Storymania - Metrolink111: All My Engineers by Shelley J Alongi

Metrolink111: All My Engineers
Shelley J Alongi

I told you I’d let you know when I met an engineer. Here are three stories about engineers or at least my experiences with them whether on the trains or on the scanner.
1

Tears and the Engineer

Monday morning September 14 is a strange morning. The day doesn’t particularly start off on a bad note, not like rob Sanchez’s day on September 11 2008 when he had a flat tire and was twenty-five minutes late to work and said he was having a bad day. No, not that bad. Was it September 12 when he made the muffin with eggs? I’ll have to look at the text messages again to find out. My day is not that bad; I’m not making muffins with eggs, I don’t’ have a flat tire, I’m not late for work. What I am is sitting on my bed putting my shoes on, crying. Crying over what? Well, sometimes I wonder that myself. I wasn’t sitting in a train when a six thousand horse powered locomotive knocked the heck out of a 4400 horsepower Metrolink locomotive, so what am I crying about? I’m just crying. I’m crying because on Friday September 11 I was on the Metrolink111 just sitting there. Sitting. That’s it. NO drama. No stunning revelations. Saying hello to someone who was on that train on that day might be traumatic for me seeing I’ve spent practically every waking moment over the last twelve months thinking about it, but there’s really no drama. There’s just me and the live, breathing train, the tracks, the retired man talking agoutis grandchildren, someone on a phone, I think, the conductor flitting here and there, my flowers constantly needing adjusting, and me. I’m a passenger on the accident train a year after the accident, holding flowers for an engineer. Today Monday I’m crying.

I think it might be called a delayed reaction. I remember reading about someone who got up Monday morning after the accident and was having breakfast and suddenly just starting crying. The story is in the Ventura County Star and I don’t know the name of it now, but the idea is kind of the same. I haven’t lost sleep over it in the last year. I haven’t had to pull my way through medical surgeries, bills, attorneys trying to sue Metrolink, or anything else. I’ve just been sitting here writing about wondering what an engineer’s face looks like when he knows he’s going to get hit by a freight train. You can’t tell me he didn’t know. He knew. I know it.

My own delayed reaction to my Friday trip to Chatsworth seems to last till I get to the bus stop and am waiting for the 26 to carry me to the Fullerton transportation center so I can catch the 47 to work. First I have to eat my breakfast, but before I do that I make that same trip I make everyday and so maybe the return of some normal event stops me from turning into a complete emotional wreck. There’s something to be said for routine; it goes a long way toward curing what ails the world, I think. I’m pretty sure of it. I know it just like I know that engineer knew he was about to get creamed by a freight train.

The day doesn’t stay like that, though; it turns into a surprisingly more interesting direction. It ends with a smile and it’s all because of an engineer So there are things in common here. After work I decide that I don’t’ want to wait for the 42 down Lincoln so I go to the train station again just in time, it seems, to meet the southwest chief. I go across the bridge with Curt an Bruce and Simon the car attendant who is going to catch that train back home today. He works the SAC in the sleeper cars and makes regular appearances at the station to say hello to everyone before heading home or back to work on the train. He lives in Albuquerque ad his schedule is five days on and five days off. Today he goes wit us across the bridge since the SAC will be coming in on track 3 today. We stand by the elevator where Curt insists the locomotive well be when the train stops. No, I say, it’s going to be further down, on the other side of the platform. If the SAC comes in on track 1 then it does stop by the elevators But he’s coming from the other direction and so he’s going to be on the opposite side from the elevators. The train comes in, the engine passes and Curt finally says I’m right. We walk down there and Bruce the one who talks to all the engineers or at least knows most of their names joins us. I stand back, shyly; some people don’t quite believe me when I say that. It’s true. I can be shy when I am not sure what needs to be done. But usually I’m trying to figure it out so if I’m shy it doesn’t mean I’m not trying to think through the problem or the challenge that confronts me at the moment. Today the challenge is making contact with the engineer. Bruce solves the problem. There are two engineers up there, I wave, one waves back, but Bruce knocks on the door. One of the men in the cab opens the door. Bruce yells up to them and I chime in somewhere saying “I’m Bruce’s friend, sort of.” One of the engineers asks Bruce where number 3 will meet number 4. Bruce says he doesn’t know. “Oh man” says the engineer whose name is Hutch, in a disappointed tone.

“What did you say, maim?” the other one asks me when I say that I’m Bruce’s friend. I tell him what I said and somehow we’re talking about something. All I remember is standing there looking straight up, smiling.

“what’s your name,” I ask.

“Ulysses,” he says. “Just like the president.”

“A long time ago,” I remark, smiling and laughing.

“You’re too tall,” I say.

“Exactly,” he says.

“Where do you get off this train?” I ask Ulysses.

“At Kingman, Arizona.”

Ulysses is on the extra board because Kenney is on vacation. All I know is that he seems quite young, he probably likes video games and “CSI.” I wonder if Rob liked “CSI.” Probably Rob didn’t have time for “CSI.”

We stand there for a moment and then it’s time to go.

“Stay safe,” I say and shortly after that the horn blows and someone activates tee bell.

The train moves away and we walk back over the bridge.

“I’ve been christened,” I announce, though I can’t really think of the word. I think the word is blooded, then something else.

“You know; when you kneel down and the queen taps you with her sword,” I say. I’ve been initiated. Something like that.

We head back to track 1 and everyone disappears. Curt walks with me out to the bus stop and even I’m home early. But not before tears turn into smiles because finally I’ve been christened. I’m sure before it’s all over, before I find a place of rub’s plaque, before I’ve heard my last sorry or get yelled ate gain I’ll do a lot more crying. I know, though, that I’ll do a lot more smiling, too.

2

This guy s Much Too Cheerful

I do some smiling this morning, Tuesday September 15, when I wake up early and go sit down at my computer. I turn on the train traffic web site and listen as trains are dispatched here, there, and everywhere. I stop what I’m doing as I hear the following transmission. “Metrolink 405…something…good morning Foreman Wood…something…number. thank you, Metrolink 405 out.”

What the heck was that? It was an extremely cheerful voice on that radio, conductor or engineer I do not know; I suspect it was the engineer; I’ll lay my money on it. I sit here reviewing some work I’ve done and just smile, and laugh, too. Now there’s the kind of person I want to meet, I think; someone who’s that cheerful in the morning!

“track number 2,” says my cheerful engineer.

Shortly after that I turn off the site (yes the railfans on Saturday tells me where I can listen to train traffic online), put everything away, feed the cats and get dressed. All the while I amusing. I have to meet this guy; he’s entirely too cheerful for 6:00 in the morning!

“Thank you, out!’ says metrolink 405. I smile the whole day thinking of that.

3

My Very Own Personal Engineer

Here is a story that will definitely make you smile, and maybe even wave. It started on Friday September 11 on the way back from Chatsworth; it continues till today Wednesday September 16 though it may continue on if this engineer keeps the same route for a while. On Friday I got off the Metrolink train on the return trip from Chatsworth to L.A. Union station. The plan was to purchase the next available train ticket back to Fullerton whether Amtrak or Metrolink so I went to the station and proceeded to hold up the Metrolink train. I thought there might be an Orange County Line train coming up to Fullerton and so I somehow found the Metrolink office perhaps with someone helping and the employee heaped me purchase the ticket. Time was of the essence as this was the last train to Fullerton for the evening. If I missed this one it would be an hour and a half wait for the next Amtrak train. We had ten minutes to get the ticket and get to the metrolink train. The machine, as it often does when you’re on a time crunch, decided to be slow and non cooperative. The security guard who was going to lunch in five minutes and who we thought was going t help me find the right track disappeared leaving the lady and myself at the counter. She kept disappearing. She was, it turns out, behind the counter, as anxious as I was. She didn’t want to sell me a ticket if I couldn’t get on the train.

“If we run I can catch it,” I said. We tried. We got the ticket, it was 6:30. The train leaves at 6:30. The employee got on the radio or phone and told the Metrolink to please wait we had tried to get a ticket and couldn’t get it to work and we were coming. We ran like crazy for the train.

“I’m coming up the stairs” I heard her say to someone. I got out my cane and stayed close and we flew up the stairs. There was the big, restless train, waiting!

“Thank you, Glen,” said the employee looking toward the front of the train.

“tell that engineer I’ll buy dinner if he holds that train,” I said.

“I called and told them what happened. They don’t’ hold trains,” she explained and then they held the train. I still owe the engineer dinner.

I flew onto the train and we were off. The conductor called out Buena Park and so I went to find him and said what happened to fullerton? I had forgotten that we have a new station on our route. I sat there wondering if I was going to get to Fullerton and if Glen was the engineer.

“What a day today has been; it’s been too long,” the conductor told someone. “Glen my engineer isn’t used to six cars and we had to lower a ramp for a passenger at Buena Park and he’s not used to it,” or something like that, but I only heard that Glen was the engineer.

We pulled into Fullerton, our ears met by the sounds of Friday’s loud, obnoxious rock bands, not the sheer pleasure of a train horn, only the bell competing with the electric storm of sound assaulting us. I went to the exit and got off the train and found my way back to the other side of the tracks.

But the story does not end there. Today I got off work at 4:15 and decided to go to the station and see what there was to see. I thought, hey, since I was brave enough to go and talk to the engineer on the Southwest chief on Monday maybe I’ll go find this engineer and wave. I was talking about Glen. We would see.

About 6:30 after drinking Diet soda, way after my soda cut off time and talking to Bob the rail fan I decided to go wait for the Metrolink train and wave. I went over to the elevator and talked to Rich who works for Metrolink. I asked if the machine that sells the tickets had speech and he said he didn’t think it did. His train came and so I went to the elevator and there was Curt with his bike and his basket, ready to recycle another day’s worth of cans. I told him what I was going to do and asked if he wanted to come with me. He went over to the side of the tracks we all usually sit on and told them he was going with me to the other side of the tracks.

“Larry says it’s about the engineers,” he came back and told me. Larry likes to tease me about meeting the engineers.

We went across the bridge using the elevator because Curt had his bike there. We found the place where the Metrolink stops; right near the elevator. The train came in, we stood under the engineer’s window. I wasn’t sure if I should wave or not.

“No, she just watches trains,” Curt said. I waved as the train left us.

“It looked like he recognized you,” Curt said. “He wanted to know if we wanted on the train. He was a guy with glasses and a moustache.”

So that has to be Glen unless it was someone else because I checked the Orange County line schedule and the last Metrolink leaving Union Station gets to Fullerton at 7:04. So that was my very win personal engineer. When I go to Fullerton on Friday I’ll go wave at him again maybe someday we’ll talk; but for now I have my very own personal engineer.
So you see, I’ve finally met or interacted with engineers. I’m sure we’ll have lots more stories but I bet I’ll never be able to say I held up a train. Now I know that trains get delayed for lots of reasons but it’s just fitting that Shelley would hold up a train. I have friends who think I tried to steel a Harley Davidson once. Others think I’m not very shy. I’ve never held up an airplane but I sure darn well held up a train and tried to smile at the engineer wilding it and even to buy dinner. Yes, I think my friend was right three or four months ago when he asked if I was a foamer. No. I’m just starting to indulge another hobby and collect my own personal group of engineers.