wouldn’t have stood for that. And, it was actually some of the most coherent writing I’ve read after an accident.” Rereading some of these entries shifts my position slightly on the coherency of the writers. However, the arguments, the opinions and the sentiments remain the same. Traffic laws, and perhaps the bicyclist coming from an area with lights and buildings, and wearing a headset, caused him not to hear or see the train or perhaps to think that maybe he should continue to outrun it. All this is speculation at this point. No one knows what the bicyclist was thinking. What seemed to be going on in the blog is the search for someone or something to blame other than the bicyclist for taking the mislaid courage to outrun a metrolink train. And, of course, I had to get my two cents in there. On October 29 I posted the last entry to date. Either people just got bored and walked away to another biking subject, or, I had the last word. If the bicyclist was wearing headphones, if he was following a group or wasn't, if he lagged behind his friend, or even if he didn't, he clearly was not acting in a responsible manner. If bicycle behavior is strictly dictated by California law, or if the man did not have an ounce of hate in his body, and if he left a daughter behind, he injured someone else that day: my friend the engineer on that train. Railroad rules state that blowing the horn for the crossing and ringing the bell are actions that would indicate the eminent approach of that train. Your last act on that day by ignoring the dropped gates and the approaching train, was to injure my friend. I am sure on some level it did injure my friend. We haven’t talked about it. I doubt if we’ll talk about it for a while. Perhaps I’m the one reluctant to talk about it. He is the one who told me that the accident was at Palmdale Boulevard. He also took the emotion out of it by saying that accidents happen sometimes. My interest in it is because I know the engineer whose train hit that bicyclist. But, he also did say two years ago in that conversation where I reminded him of missing a fatality at State College, that accidents do make him feel bad. So, on some level, I am sure it did not go unnoticed. On the day glenn returns to work, Thursday October 24, I have my worse moments. I’m tearful for days, not thinking of the bicyclist, but thinking of my friend who is probably fine. After forty years of dealing with these things I know he has methods in place for dealing. How do you not think about the fact that someone’s grave stone has a name of someone killed by a train that you were running? You take the emotion out of it, just as he does. Glenn is such a kind person, he does have a heart, so how he keeps those types of thoughts at bay I’m sure I’m bound to find out at some point. It is me who needs the three days off. For two weeks I’m between tears and imbalance, trying to call him and not getting any response. It doesn’t really concern me because if he has time he’ll talk to me and if not, he won’t. I don’t see him till November 27, and I didn’t know in June when I began to plan for my second trip to Lancaster that I’d see my friend after fatality number 8. I was surprisingly calm on that trip and you can read all about it in “The Little Engineer that Couldn’t.” But, between October 19 and October 31 I’m just heartbroken, this time not by the railroad, but by the fact that someone once again proved their brilliance by not obeying the rules of the railroad track. Between trying to contact him and getting my work done I leave one message about what I don’t remember. "I hate trains. I hate my job. I hate my computer. I'm moving to Montana. Not necessarily in that order. Some days more than others for more than one reason. And, if you’re working this weekend tell people to stay the hell off the railroad tracks.” I’ve known, of course, that there are fatalities every year across lines. Many times people step deliberately in front of trains or their cars get stuck on the tracks or they park them there. It isn’t any news to me when I receive a text or hear of a person stepping in front of a train. Yet it never fails to confound me as to why they do this. Aren’t they afraid of getting hit by something that is so much larger than they are? A friend of mine upon hearing the news of the bicyclist said to me don’t they know that you would get thrown just by the train hitting the tire? In one incident a few years ago, the fatality that Glenn missed, the man parked his car in the parking lot of a building near the tracks, and stepped in front of the train, losing a shoe, it landed quite a ways from the tracks. The strangest things happen in accidents involving trains and people. This piece of information was given to us by Andy the Metrolink agent at the time. I don’t even want to think of what happened in this accident. Sometimes, images will install themselves in my head and stay there for days, sometimes for minutes at a time, perhaps like a freeze frame on a camera. This happened after the Chatsworth accident. I visualized what that engineer’s face must have looked like when he realized he was going to be hit by a freight train. Dave says if he even knew what hit him he may have only known it for a second. Tests done by two engineers after the accident suggest that on that particular stretch of track two engineers could see each other only a matter of second before impact. Sometimes the image that stays in my head from this accident is that moment of impact, a train kissing a bike, contacting hands and handle bars and who knows. It’s not something I really want o think about. And, then, I always wonder, did Glenn see that guy? Some say, probably. I haven’t asked him. I’m not sure at this point when I’ll be able to ask him. He’ll probably answer the question. I’m the one who will agonize over asking it. I agonize over asking about his friend who was killed on the Chatsworth train. That was someone closer to him. This was some guy who didn’t look when he crossed the railroad tracks. Something, then, that also forms itself in my head is apparently the sister of the deceased on the blog asked for donations for the funeral. So, that many can get the funeral he deserves, she writes, if indeed it is she who represents herself on the bikinginla blog. How can she have the nerve to ask for donations when many feel that he was at fault? I do not know if she got any response. Certainly, the railfans and perhaps the engineers would not do that. I do not know. Maybe they would. But, I thought it was callus of her to post an entry asking for money for a man who was clearly in the wrong. Like I told Glenn and decided I didn’t want to talk about it on that trip to Lancaster: “You don’t wear a headset and try to beat a train.” If I ever end up in front of a train I hope someone stops me. And, if they