Metrolink111: Assist At Chatsworth “Are you listening to train traffic?” The midafternoon, fifteen minutes after the Metrolink111 was to arrive in Chatsworth that day, was quiet and warm. The yellow safety stripping stretched out to our left, the metal gated shelter over the benches protected us only slightly from the heat, a gentle breeze cooled the three men and one woman that sat or stood listening to the rail fan’s scanner. “Yeah,” said the oldest man there. “It’s on its way.” “Is the Metrolink late?” I asked the knot of railroad fans, still not sure they were rail fans but pretty sure, but mainly certain because of the sound of radio transmissions coming to me a little further down the platform. Putting away the cooler with fruit and soda and water, and gathering my “Railroad trains on the web” yellow shoulder bag I approached the group sitting there, holding Rob Sanchez’s memorial plaque in one hand, my cane in the other. “May I listen, too?” I asked tentatively, still not sure how to ask the burning question, the question that had been in my mind since the day I had decided to go to Chatsworth and find a spot for this plaque, now two months in its making. “Yeah. I don’t’ understand it all,” said the man who I learned was Bob. Bob explained that he was a HAM operator. “Oh I have a friend who is a HAM operator,” I said, starting to get a little more comfortable. “What frequency is it?” I had always wanted to know. “60.45” or some such point. Standing there in my tennis shoes and “This shirt is made from plastic bottles” logo, and five year-old gauchos, I held Rob’s plaque in both hands, my fingers clenched on the plastic sheet protecting the plaque. “Do you mind taking a look at this picture and telling me if you recognize him?” The three men obviously laid back, not in a hurry, and not minding, took a look at it. “That’s Rob Sanchez,” one of them said, “the one in the accident last September.” I stood there, nervous. It had been a long morning and a shorter afternoon. Having made my reservations online to go to Chatsworth I had arrived at the fullerton train station, eaten a double cheeseburger and tried to enter the conversation of three rail fans who usually showed up in the morning according to Jose. I didn’t really want to do that but I needed a distraction. Besides it is the custom for railfans there to insert themselves into the conversation. Quiet, cool, gently breezy, the station sounds were familiar, KRTH gently wafting its musical reminders of yesterday to us from the café radio, absolutely no trains, the occasional rattle of the Amtrak PA system which someone seems to have always left on. Then there was the train, the line to get in the coach car, the conductor in his blue and white striped suit (if it got the color right), cheerfully asking “Where are you going Princess?” Princess? I’m on vacation from Disney, don’t remind me of a princess I thought but didn’t get upset because after all he was a conductor and this was an Amtrak train an I was headed to Chatsworth. “Do you want to take my arm?” he asked me. I was game, not sure why, maybe it was his personality. “You’re all dressed up,” I said. “I’ll take it.” The conductor gave a chuckle. “Too bad I’m not the conductor,” he said showing me a seat and placing the seat check that said I was getting off at Chatsworth. Finally, I was heading there. It seemed on the train in the car with the woman constantly chattering to another woman with a heavy accent, that everyone reminded me I was heading to Chatsworth. A man who had been sitting upstairs was now downstairs and forgot to move his seat check. The woman with the heavy accent was going to Chatsworth, she didn’t quite know where it was. Someone needed help at Chatsworth, or was it me that needed help, the conductor told someone there was an assist at Chatsworth. The chattering woman who had just lost her husband four years earlier and who had spent the weekend in San Diego with friends going to the zoo and to a place that had an absolutely wonderful brunch, got off at Glendale, quieting the car and leaving most of us Chatsworth bound, and me in my state of over anxiousness, a state which usually prevails when I’m out to accomplish something. Today, Monday June 29, the project was to go to Chatsworth and find the rail fans and see if they recognized the picture of Rob Sanchez, the plaque which stood in my railroad bag, waiting for a spot. By the time the train clattered and rocked its way to Glendale, I decided I couldn’t change my mind. Yes, I was headed to Chatsworth. “Where do you want to hang that?” asked one of the guys now on the Chatsworth platform. “I’m not sure yet.” I