Metrolink111: Alfa Cat Engineer
Shelley J Alongi

 

Alas, it is the end of another week at the fullerton train station for Shelley and her engineers. Sleep tight my Alfa cat engineer. Sweet dreams. See you on the rails. Highball. Clear.

Monday Madness
Freights, Amtrak, Metrolink Baby, bring EM on!
Glen’s train approaches. It’s been a busy, busy half hour; two freights, a very late Amtrak and now the last Metrolink act, Glen’s 608.
"You're late." Am I reprimanding my engineer?
"We were waiting on Amtrak."
"I know. I figured they'd bring you in behind Amtrak."
"It's a shame we both have to leave L.A. at the same time."
Here come the cat claws; engineer complaint. We must be friends.
"They were late."
I'm so good at stating the obvious.
"You already know that."
Words from the cab. One of those communication glitches. something about tomorrow. Glen asks me twice.
I'm not sure if he says "See you tomorrow or "I'm off tomorrow."
I'll miss him if he's off tomorrow.
"did you have a good weekend?" Sounds like he's questioning me. Maybe he's not sure I'm paying attention.
"It was nice,” I inform my Alfa cat Metrolink engineer. “I was here last night."
It's time to go. Glen’s bell comforts me, tells me goodbye.
"Bye glen. Nice to see you." then the next words slip unbidden from my heart into my mouth. I don't think he hears me. "Bye, honey."
My romance with the train leaves out of Fullerton. I'll be here tomorrow...just in case.
By the time Metrolink gets the heck out of Dodge, i.e. out of fullerton and I make my way across the bridge I'm trying to figure out what he said. Guess I'll find out tomorrow.
Jockeying for Position in My Alfa Cat Engineer World

Surprise, Surprise!
Shirley's back. She's been on train 2. She surprises everyone by showing up again.
Shirley works the Pacific Surfliner 784 southbound to San Diego, the very one that made Glen late on Monday. Shirlely was bumped by someone who had less seniority and then she got her run back and tonight is her first visit here for at least a month. She now stands in the café purchasing her lottery ticket.

“Oh you still have Glen on the brain.”

Yes, but first, at 6:00 PM, I go to see Carrie. He’s my second string Metrolink engineer, but he has his own personality.
"You're not going to make it in time,” Shirley yells from the patio as I make my way to the stairs across the bridge.
No, this isn't Carrie, this is the riverside train I'm definitely not going to make it. The Ocean side 606 comes in fifteen minutes.
I go to talk to Carrie.
"Hi."
"How was your weekend?"
Yesterday I asked Carrie if he ran freight.
yes, he did, for Southern Pacific.
"That was a long time ago."
"You know a lot about it."
"What got you interested in trains?"
"Chatsworth."
It is time for Carrie to pull Metrolink606 away.
Why is it always time to go when I say Chatsworth? Conviently, when Glen and I discussed it suddenly he got the highball and chatswroth was droped like a hot potato. I decided that I can’t talk to Glen about chatsworth. There’s too much emotion there and looking into the face of a railroad engineer that I actually know makes it hard to reconcile myself to that whole affair. It could be Glen lying there on the tracks. It’s not. I’ll keep chatsworth out of the whole event of Glen, at least for a while.

Now on Tuesday as Shirley from the Amtrak 784 buys her lottery ticket and surprises everyone on the patio, I step across the bridge to see my second Metrolink engineer.
"Hi."
"How are things up there?"
"Fantastic. Normal."
"Good."
"Are you coming out tomorrow?"
"Yeah. This will be the last day till Monday since I work late on Thursday and Friday."
Carrie is a whole different experience. I like his name.

After I send Carrie off, I go across the bridge and see the gang: Bob, Janice, Jaris, Shirley, Bruce.
"She's smiling. she saw her honey."
"You should see her when she talks to Glen. then she really smiles."
"That's not Glen?"
"No."
"She can't decide if he said see you tomorrow or he'll be off tomorrow," Janice fills in the girls. It's always the girls who want to know this stuff. Guys? Well, Dan does sort of chuckle at it all. Howard likes to tease me. Larry? he's his own game.
"He got fired," Jose the main café worker today says earlier. "He was texting."
Somehow I'm not really sure Glen would find that amusing.
He seems very dedicated to his work; takes it very seriously. I find that reassuring, attractive.
"Smart engineer," says Richard his conductor.
The best. This is Shelley talking now. The bestest engineer, ever.
At 6:45 I go over there. Curt comes over to the track with me. Tonight he gets a good look at glen. His moustache goes from his mouth to his chin, maybe more like a beard. He looks wise and weathered, Curt says, as if he spends a lot of time outdoors. Th moustache idea has never appealed to me, but it’s starting to. It’s just Glen.

I stand there I'm about to wave to whomever might be in the cab.
"What's up."

"Hey." Delight! "I thought you were off tomorrow? I couldn't decide if you were off or if you said see you tomorrow. I thought you might have the day off so you could get some sleep."
“See you tomorrow,” he tells me. That’s what he said or asked on Monday.

I wave in a gesture of welcome, so happy to see my glen.

"I have to keep working till I win the lotto."
It takes me a while to figure out that’s what he said. It’s one of those male female communication glitches. Ha, more like cab to ground sound things. Maybe we should start communicating with lanterns and hand gestures. I have a lantern at home. We could use that.

"I'll tell you that I work late on Friday I won't see you."
"yeah." Glen's favorite word.
"I should know by the time I get to San Juan Capistrano."
"Know what? I missed it."
I'm always missing something. I don't know if it's him, me, the cab, the engine. Now there's a freight train on track 2.
“there’s a freight train right here!” I’m exuberant. If I didn’t have one hand full of stuff I’d clap them together in sheer delight.
Glen brings the engine down to a quieter roar, comforting, sweet, promising at least one more minute of engineer time.

Maybe two minutes?
"This is the one we met earlier," he says. Something about Brooklyn? Not sure.
So what's the deal with San Juan?
"I'll know if I won the lotto."
"Oh!" This is when I get it. Glen has dry humor.
"Well I have to work late on Friday unless I win the lotto and if I do I'll come share it with you."
Anything for my first railroad engineer. He's my first.
I'm so excited because we have an extra minute!
"Well I heard there's a restaurant in San Juan Capistrano that has good wine and mushrooms though," I say smiling, wondering if I sound silly, "that doesn't sound like a good combination."
Funny we have not talked about trains lately. Not really. Not since I asked him about his favorite train route.
Over coffee, which I'm planning and could go either way because he's the one who calls the shots, I want to ask about signals.
"Please don't tell me 4 is on it's way," I say. "We have a guy here who tells us every train and whether it's on time or not."
Glen either is vindictive or has dry humor.
"I think it is," he says.
It probably is because it shows up later, of course, not long after Glen leaves.
This is when he powers up the engine. I just love that sound. It's different than the locomotives on a freight train, that's more basy, this is almost like a jet and a breathing creature. right now that locomotive is a creature and right now it cocoons and showcases my Alfa cat.

Wednesday
Freight Conversation

"What are you going to ask Glen?" someone asks me. I don't know who it was. I can’t think of anything all day…except one thing. There is one thing.

Mike from Victorville shows up on the patio at 4:00 or so. He comes on Sundays with Norm and all those other railfans who have lives during the week. Norm runs freight, I don’t’ know what the others do. Mike works for Target. Me? I’m home writing about the week at the train station. I get there at 3:15 after I drop off the cable box and the Santa Fe railroad book I’ve been reading for a year at the post office. Lori, a lady from church who helps me out occasionally with things, drops me off at the train station.

"You could ask him to ride in the cab,” Mike now says. “To blow the horn"
"I don't want to do that. I'll get in trouble. I don't want to blow his horn."
"You have a dirty mind."
"No. I don't want to be responsible for any desertification."
The conversation goes something like that. It's not a word for word restatement but it's close. A huge freight train pulls up, stops by the bridge on track 2.

"I'm going to go see what kind of train that is" Mike says.
He is gone for a while. the weather is perfect, not too hot, not to cold. the usual gaggle of male hens and I mean hens with their chatter and gossip sits on the patio.
Soon he reappears on the patio.

"What kind of train was it?"
"A local going to San Bernardino."
I don’t' think it's written on the side.
"How did you find that out?"
"I talked to the engineer."
"You didn't?"
"I did. He wanted to know who the hot chick in the red shirt on the patio was."
"He did not."
"yes he did. He was drooling."
Oh my so I'm known as the engineer chaser now? But I'm not, I'm not.

Getting the Gold

I go over to track 3 about 6:50. I'm getting more confident now, I can find the stairs and be over on the platform track 3 side in five minutes. People stay out of my way. I've had fewer people asking me if I wanted help finding the train.
The train approaches. I dance to the right, beating the bell to its marker.
I walk toward the locomotive now but don’t quite touch it.
“What’s up!”
It’s my Glen! Delight! He is here!
“I beat you tonight.”
Glen requires an explanation. I’ve already kind of explained it to him so tonight I do the visual thing. I stand back, I point with my right hand to the bell.
“I use the bell to find you. I want to be standing right here,” I point to the window, “when you get here. But sometimes I’m not right on and you almost pass me. Sometimes I’m right here.” I point with my left hand to a spot about five inches to the left along the locomotive, it’s not an exact scale but he gets the idea.
“Close,” he says in his signal calling voice. Now there’s my engineer not yelling out the window. I’ll take all of them. The engine settles.
"Hey. So did you win the lotto?"
"No," says the train engineer. "I'm still here."
And oh Glen am I glad! I am indeed. You have no idea.
"I want to ask you something," I say boldly. Indeed I do want to ask him something. This is what I’ve been thinking of all day. I have two minutes. It’s now or never.
"I wondered, the next time I'm in L.A. if you would be willing to meet me for coffee I have a million questions maybe you can answer them."
"You have to give me some warning. I sleep four hours in the morning have three hours in the afternoon."
"I have to ask you now because sometimes I get late shifts and I had to ask now when I could see you."
"Just give me some warning."
"I don’t' know when it would be," I say. "I don’t' know when I'll get my next week day off."
I'm more than happy to oblige my kind-hearted engineer who is willing to part with some of his time and share it with me.
"I'll work out my train schedule and we'll work it out with yours."
I've never done this before. I guess I'm just overwhelmed. I do have so many questions. He always seems willing to talk to me about things but we always only have two minutes. The other day it was Chatsworth. I don't necessarily have questions about Chatsworth. But if I had a question he might be willing to answer it.
It's time to go. We say bye. I've asked.

“What happened. The way you walked so fast up those stairs I thought he got mad at you. Told you off.” Curt is teasing.
"You're glowing," Curt continues. "What did he say to you?"
"I asked him to meet me for coffee in L.A. I say dropping into the wrought iron chair.
"I can't believe you proposed to him."
"You work fast."
"I don’t' have a choice. I've had so many morning shifts lately they could start giving me late shifts any time and so I have to do it now while I can see him."
Glen calls the shots. He can always change his mind. I hope he won't.

Sweet Dreams of an Engineer
\Thursday is my last day at the station for the week of November 8 through 14. On Friday I work overtime and then I need to run some errands so I won’t make it down there at all, not even to see the weekly entertainment provided by the railfans who gather near the east end of the platform. You never know what you’re going to find down there on a Friday. Tonight, Thursday, is a cool night, the promise of rain lingers in the atmosphere, the trains are on time, the patio faithful are driven away by the chill and maybe the fact that they just want to stay cuddled up inside their nice warm houses.

Cuddling up seems to be the theme today because I arrive at the station without the two hour nap that I’ve caught everyday this week. I’ve gotten off work early all those days, I’ve gone to the station to nap and to eat, to enjoy the railfans talking their various interests, and of course, to talk to Carrie and glen. Mainly, right now, it’s pretty much about glen.

Arriving at the station I notice that I’m drooping a little bit today. It’s been a strange day, though not eventful. I arrived at work an hour late by accident and thought I had an eight hour day. No, I had a five hour day which turned into a four hour one. I worked then went home and composed my essay, talked to my room mate and prepared to leave for the train station. I could have stayed home but why would I? I would miss my two engineers and today is my last day there till Monday and I don’t really want to miss them. Money is a bit of a concern for me today, nothing out of the ordinary, really. I’ve managed to go through quite a lot of it this week at the station but I’ve decided that for the last twenty-three years I’ve always had a money shortage. I’m not going to worry about it now. I guess being broke is a relative thing. One might have five hundred dollars in the bank and think one is broke. I used to have only one dollar in the bank when I got paid and now sometimes I only have between my three accounts thirty dollars. I’m not as broke as I used to be, but I’m broke. Gary tells me Glen is broke. Brian the Metrolink agent tells me he knows Glen and if he won the lotto he’d still work because of helping his son out with his hobby. Gary thinks maybe he has a mortgage and children and a wife and well, he’s broke. I have two cats, a room mate, a job, a hobby, a crush, a life and I’m broke. But I’m happy. This perpetual state of brokeness puts me in the mood for a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato at the café, the obligatory soda and an ice-cream sandwich.

“You have to cool down after you talk to Glen,” someone says on one of the days I’ve been here this week. I don’t remember who it was but it might be true. It might also just be that after Glen, ice-cream is the icing on the cake. Now sitting at the same table where I grieved Rob Sanchez I enjoy talking to Glen and Carrie, an mostly Glen.

“What did he say?” Curt asks me when I come back ore from talking to Glen. “How are you?”

“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” I say. Standing over by track three I easily locate Glen’s bell. Carrie tells me not to get too close to the bell. Tonight he asks me if he sounded the bell soon enough for me. Remember last night I tell Carrie that he doesn’t ring the bell as far back as Glen rings the bell. Tonight I’m distracted when Carrie rims the bell, I’m trying to rearrange the keys on my lanyard. When Glen rings the bell, that sweet little welcome sound, I’m not distracted. I’ve also not missed his mark, only a little, and so I do my traditional dance and find my spot.

“Hey,” Glen’s traditional greeting.

“Hi.”

We’re friends, the train girl and the engineer. We’ve been at this for three weeks. It’s like an old shoe fitting perfectly.

“How are you?” I ask, a personal question, an now not afraid to ask it.

“Tired,” admits my new engineer and friend. “It was a long day.”

He talks quietly to me, as if he might be tired, or comfortable, it’s what I call the signal-calling voice. I like that voice. The only problem is I can’t here what he’s saying, sometimes. It’s a long day, he was up early.

Me, too, sweet engineer. I was up at 4:00 this morning, rubbing my eyes, waiting fifteen minutes to get out of bed to start my day.

“You didn’t get your four hour nap today?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

Funny about 10:00 this morning I sat at my desk and imagined him sleeping somewhere, curled up, comfortable. Maybe not? Well, I was at my desk working so tonight maybe we’re both a bit weary, nothing that a few hours of sleep won’t cure. Wonder who will hit the sack first? He probably will since he has to be up earlier than me. I don’t have to be at work till 8:15 tomorrow morning so I may get an extra hour sleep. Glen will be long started with his day by the time I clock in to answer questions about Disney travel and make some magic.

Tomorrow Glen and Shelley will make their own separate magic somewhere else and have enough sleep to do it right. I won’t be there when he pulls Metrolink608 into that little corner by the palm tree, but my heart will be with him. I will end my shift eleven minutes after he pulls out of Fullerton. He will make hi own kind of magic right there. I will take it.

“Open those eyes,” I say. “Wake up.”

tonight we’re quiet and it’s okay.

“Tomorrow I work overtime I won’t see you,” I say. “Since the cats won’t pay the bills.”

“yeah,” Glen responds. He gently sounds his bell.

“Have a good weekend,” he says easily.

“You, too. Bye, Glen.”

The glittery nails wave him away, the bell tells me goodbye. The train pulls away, another week is ended. Sleep tight, train engineer. Good night, sleep well. We’ll be back here on Monday, ready to do it all again. And I’ll enjoy doing it all again because it is a wonderful thing. Finally I’m interacting with men who run the trains, and hey, most of the time, we’re not even talking about trains. Good night engineers. Stay safe. Highball. Clear.

 

 

Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"