don’t, they have every right to call me stupid, because, I know better. The witness who was apparently on train 269 that Saturday holds, in his post, the group riders who darted across the tracks responsible for his friend’s death. I think the bicyclist himself should bear the full burden. As Glenn said in his message to me: sad way to check out. For sure. No matter how much I analyze the intellectual and logical part of this event I still have my process to experience. It reaches its final finish on Thursday October 24 when Glenn returns to work. I hear him in the morning repeating his Metrolink 208 to Valley sub routine. Perhaps this is what finishes it for me. Tearful most of the week except during work hours I know tonight I have to return to trains to deal with their immortal display of power. Returning to the station that night I notice one thing that is different from the last time I came there after a fatality that Glenn missed. At that time I found the power of the trains comforting. For the briefest of moments this time I found them to be very distressing. The horn from the Amtrak, the clang of the bell, the overwhelming power of the Genesis locomotives on the freights struck discordant notes. Escaping into the Santa Fe café I ordered dinner and sat down at the same table where I made the first call to Glenn. I looked at my fancy phone and returned a call from my apartment manager. Behind on rent, deciding whether or not to get a roommate, dealing with the lack of work on my second job, I realize during the conversation that I can’t deal with this now. Polite, courteous, I tell her I will come in and discuss this later after doing some research and making some arrangements. I am, for some reason, very close to tears. I just don’t’ like the fact that someone with a vast amount of experience had to deal with this again. I don’t pretend to understand my emotions at this point. Maybe it is a combination of things, but I know the place I need to go is to track 4. Somehow, isolated and still close it will afford the best comfort even if the locomotive is an MPI. I pick up my bags and head over to that side of the station. On the wrought iron bench, warm breezes, a car starting up in the distance, the sounds of traffic on Lemon, perhaps a freight or two and the arrival of the Amtrak on track 1 all punctuate my tears, my endless question. I’ve always asked why things are. I can never just accept them as they are. Why did Glenn have to work on Saturday? Why did that guy have to ride across the tracks? We can’t ask him. We might know why Glenn worked on Saturday. Why can’t I just ask him these questions? Why won’t he call me back? I know he’s busy or doesn’t want to or have time to talk to me. It’s no problem, really. Once I tell him almost tearful on his voicemail that I am acting like a child. I know you’re fine. I just want to talk to you for five minutes. Please, forgive my impatience. Why am I always begging this man for his time? It’s strange, really. I’ve never quite been this way about anything or anyone. What is so different about the railroad? Am I a drama queen? Only when it suits me, I think. Otherwise, I’m content to sit back and observe everyone’s drama. I know we’ll talk. We always do. I’m just exhibiting a high amount of impatience. I know that. Maybe that’s how Glenn is, too? Maybe he just waits for my infatuation to take its course. Maybe he’s seen this a hundred times. And, yet, he’s the one who told me about it. I don’t know if he would have told me without my texting about my slight injury. He may have told me, it just would have been at a different time. “He probably knew you would find out,” Dave says practically. I don’t see how I would have found out. Though, I might have called. I don’t know if Glenn remembers the last two conversations we had about fatalities. He has grown up children who take his time and his money and whatever else they take from him. He has things going on. I’m not number 1. He doesn’t have to call me back. And, really, I don’t know what I would ask or say. And, why should he say anything? Really, I only ask why. If I make a million railroad friends I will get this story a million times. And, yet, perhaps this one is the most important. Sitting here on the bench, train 642 approaches. I do not know its conductor or engineer. I only know that they come to rest, one of them passes me, no one asks me about my emotional state. If James would have been there he might ask me. And, I would have just explained that Glenn had a fatality and it bothered me. But, he isn’t there. I know that I can’t deal with anything else till I just sit here and get this all out of my system. It breaks around 7:00 and I skip the visit to 608, or do I stand there curiously? I don’t remember now. Maybe I do skip it since I stood tearfully by 606’s cab with no response from its engineer. I make my way over the stairs now and find the guys sitting at the east end of the platform. “I’m crying because my engineer had a fatality,” I explain. “Whatever the reason it doesn’t matter. Just let it be.” No one says anything. We’ve all been through this a hundred times. After this, after the research and the tears and the apologies for my own perceived troubles, I can deal with the rest of my complications. The mood breaks on Monday October 28 when I go to Universal Studios for the VIP tour courtesy of Walt Disney Travel and Universal Studios. It is something different; not the same work and sleep routine. It helps focus my mind on something different; a picture by the Munster house, riding the Simpsons and Jurassic Park rides, taking the rickety bridge tour, seeing the downed power lines, a set from the movie Earthquake. The day is full of fun and food, and after that, I begin to settle down into a routine that has developed over the weeks and months of employment and train watching. To this date I haven’t seen any reports about the accident. I’m sure I would have to go to a railroad source to see what I really want. Eventually I will do that. But, what’s new about a train hitting a bike? Isn’t it the same physical properties? Train hits bike. Bike and rider are dispensed with summarily. If this seems a heartless manner in which to approach the question, perhaps it’s the only way to deal with it successfully. Glenn, in Los Angeles, between tracks 4 and 8 or whatever track we come in on that day before Thanksgiving, summarizes it best. “It was an accident. Sometimes things like that happen.” But, some days, I still hate trains, I hate my job, I hate my computer, and I’m moving to Montana. And, anyone, really, when you’re out there riding or walking or driving and you approach railroad tracks, stop, look, listen. Don’t try to beat the train. And, for my sake, and that of my crews, stay the hell off the railroad tracks.
Copyright © 2013 Shelley J Alongi |