The Human Part Of The Railroad It is the human part of railroading that sometimes is annoying. It is the human who respects the rails, and the trains, and feels no sympathy for anyone who knowingly steps onto the tracks to meet it. But it is also the human part of railroading, the part that some say is disappearing that strikes me tonight. It is the human who gets up and reports to work. It is the human who sometimes may be distracted. It is the human who steps in front of the train. It is the human who inspires me to learn more stories. It is the human part of the railroad that appeals to me. It is the intimate kiss of the engineer who provides me with the information. Some of them tonight may have long nights, some of them may be sick, worried, broke, in love, in debt, or behind schedule. It is all of them who gain my respect, my adolescent railfan inspired curiosity that thrives despite the trespasser on the tracks. All my engineers, the ones who know my name, the ones whose stories I haven’t learned yet, the ones who deal with the everyday nitty gritty of the railroad, all of you have sweet dreams. Sleep tight all my engineers. Sleep tight all my engineers. “OC train 606 struck a person.” “ “AV line train 216 struck a person.” These two messages, events that inspire sadness, anguish, delays, long nights, both come to my phone in one day, Friday February 11, 2011. Av line train 216’s incident whose engineer I do not know comes to me as I am in Target with a friend buying necessary things I need to operate a household. My phone follows me everywhere these days and so now I know about the delays, whatever is going on in the antelope Valley line train department. The second message comes to me as I am at home on my computer listening to a radio station, making a pledge to keep it on air, enjoying a quiet day off, a Friday where I haven’t gone to the train station. If I had gone to the station I would know if train 606, my second engineer’s train, was guided tonight by its tall, bike carrying operator, Cary. I’ve seen Cary once this week, Monday, when I got to the station that night. I am too far forward and then I find him when he says “Hey.” He said he had a good weekend. I told him I have Friday off now and that perhaps I would go to Chatsworth. “What’s going on in Chatsworth,” he asks. “I want to go find Rob Sanchez’s friends,” I explain. “Okay,” he says, the usual response from my engineers. Glenn said “You talked to those people?” Everyone else just says “okay.” Cary seems distracted but maybe that’s just the way he is. I wave goodbye and make my way back to the bridge to meet Bob and Janice. Monday is my only trip to the station this week, but this week has been eventful in the train world, again. Two t o t accidents in one day. T O T is train language for Trespasser on tracks, this means that someone has stepped in front of the train or has been caught on the tracks unexpectedly. Who knows what really happened. All we know is that buses are on their way to pick up passengers and take them to other stations or nonstop to their final destinations, the end of the line for each train. “Is it a good day up here?” I once asked Glenn, my number one engineer, the one engineer who has missed a t o t this year, so far. “So far!” he pronounces from his Alfa cat position in the cab of his locomotive. I know what he means. Tonight, Friday February 11, has not been a good day for two engineers. It costs a lot of money, Glenn says, when there is a t o t incident. I hope Metrolink has a rainy day fund, because tonight they need one. “Train 608 is holding at Anaheim,” comes another message on my phone. This would be Bobby’s train, delayed because of 606’s incident. This means that all the engineers I know this year have been involved directly or indirectly in a t o t. Today two trains hit two separate people. We hope that every day is a good day. Today doesn’t seem to have been one at all. But we will all go on. Our engineers will get time off, recover, return to their positions, and hope that people stay off the tracks. We know they won’t. I know I will cross them with carefulness and vigilance because I would never want to put an engineer, one I know, or don’t know, in a position like two of them are in today. I admire and respect the engineer who takes this risk every day when he or she gets out of fed, grabs their coffee and their keys and reports to work, an old head or a young startup, gets their train orders, a little tired, stressed, love struck, and mindful of their surroundings. Is this a bit of a romantic perspective? Perhaps. But the human part of railroading takes this chance. On Monday I will go to the station and see if Cary negotiates with his locomotive, if he was lucky enough to have missed this train meet, or if he is not here, I will know he was there on Friday night and is even now involved in his portion of the investigative part of another t o t. I think there is the makings of a story in these two incidents. I would have never thought of them unless Rob Sanchez would have not missed a signal and posthumously left 95 revealing text messages for all of us to read. In one of them he said that on September 10 he had the worst night’s sleep he’d had since his September 2 fatality. His train had hit someone on the tracks, and he was going to ask for counseling. Instead, he was texting and struck a freight train. He’s dead. My other engineers are not so disposed. They will have long weakens and we’ll see if my 606 shows up next week or if he gets time off till next Thursday. Hopefully things calm down in the t o t department for a while. This is the longest spate of accidents I can remember. They happen regularly around here. People just don’t’ know how to stay off the tracks, or our bad economy, despite its signs of improvement, stressed out relationships, unemployment rates, foreclosures, or any other reasons are driving people to surrender themselves to the front end of a train. They will lose, every time. These engineers need combat pay. Hope they get it. “Good luck tonight,” I text Glenn today. “expect delays on the Antelope Valley line,” says the Twitter feed just before I text him. Earlier, or it was yesterday, I’ve texted him, saying, “Today is my Friday. Just thought I’d tell you that. Smile.” Tonight is Friday. If he is on his train he will experience delays. He may get home late, he may turn off his alarm tomorrow morning and sleep just a little bit longer. I don’t’ know if he drinks coffee or not, but he may sit down tomorrow morning and be glad that he made it through Tuesday, that his day was good. But on Monday, all is quiet. Steve is the main station event tonight. Dave, the man who has been watching trains perhaps longer than Glenn has been running them, is at the railroad historical society meeting. Who knows where his followers are. Steve and Curt talk about a bike and then Steve talks about how he has finally gotten a surgery date, he will have knee surgery, then be in the hospital two or three weeks. He will save all his disability money to get an apartment, he promises. He may be the most ambitious homeless man I’ve met here. There are people who have come and gone, but he seems to have the most drive to leave this place. He loves watching trains he says. He observes me sitting on the bench, watching the screen on my cell phone intently, perhaps concentrating hard enough to convey anguish, sadness, or insecurity? “What happened!” he asks. “nothing! I am texting,” I explain, something I’ve been doing for the last few minutes. “Am I interrupting?” Steve wants to know. “Are you getting intimate?” Intimate with a married engineer with grown children, a grandchild and a racing team? The kiss of the engineer with forty years of experience is definitely attracting, the information quenches my desire for knowledge, raps me in supreme ecstasy, makes me weak from a passion to learn more, gives me chills every time I pick up my phone and call him to hear his expressive voice explain the various workings of the profession he has chosen for his life’s work and I have discovered at long last, but intimate, no. Apologizing to Glenn is sweetly rewarding, his filled with its own epiphanies, but intimate? “I don’t want to interfere,” says Steve. Oh no he hasn’t interfered at all. It is painful sweetness texting Glenn. I work hard to get every word absolutely pristinely correct. The information this man gives me is like a breath of fresh morning air rapped in the sweet caress of a lover’s kiss, but not intimate, no not at all. Intimacy of a different kind this week may have delayed a schedule or caused an engineer distress, perhaps on Sunday, February 6, if Bruce is telling us the truth. The conductor who relays the story of course probably didn’t’ know what was going on till later, but it made for an interesting tale, one that ends up here on this online journal. I don’t know the engineer’s name which could be a good thing, but according to Bruce, whom everyone who has ever worked for Amtrak, ever, probably knows, the conductor on train 4 on Sunday said he was going to have to run the train out of Fullerton in order to keep it on schedule. It seems the engineer was “on the can”, Bruce says. “Maybe he got a bad burrito,” he says with a smile, this comment being passed down by the conductor. Everyone sometimes has trouble with food or other things, but if you’re running a train and you have to keep it on schedule, it’s probably not the time to be afflicted with human mallodies like digestive troubles or even a simple case of just needing to go right now! Guess that’s why they have restrooms in that cab. But for tonight, in our story, there is a bit of confusion, and maybe I’m the one who’s the most conrfused. Who was on the can? Where? I think even Janice was confused. “In the station?” Janice asks. “No. In the head end of the train,” Bruce says. Who’s in the head end of the train? How could the engineer be in the station when he shouldn’t leave the train? Is the engineer in the station? On the train?: Why does the conduhctor have to run the train? “Who’s in the station?” I want to know. Or who’s in the head end of the train? “The engineer,” says Bruce, I think he might be laughing at me. I don’t think he’s laughing at the engineer. Is the engineer sick? Well, all we know really is that the engineer wasn’t at the controls of his train when he needed to run it out of Fullerton. The whole story elicits sympathetic sighs from the star struck adolescent middle-aged railfan. Yeah, that would be me. I can imagine the engineer’s distress. So I guess the conductor ran the train out of Fullerton. I didn’t make it back to ask Bruce if he ever found out what happened to the engineer or how far the conductor had to run the train. But I’m sure, whoever was doing what, that it was definitely a human bit of railroading. Guess we’ll find out what was going on in the head end of the train, and wy the conductor had to run it. Or it may just simply remain a mystery. Hoep the engineer is okay. I’m sure he is by now. Just another human story for the record. A sick engineer, One who has to deal with a trespasser on the tracks, or even one who just simply knows my name is always a good engineer and on Monday, after learning the story of train 4’s misadventure, I go to meet 608. I stand at my usual spot and notice that the bell approaches, stopping short of my position. “Shelley! Down here!” bobby on 608 calls my name from his locomotive cab. Tonight his train is at the five car marker. I have already figured this out and am on my way down, holding my cane on the safety line, darting for the window not to miss the rest of my two minutes. “You figured it out,” he says, confident in my ability to find him. He has been kind. I never would have imagined that my name would be called by these men running the railroad. It might make sense. Maybe my grandfather Gregory is in my blood. When I first sat on the patio wanting to know the engineers, my burning question was not so much how they did their work, but what were their names. Now, three of them know mine. Tonight, Friday, I don’t’ know if they are all on time, and I don’t even know all their names, but I know that my number one engineer and hundreds others will have made it through Tuesday. It is the human part of railroading that sometimes is annoying. It is the human who respects the rails, and the trains, and feels no sympathy for anyone who knowingly steps on the tracks to meet it. It is also the human part of railroading, the part that some say is disappearing that strikes me tonight. It is the human who gets up and reports to work. It is the human who sometimes may be distracted. It is the human who steps in front of the train. It is the human who inspires me to learn more stories. It is the human part of the railroad that appeals to me. It is the intimate kiss of the engineer who provides me with the information. Some of them tonight may have long nights, some of them may be sick, worried, broke, in love, in debt, or behind schedule. but it is all of them who gain my respect, my adolescent railfan inspired curiosity that thrives despite the trespasser on the tracks. All my engineers, the ones who know my name, the ones whose stories I haven’t learned yet, the ones who deal with the everyday nitty gritty of the railroad, all of you have sweet dreams. Sleep tight all my engineers.
Copyright © 2011 Shelley J Alongi |