explained that I was looking for a place, that I had made the plaque in April and I couldn’t get down her till now, and did they had any ideas. Chris Castle, I found out his name later, said he’d love to see it hang in the depot here, but it was a city owned building I’d have to ask the Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce or the councilman’s office, Grieg Smith. We discussed the memorial planned in Simi Valley, Chris wasn’t sure where they were going to put it, I said in the grassy area just across from the Metrolink station on Los Angeles Avenue. About that time the signal bell warning of an approaching train began to sound and soon the Metrolink 111, Rob’s train, the one that would have arrived that afternoon at 4:16 pm, sat next to us, I could have reached out and touched it. The bell clanged and in a moment after Bob came out of the open door, the famous 111 was off, no red light impeding its progress today. In fact that very same red light, the one that Rob Sanchez apparently missed on that day, was going to be red, the conductor told us, though he didn’t mention the part about Rob missing it. “Oh, the famous red light,” I said, stepping off the train in Chatsworth. “Yeah,” the conductor said. “The one where he was far tin around on that bipod thingy or whatever it was.” I don’t remember my reaction now, I probably said “yeah” or something. Seems like people always respond to the Metrolink111 crash in some kind of way whenever I’m holding that memorial plaque. “I don’t know where to hang it,” I now told Chris and Bob and the other Chris. “Maybe by the machine.” That’s when they told me there was a depot here with seating nod restrooms, and there was indeed, I just hadn’t discovered it yet. When I arrived at the station I had walked to one end of the platform to see what the layout of the station was, then come back to the benches. A black child and a woman waited behind me for someone who rived in a Diesel powered truck, and then I heard the scanner. First of all sitting there waiting I ate from my cooler and wondered if my trip today would be fruitless. Even if I didn’t discover the rail fans I could at least say I did my homework and I came to the station where it started that day. Then that telltale sound, and I knew that I had most likely found who I was looking for. It turned out to be Chris Castle and Bob in the paper, the ones the company had investigated the accident had talked to and whose statements appeared in the paper. “I don’t have any ill will or any ulterior motives,” I explained. “I just wanted to do this for him. I think he got a bad rap.” They agreed. Bob noticed the little dog, the Italian greyhound. Chris said it was Lopez and cannel of the times who dug up dirt on Rob Sanchez. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since September,” I said. “It gets to you,” Chris Castle said, looking at the plaque. “That’s amice picture. It’s very admirable of you to do that.” They all liked the picture. Chris Castle said that sometimes he saw Rob at quarter to eight in the morning when the train came through there. Bob talked to Rob mostly, they talked about the Italian greyhounds, Bob asked the engineer why he had four of them. “He was by all accounts a friendly guy,” I said about Rob Sanchez. “Very friendly,” Chris Castle affirmed. There weren’t anymore trains while we stood there. Chris said I should talk to Marcella, the owner of the Whistle Stop there in the station. Marcella might take it and it would be appropriate to hang the plaque in Chatsworth because people knew him and it was closer to the crash site they said. I agree. I told them I had tried to get it hung at Fullerton but I thought it was probably more appropriate to have it displayed at Chatsworth. Chris, the security guard, the one who would help me find my train later, said it was time for him to eat lunch, the other Chris had to go finish lunch, and bob departed the scene shortly after the Metrolink111 left the Chatsworth station. I had seen the Metrolink111, the bell was the same construction or sound of the one on some of the Metrolink locomotives that come through Fullerton, I didn’t ask the locomotive number. But apparently I got Chris on the day he goes to the station. Apparently he’s only there once a week now. Wonder if I’ll see him on Tuesday when I go again to talk to Marcella. This time I’m going business class. Wonder who I’ll meet in business class? The return trip was just as interesting if in a different way. I sat in the Chatsworth depot, the cool air conditioning protecting us from the heat, the clang of the steel exit door echoing in the depot almost like what I might consider the sound of a prison door clanging to be like. It was final and loud and echoed in the room with no carpet and high ceilings. I drank my soda, ate more nectarines and waited. At 7:11, when the train was late and on track one, Chris showed me where to get the train and I found an entirely different conductor, vivacious and who asked me if I wanted to sit in the café car or the coach car. I chose the café and while I was there I had a jalapeno cheeseburger for $4.00 and a $2.00 Diet Pepsi. That would make the third Diet soda of the day and that night I still managed to get some sleep. For now in the café car, it was cold, and Linda was the attendant. I mentioned the plaque. But first I noticed that the horn seemed loud and distinctive. “Where’s the locomotive?” I asked. “Half a car length away,” she said. “Oh, cool I did want to sit behind the locomotive.” “Well, you’re as close as you can get without sitting next to him,” she said chuckling. “Well,” I said. There was an idea. The conductor sat there chattering to another passenger, part of the train crew, jingling his keys, calling out signals with the engineer, whose name was Jason, I learned from listening. “Hey Mr. Conductor,” I said. Come here. Can I see your key ring?” I’ve always been curious about what keys they carry. He didn’t have a ticket puncher. There was a skeleton key for the coach cars, a long, round key that looked like a tube filled in for cabinets he said, and several switch keys. I learned something new. I didn’t realize that he might carry keys to operate switches on the tracks North of L.A. because we change railroads, he said. I did not know that. So today I did learn something new about trains! Linda wanted to see the plaque and she said it was really nice and nice of me to do that. She would be curious to see how that came out because opinions would get stronger as litigation came out. He was at fault she said. I’ve never denied he was texting or had been violating policy. I just think the man needs a plaque commemorating his death, too. I thought her comments were inciteful; I appreciated them. She said that many of the trainc rews knew who he was because he worked Amtrak trains but not necessarily friends with him. “It’s Chatsworth that made me a rail fan,” I said. “It grows on you,” she said. Then we talked about cats. She said her cats live in the garage, sometimes she’s gone six to eight days at a time and they fend for themselves. I could hear conductor and Jason calling out signals and then it was time to enter L.A. Union station, track 9, the conductor said. They thought they might have to go in on the east bank. I don’t know what that was all about but I’ll learn. “I hate going there,” said the conductor animatedly. He called someone and confirmed it was track 9, a decision he seemed to be happier about, I think. I guess Jason obliged, because soon we were there and I had to wait for another train. “We’ll take you,” the conductor had told me earlier. I was on an earlier train and still had to wait in L.A. but the wait wasn’t too long and then it was a quiet ride home, I was the only one in the car, my dad called to ask if we could celebrate my birthday on July 11, and then I told him I was heading home from Chatsworth. “Did you find out anything?” he asked me. Sometimes when I tell people I’m heading to Chatsworth to try and find a spot for this plaque I’m sure they forget. I’m always surprised when they remember. Climbing the stairs to the pedestrian bridge, I find my way to the planter I usually frequent by the tracks in Fullerton on the north side and relax. I have a few minutes till the bus arrives. A freight train comes through and then I’m off to the bus. Curt is there. “Did you find out anything through investigative reporting?” he asks me. Here’s another person who remembers why I went to Chatsworth. Even Jose remembered why I was heading to Chatsworth. Sometime, someday someone is going to remember and help me find a spot for this plaque. That’s another story. I did call the Chamber of Commerce who put me in touch with Councilman Grieg Smith’s office. Megan said they were planning a memorial at the crash site. She said she would tell me who owns the station if I wanted to know. That’s where the process is right now. Wonder what will happen next Tuesday. I don’t know but tonight heading back home I realize it has been a long and productive day, and I’ve completed another step on my journey to find a place for Rob’s plaque. Now the next step is to meet Lillian and then go back to Chatsworth. More about that later. I’ll keep you posted.
Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi |