Metrolink111: Asking The Freight Engineer “Norm,” I asked the freight engineer sitting across from me at the wrought iron table on the patio of the Fullerton train station, “why do you come here after running trains all day?” It is a cool August 14, Friday night, perhaps a rarity. Usually this time of year produces tropical weather that leaves August evenings over southern California oppressive, languorous, heavy, and most of the time in my own mind, not enjoyable. I’m enjoying this one as I come onto the patio and go to the café ordering a double cheeseburger, something I haven’t done for a while here. I’ve been experimenting, or broke, or both, or broke and experimenting anyway and just not caring. One of my goals in life is not to starve. I don’t’ mind being broke so much. What I do mind is being hungry, so I always try to make sure there’s food in the house or enough money in my wallet to purchase food, even if that means the cash flow is always restricted and the bank account is slim. Dick approaches me and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Good evening,” he says, and that’s when I discover that Bob had another stroke on Monday, Dan was on a trip somewhere but returns later this evening, taking a spot next to Norm. I hand Joyce a brown paper bag with about twenty soda can tops. Apparently she collects them an gives them to the Ronald McDonald house who sells the tabs for money for its operations. I don’t mind supporting a good cause, especially since I drink a lot of diet soda. I’m not a big recycler, I must not be that hungry, but I’ll collect tabs and give them to her. I place my turquoise bag on the chair and go into the Santa Fe Café to get my food, the bag has received a compliment from someone at work today who said they saw me walking with it and liked it. It’s a pretty bag and a functional one, too. So I dig through that deep, vinyl bag, pulling out my Train web canvas tote with my wallet and go order my cheeseburger and then come back, rejoining the group on the patio. Dick, and Jack, Joyce, Norm, Dan, and someone else, though I might be dreaming it. Everyone talks about how Bob was here on Monday and had a stroke and is undergoing testing again. Norm had some kind of surgery and is not running freight right now though he does return to it next week he informs me later. That’s when I discover he was there. I guess I hadn’t really thought of it before. Billy an Chris show up, placing Francis, Chris’s black Labrador guide dog between us. Billy sits with his phone or laptop getting online, all of us sit talking. “So why do you come here after you run trains all day?” I ask. “To hang out,” replies the mild mannered engineer, who I learn has two boys, one 16 and one 19, who don’t, he informs me when I ask, want to be involved in the railroad business. “It’s a different world,” he says. I believe it. He runs freight in Vernon. “There’s a lot of track there,” he says. “I’m like a rubber band,” he explains, “Straight out and straight back.” “What’s the longest train you’ve pulled?” I ask him. “Ninety cars,” he says. Apparently Norm likes baseball too because I ask Dan where he went on his trip to which re responds that he went to new Jersey and was watching Yankees league play. I’m not aware of any New Jersey teams so I ask what team was playing. He thought about it for a moent. “The nets?” Norm asks. Nok Dan explained, it was a team with the name “Thunder” it it involved in a Yankees league where upcoming players work on their skils. I forgot the name of the league now but Dan’s nephew plays with them. It’s humid there, he explains, wringing wet. I’m lost after the discussion of the baseball, and the train approaches, diverting everyone’s attention to it. Amtrak’s southwest Chief train to Chicago pulls into the station, they all go out to see the crew, and Chris and Billy eat chili fries. I finish my burger. “Can your mouth open wide enough to eat that?” Billy asks. He says it’s a quadruple cheeseburger. It’s pretty good, that’s for sure. The crew disappears, usually all the men who come out to see the Southwest Chief leave after the train comes. Onstage a Latin jazz band prepares to serenade us. It’s pretty quiet, no curt, no Doug, just a smattering of fans who enjoy the cool evening, the quiet strains of the band coming to all of us. El Vented Too is the name of the band. The gentle strains of trumpet, saxophone, keyboard, electric guitar and acoustic upside down pair shaped drums comes to us on the cool, light evening breeze. A tall, large woman sitting on the patio tells me her name is Vicky and she’s a friend of the Congo player. We talk for a while, Chris and Billy, who’s back in town for a few days, go to the tracks and I soon follow. Chris is on vacation for a few days and so we discuss work, the calls, the new promotions, the people all wanting to change their packages to the new promotional rate, and then we head off to the bridge. The bridge which allows access to track three for people wanting to take the train to San Diego spans all three tracks and so we all go up there. I usually don’t go on the bridge, but tonight I want to hang out with Chris and Billy for whatever reason so I head on up there. We stand near the rail which lines the parameter of the bridge, the chain-link fencing extending over our heads to the metal roof, ensuring that no one can jump from the bridge to the steel tracks below or interrupt the progress of the long freight trains and passenger trains by doing such things. People stream up the stairs holding their bags, wheeling duffels, comments from one child about the blind person walking as they make their way to the other side of the bridge. On Fridays, usually, freight traffic is light but steady. If you are patient you’ll see one. We are rewarded as a freight trains soon comes, pulling JB. Hunt cars, the sound of the wheels slipping across the rails constant, fast, furious as each car with its logo emblazoned on its side hustles past us, following the locomotive, and then the end comes, the engines behind it pushing it forward, all controlled by one powerful man in front, the engineer. The freight is probably making thirty miles an hour as he speeds under us, producing a hot, Diesel-fuel odorous exhaust blast that curls the hair out of place and makes you hope there’s no debris in that displaced column of rushing, hot air. The first blast of it is startling, causing a sharp intake of breath, followed by the cooling of the wind as the cars speed past only displacing the air and not heating it with the Diesel exhaust. Chris texts someone on his phone, they look at video messages, I listen to the music. I collapse in laughter at some funny comments we make about Chris’s room mate. The sounds of the band float up to us as I do calf stretching exercises, grasping the tube-shaped rail with both hands and kneeling, supporting my weight on my knees. People down below must think we’re all crazy up there on that bridge. Billy tells us the colors of the signals and asks me what they mean. I’m a little confused between what the flashing yellow and the yellow means and I definitely have to read up on the green over red signal meanings. I guess I’ve found my new project: to learn about railroad signals. The colors are easy enough to understand, red, stop, green, go, yellow slow down or caution. But the intricate details of stacking colored lights run these days mainly by solid state relays is confusing. It doesn’t seem to take rocket science to explain them, I just need a primmer in the way they work. Guess I’ll have to ask the freight engineer, or just read up on them, or both. Asking the experts is always a good idea, especially the engineers. If they don’t know what the signals mean we might all be in trouble. Wonder if I’ll have to get someone to draw pictures for me like the Metrolink manager did for the Chatsworth switch. Remember that? How can I forget! I’ll never forget that. Part of that controversy revolves around missed signals. Most accidents I’m learning revolve around missed signals. The reasons are varied. If an engineer misses a signal it’s not as excusable as me not knowing what they are. And then these days one asks if the bulbs are burned out, did someone see the signal, was it visible? I’m going to the experts. after a while, train traffic slows and we leave the station. But tonight has been fun for me because I actually have a conversation with Norm the freight engineer. Well, I suppose he has conversations with everyone there, and Dan joins in, too. “Do you work of Disneyland?” Norm asks me. Yes, I explain I work for the Travel Company. “have you booked one single Amtrak fare?” I ask Chris when we’re back on the patio. “No,” he says. “You never wanted to run passenger trains?” I ask the freight engineer. “No,” he says. Someone says you have to like people to do that job. I think of Rob Sanchez. He seemed to like people. “You can just sit up in that locomotive and ignore everybody,” I say. “That sounds like a job I would like. Don’t have to bother.” “You only have to wave,” says Dan. “You don’t even have to wave,” says Norm. I can understand how there would be a temptation to text message in a locomotive cab if you’re by yourself and you like people. I don’t say that to anyone, but I think it. If Rob Sanchez was in an extroverted mood it was a temptation that could not be passed up. I guess that’s probably why one shouldn’t have a cell phone in a cab, or there should be two people in a cab; (1) to alleviate distractions like that, and (2) to just check for accuracy. Does Norm sit up there in the locomotive with a cell phone? I don’t’ know. Hey my dad drives truck for Car Max and he has his blue tooth. I don’t’ know how much time he spends on the phone, though. Probably not that much time on the phone. “I want to go inside the locomotive, see what it looks like in there,” I tell the freight engineer. “yeah?” Don’t’ we all, he might be thinking, or at least some railfans are thinking. Yes, and I don’t’ want to get anyone in trouble when doing it. I don’t’ want to cause an engineer his certification. “I could write my story better,” I say. There’s no response. I’m really not expecting one, I’m just expressing my wish. Somewhere, sometime, someday I’ll get it. “I went with my dad on his truck,” I tell him. “Long haul?” he asks. “No Just for Car max.” Funny thing is, my dad dropped out of high school, it doesn’t take a college degree to run freight, and they all make more money than I do. I have the college degree and almost had two. I don’t mind. God provides. Life so far is good. And I’m talking to an engineer who makes way more than I do. More about that later. Speaking of Rob Sanchez and we sort of were, the plaque is still in limbo. But at least it’s in the hands of someone in Chatsworth. My latest plan is to go up there in three weeks and have lunch with Chris Castle if he’s up for it and then see what’s going on with the plaque if anything. I have a feeling nothing is going on with it at the moment. Projects are like that, and the one year anniversary of the accident is quickly approaching. It’s hard to imagine that it’s been a year since those two trains hit each other and I went on my wild journey to railfanness. It’s been an interesting journey and probably trains have provided the most interesting entertainment in my life since then. My theological convictions relegate Rob Sanchez to an unhappy ending if I do want to remember his contributions on earth. As happens with me when an interest grabs my attention, I’ve made new friends, I’ve started on a process of learning, and I’ve discovered a new place to hang out and read. The fullerton station has been there for a while. I’m a fixture there, people know my name, they come get me so I can join them around the table. The group of fans that hangs out there is an older group, but maybe I’m older, too. Since I just turned 43, maybe I’m past wondering what I want to do with my life. “I don’t’ know what I want to be when I grow up,” I say to Norm and the group when we talk about his children not knowing what they want to do. “I don’t either,” says the freight engineer. Maybe none of us really know what we want to do, we just make the best of what we do. And for those of us who know what we want to do and who make life happen, the rewards are great. I do have an idea of what I want to do, but I put my life on a plan and I enjoy the journey to get there. I’ve been told by people that I know how to make things happen for me. I guess it’s true. I like to go and find certain people, pilots, engineers, whatever I want to find. I want to live by myself and so I make that happen too with a lot of help from God. So even if I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up, I still like to make things happen. Somehow they always happen. On September 12, 2008 when I came home and lay on that couch and saw that footage I didn’t know I would be making a bunch of new friends. If I do know how to make things happen, sometimes I am surprised by what happens. It makes life interesting. And tonight it’s interesting because finally I’m talking to someone I’ve only seen from a far over the last year. What fun! I go home from the train station tonight happy that the weekend is here, happy that I’ve gotten to go spend time at the station, really happy that the music was tolerable and downright enjoyable, and extremely happy that I’ve had a real conversation with an engineer. We don’t see Larry who called me a gold digger, if in a teasing kind of way. I say I have my relationship with Christ, I’ve already found the gold, the rest, the station, the job, the cats, and the engineers, are just the icing on the cake. I won’t get to the train station again for a couple of weeks. I get off early on Monday and I may head down there depending on how far ahead I am on editing and how tired I am, and how much money I have, or where I decide to eat dinner. I have two late shifts next week and a couple of almost late shifts so I won’t get down there realistically for a week or two. The Southern California Train Travel group meets on August 24 so I’ll be down there for that. That will provide some adventure of its own. Maybe I’m more of a train fan than the train fans themselves? Or maybe as my friend told me, I really am a foamer and haven’t admitted it yet. I might, if time permits, or I feel like it, go down on Sunday to the station again just to read my book on the Santa Fe Railroad. But till then, and till the next time I get there, I’ve enjoyed the evening there, the laughter, the bridge, the freights, and the engineer.
Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi |