Metrolink111: Defending The Engineer “You have a good ear,” said the man I met at the railroad model shop. The comment from the man who told me he worked for Metrolink management came in response to an observation I made about the Metrolink trains that have been coming through the Fullerton station lately. On Tuesday of last week, April 21, sitting on the patio, I noticed that a new Metrolink engine came through with a very distinctive bell. Sitting on the patio with me were a usual gaggle of rail fans, Larry, Dan, and another gentleman, with the omission of Bob, whom I once dubbed “The Ring Leader.” “What number was it?” I asked the guys sitting there in response to the engine. “896,” said one of them. When I mentioned this to the Metrolink employee I met on Saturday April 25 at a model railroad shop in Pasadena, he was surprised. “You have a good ear,” he said and then explained that the bells are operated by a switch by the engineer, and that the new bells and horns were distinctive on the new engines. Denis the metrolink employee and I did not discuss the new engines, but one of the rail fans on Tuesday told me that they were white and blue, those being the colors of the Metrolink trains. White and blue for Metrolink and white and red for Amtrak. Beautiful coloring, I think, and the colors will certainly do for now. Denis did not tell me anything else about the new locomotives, but one of the rail fans told me that all engines that push or pull trains are locomotives. I mention this because in one of my earlier essays I categorized the engines that move the trains as locomotives and pushers. No, they’re all locomotives, they just, as I’ve learned, operate in different ways. I can tell that I’ve learned a lot since September 12, 2008 when a Union Pacific freight and metrolink passenger train collided after a missed signal and a broken switch. I’ve learned that people are passionate about trains, and that trains have a long history and I’ll probably never learn everything though I’ll give it a good shot. I also learned when I went to the railroad shop that there are two DVDs that have pictures of trains coming through Fullerton. “I don’t need any Fullerton DVDs,” I said. “I live four miles from the station.” In fact it was Doug at fullerton who told me about the Original Whistle Stop model railroad shop in Pasadena and so today Saturday April 25 Kimberly and I took a trip down there to see it. She had been there before, I was there to see what there was to see. I saw and heard and learned a lot. I saw a wooden toy train set which I kept derailing. “I should work for Metrolink,” I told my friend, a response to a comment that a rail fan I know made to me last Sunday at church. I had asked Dan how much railroad employees made and he said approximately eighty to ninety thousand dollars a year. “I’m in the wrong business,” I said to which he responded that I could work for Metrolink. The implication was not very nice. A blind engineer was as good as a sighted metrolink engineer missing a crucial signal and slamming into a freight train. I just smiled, not going into any of the last six months discoveries and journeys. I feel bad for and continue to defend that sighted metrolink engineer. You know that. I didn’t mention that to the metrolink employee on Saturday and I haven’t mentioned it yet to the fans at Fullerton though that is about to change. The trips to the railroad model shop and to the Fullerton station last week were rewarding. Last Friday April 17 I went to the station with Chris after a long week to watch trains and enjoy the music of the Rastafarian band. We all sat on the patio listening, watching, a cool breeze caressing our faces and the lovely greasy food caressing our stomachs. It was on that night that I learned that Bob, the man I mentioned earlier as the ring leader, had a stroke on Wednesday April 15. I wondered why he wasn’t there but every time I go to the station it is a different trip. Bob marsh is his name and he’s at least 72 years old, said one of the fans on Tuesday when we all sat on the patio. I told everyone I would get a card to bring to him and so I will do that next week. Bob was the first one I noticed at the station back in October when I came to experience my first trains and do my crying over the Chatsworth accident. I didn’t really cry but you know what I’ve mean. My poignant experience of this most cruel and preventable accident has led me down a path that is not over yet and I think for a while will not be. That leads me to the trip to the railroad shop and the subsequent discussion with the metrolink employee. When I arrived there with Kimberly there was a bit of confusion. I asked about bells but they didn’t have any and then I said I was interested in switches. I had talked to Denis earlier on the phone and Kimberly wanted me to meet him. He turned out to be extremely helpful and I learned a lot on this Saturday trip. Let's Talk About Chatsworth When Denis learned that I was interested in learning how switches worked, he said he would go get a switch track. He began to explain it to me in a very generic sort of way and this is when he told us that he worked for metrolink. I’m not sure how the discussion got started, but suddenly we were talking about Chatsworth. I did not tell him that I’m obsessed with the accident. I also didn’t tell him that in Kimberly’s car sat the memorial plaque I had had made for Robert Sanchez that engineer on that ill fated trip. I did mention that I had been listening to the hearing online and he told me that he had been there. But for now, standing in front of the glass case display, we turned our attention to Chatsworth. “Draw me a map,” I said, finally deciding to focus the conversation about how switches work on the Chatsworth accident. He didn’t think a second thought about drawing a map for a blind person. He took a piece of paper and a pen, laid it on the counter and went to work. Taking a switch track and adding it to his demonstration tools, he drew the main line and the switch and showed me how that the Metrolink111 was heading for a switch and was supposed to stop and then the Union Pacific train was coming out of the tunnel and was going to divert onto a siding running parallel with the stopped Metrolink train. Using the switch track whose two rails resemble a Y, he placed it in position where he had drawn the switch that would have placed the freight onto a siding. Following the repositioning of the two trains, the Metrolink signal would have gone green and life would have been good again. Instead, it went terribly wrong. "An unfortunate tragedy," the man said. In discussing Chatsworth if you don’t' want to discuss text messaging you can discuss signals and so we did. Everyone likes to discuss signals. We didn't discuss safety measures and we didn't say who wasn't paying attention but Denis was insistent that an engineer should know that a flashing yellow would be proceeded by a solid yellow and then a red. He disputed the people who stood on the platform at Chatsworth and said they could see a signal placed a mile and a half out of the station. "An engineer should know," he insisted, about the procedure. Any engineer on any given day, even the one who failed to call a solid yellow should know about that. Denis also said he was at the hearing in Washington that went on in march where much information was divulged about the accident. The testimony brought out the signal misses, the messaging, the testing positive of the UP conductor for marijuana, and the use of cell phones by the train crews. The more important testimony, insisted the manager, came here in our own backyard when everyone got together and had disagreements and agreements. I didn't have the courage to ask what they agreed and disagreed on. I wasn't prepared for that. I was just a rail fan who wanted to know how switches worked. Now I know. And I'm sure I'll be back because I saw some DVDs and some books I want. And someday maybe I'll play with a model train. I don’t really see myself getting heavily into the model train hobby but I sure like talking to the people who love trains. Our conversation turned to the complicated, involved story of building the transcontinental railroad, the new Metrolink engines, and the fact that he had someone cooking for him tonight. After a week of sandwiches, he said, he was ready for that. I know about the week of sandwiches, I’ve been brown bagging lunch lately and so I can relate to that. I was just very happy to be talking to someone who knew how to describe switches, who was willing to talk about the accident and who was happy to give me some time. The trip to the railroad shop was not planned, it was completely spontaneous, and it brought to a close a very eventful day. Memorial for a train Engineer The event that started out my morning was the picking up of Rob Sanchez’s memorial plaque. The trophy shop in Fullerton was busy. The plaque was beautiful but lacked the final line of the caption. After showing them that the final line was missing, the plate was redone and I had the finished plaque in my hand. After six months, the dream has become a tangible object. What will be done with it I do not know. I just felt like it needed to be done and so now it is done. I have some ideas about where to put it and as those develop and I get an answer on where to put this plaque, I’ll keep you informed. This is why I mention the fact that the fans at the Fullerton station are about to learn about my interest in the Metrolink engineer. It may be that no one cares. It may also be that I get a lot of opposition and definitely a lot of opinions. I will keep you informed of all of it. At the train station on Tuesday I sit there and talk to the guys. I learn that last Sunday night a man stepped out in front of a freight train. “Was the crew okay?” I asked them. “Of course,” they said. I was more interested in the psychological well being of the freight train crew, but the awful thing was that I had no pity for the man who stepped out in front of the train. I have more sympathy for a metrolink engineer apparently completely absorbed in text messaging and missing a signal being slammed into by a freight train than I do for someone who had enough trouble it seemed to step out in front of one. Was Rob Sanchez completely absorbed in text messaging? We’ll never know. We can’t ask him. We have a time stamp on the text messages but we don’t have a time stamp on what was going on inside his head. For my money I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. Whether anyone else does or not remains to be seen. Where are his friends who defended him so vigorously on his memorial page? They have, at least, on the page, been silent. Did the breaking of company policy and the missing of a signal drive away his friends? “Why is it that I am doing this memorial plaque?” I asked his friend who has been corresponding with me since October, 2008. Her response was priceless. She said that I may be the only one who would do it. Well, the plaque is in my hand. We shall see who wants it. Away into the Sunset Back at the train station, I sit on Tuesday by the tracks with Doug and we watch some freights come in to the station. A freight pulls up and then slowly moves away stopping down by the Spaghetti Factory. It sits there and idels for a while as a passenger train and another freight train come through and pass him. Finally the engineer pulls the train away. Either the train was running “dead on the law” Doug explains, which means that a new crew will take the old one’s place, or he just has a red signal. That engineer goes off into the sunset and we sit there, waiting. Finally, at 8:30, Doug walks me to my bus stop. I’m beginning to think he just wants to be a gentleman. I could say that he doesn’t think I can do it since I’m blind but I don’t believe it. I think he just wants to be nice. I can take that. He’s been very helpful to me learning about Rob’s trains. He’s told me the colors of signals and where to find that railroad model shop. He’s been coming here for seven years, he says. He gave me $5.00 to get a cab a few months back. I owe him that $5.00. What next It seems that the fullerton train station for me has become a family. It is a place to come and connect with Rob’s trains and learn about others who frequent those benches and patio. It is a place to notice new Metrolink engines, see big, deadly freight trains, and wave at engineers, oh and of course, eat ice-cream on the planter by the railroad tracks. I know I’ll be back there next week and one thing will be different. I will have a plaque in my hand that I conceived while sitting there. If it took me six months to come up with a suitable caption, it has been well worth it and the journey has been rewarding. I’m sure there is more to come. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi |