Metrolink111: Blame The Engineer I’ve been slowly working my way through the online record of the NTSB hearing regarding the Chatsworth train disaster in September and have found the first morning sessions very interesting. Because this is a formal setting there isn’t the vile exhalation of those who would drag the engineer’s name through the mud. There are questions about signal placement, efficiency of field testing for train crews, and who and who shouldn’t be allowed in the cab and a lot of questions about how to prevent this in the future. Can it be prevented? Since there were railroads there have been accidents. The ones I’ve read about online point to simple procedural mix-ups or missed signals as their probable causes. It seems in this one to be the same thing. Why and how is always the question. Railroads are vulnerable it seems to the foibles and behaviors of their human crews and so this hearing is interesting so far because of the questions. The main thrust of this essay however if it stems from the accident doesn’t concern it directly. If as a result of information released and not released, people seem to want to drag Rob Sanchez's name through the mud, then I suppose it shall be, even if I don’t’ like it. I've discussed this subject at length elsewhere and will not regale you with my experiences and opinions about it now. Later, perhaps, but for now, I shall lay this subject to rest. Engaging the circumstances at the time, I have a most brilliant idea. If you want to blame the deceased Metrolink engineer, someone's friend and child and brother, for anything at all, blame him for introducing me to the absolutely at times enlightening, endearing, enriching, and sometimes simply just comical spectacle that is the Fullerton train station. Colorful Characters On Monday March 29 I made my first of three trips to the station for the week. There was the usual cheeseburger, ice-cream, and a lost coffee mug. My silvery purple mug got left on a patio table as I gathered up my red bag and walked out to a knot of rail fans standing by the tracks after the café closed. Perhaps my exit was hastened by the appearance of an intoxicated man who called himself Jason and who was looking for a southbound train. In an attempt to be helpful, Curt found out that the next train that Jason wanted would leave at 9:02 in the evening and so Jason had a while to be with us. “You said you wanted to meet people here,” Curt told me. “She’s shy,” he said to Jason who was trying to introduce himself to me and learn which train went south from a beautiful woman’s perspective. I was ready to send him on a perilous journey down a northbound railroad track. But the story doesn’t end there. Freight From Everywhere Freight traffic was very active that night and as David, Shelley, Curt and Wally stood by the tracks, we noted that a long string of spine cars lined the track, pulled far ahead by a still locomotive. As the locomotive slowly pulled away the cars clattered, protesting as they began their slow journey northward. Another slow freight train came behind it, and between the trains we talked of train types. I asked David what he was writing and he told me he took notes on the locomotive type, the track it was on, and the time it passed through the station. The little knot stood talking, and then the announcement came from the Amtrak station that BNSF was reassigning Amtrak to track 3 so if anyone was holding a northbound ticket they should be on track three. Be on track three? Okay I don’t’ think she literally meant for the passengers to be on the track but it did sound funny. Here came Jason, asking how long he had till the south bound train came. And was it going to be here on this side? “I need a beer,” he said and we all looked at each other as if to say we know that. “He needs it,” remarked one of the rail fans. A gentle breeze ruffled the jackets and sweaters of the train enthusiasts, the tracks stretched out gleaming in the light of the station, the signaling devices blinked and told us that trains would be coming, soon. A Question of Signals Speaking of the signals reminds me that one of the questions to the signal managers for Metrolink during the Chatsworth hearing, involved the signaling device for the eastbound train traffic. It seems that the eastbound signaling device had trouble cycling from green to yellow and red and a module controlling the signal was replaced. This didn’t necessarily affect the westbound train traffic, the movement in which Rob Sanchez was involved, but it was interesting. It makes one wonder just how suddenly a signal light can run out of power or become less bright. Wrapped up in all this talk of signals is the question that Catherine O’Leary Higgins the NTSB chair conducting the hearing had to ask, one that perhaps has been asked again and again. How can a veteran engineer and conductor who have been annually tested on efficiency miss calling out signals? A yellow, followed by a solid yellow should lead to a red signal in this case. Her question couched in a bevy of confusing terms, maybe because she was trying to use just the right words, essentially was how difficult was it to see the Control Point Topanga (CP Topanga) from the Chatsworth station? If the train pulled out at a speed of 41 miles an hour, if the engineer proceeded on a course that indicated that his light was green, why was the red signal at CP Topanga red? I don’t’ understand the full lay out of signals but apparently engineers know about those layouts of signals. Why would one miss it? Because he had his brown eyes attached to a cell phone screen? You would hope not wouldn’t you? The discussion of the signals and their ability to be visible seemed to confuse the signal managers. This was a question better left to those in charge of operational rules, they insisted. Personally, one said, he was in the head end of many trains going through that station and no engineer ever complained about the visibility of that signal. In order to see it, said the principal accident investigator, a train needs to pull out nine hundred and fifty feet from the station in order to view it. NO engineer has ever complained about it, according to the signal manager. How many Amtrak engineers and Metrolink engineers and freight engineers have pulled out of that station far enough to view the next signal and obeyed it? Who is to say. As of this writing, according to the records, no changes to signal placement or the software controlling the signals and train movements have been made. So when you’re sitting on the Amtrak heading for Santa Barbara, you hope that conductor and engineer are looking, and in most cases they are. Will it ultimately be shown that the engineer on September 12 2009 wasn’t looking? Some say yes. Only God has that answer and Rob isn’t here to tell it. Tall Tales and a Smart Man Before the fans head out to the tracks which are only ten feet in front of the café if that, maybe twenty and that’s being generous, Curt engages me in a conversation about the credibility of those who spend their evenings at the station. “Bob says Norm is a freight engineer,” I say. “Is that what he told you?” Curt asks me incredulously. “They like to tell tall tales.” Now I don’t’ know and I suppose someone has to be in that locomotive guiding the train but it is possible that Norm really isn’t’ a freight engineer. On Tuesday in another conversation about this very same thing I tell Doug that someone says the story of Norm being a freight engineer is a tall tale. “Someone has to do it,” I assure. “Is Norm a freight engineer?” “He is,” Doug says. And he probably is. On Friday, four days later, as I sat on the patio with my double cheese burger and another balmy evening with the hint of a chill to come, Norm shows up and sits with Larry and Bob and two others I don’t recognize. “How as your birthday, Norm,” I said. “Oh we don’t’ celebrate those anymore,” says Larry. Norm doesn’t remember me it’s obvious, he’s never met me in fact. Last Friday when he sat on the patio telling Bob about his wife planning a fiftieth birthday party he didn’t know I was listening. What does that have to do with him being a freight engineer? I don’t’ know exactly, but the next time I see him I’ll have to ask him when he has to be to work. That will tell me whether he is a freight engineer or not. Blowing Your own Horn Still standing by the tracks enjoying the evening, another freight train comes through, and the engineer lays on that horn four times. "Why does he do that?" I ask. ”Kids like it," says one of the guys. There are some kids over by the Spaghetti Factory and so I’m sure they enjoyed it. “The engineer must be in a good mood,” I say, and my reason is because sometimes when the trains come through the station they don’t blow their air horns, mounted on top of the cabs. The horns work on a very high PSI Doug explains on Tuesday when we’re sitting by the tracks. But for now, revel in that wonderful sound, because the engineer is out of there and maybe on his way to bed to dream about a bunch of people standing by the railroad tracks. I bet he did the same thing when he was a kid! Rob Sanchez was down by some tracks when he was seven years old, writes one newspaper reporter, when the engineer of an idling train had him in the cab blowing his whistle. So you see, sometimes the engineers just want to blow their own horn. The important thing is that we get out of the way. ON September 12, 2008 just out of Chatsworth, two trains did not have time to get out of the way and Rob Sanchez blew that whistle for the last time. I hope he enjoyed it. Not So Fast Shortly after the freight exits, another one comes on track one, heading south. This time it is just an engine, but the engineer halls through there like there’s no tomorrow, and we all stand as something is blown up from the tracks. The smell of the diesel lingers as he takes his leave and there is a general consensus among us that he wants to go home and go to bed. “If he’s going to L.A.,” David says. “Then he may go to Ruby’s and drink or find loose women.” “Or whatever he prefers,” I say. “There are a few of those,” he says. Yes sadly there are. Wherever he is going tonight we’re all standing here watching and listening, enjoying a favorite spot in Fullerton. Where’s That Train? Soon after the freight comes through I take my leave, walking back through the tunnel and out to the bus dock to take the 26 down Commonwealth to my apartment. As I wait for the bus I notice that Jason is back again. Instead of catching the south bound train to Orange he is standing at the bus stop waiting for a bus going completely in the opposite direction. I don’t’ say anything because I don’t want to get him started, but it occurs to me as I step on the bus to go home and he waits for another one that he’ll probably miss a bus tonight and he definitely won’t make that 9:02 southbound train. Blame the engineer So back to the original starting point of this essay, the theme of blaming the engineer. The fact is since the Chatsworth accident with all of its sadness and questions, I’ve discovered the comedic, the spectacle, the peace, and the colorful characters at the Fullerton train station. Six months ago I wrote that I couldn’t stayed mired in sorrow forever over the death of the Metrolink engineer. I do think about it and the Chatsworth accident does consume my interest. I’ve just finished the caption for the memorial plaque for him. I’m’ sure when I try to put it in place someone will remind me that he was to blame for the worst rail disaster in modern California history. I’m sure that when Rob Sanchez woke up that morning and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes he wasn’t planning to be labeled in that manner. As I woke up for my own eleven hour shift that day I wasn’t thinking about discovering anything new about the town I’d lived in since 1989. But both things happened and while I am brought to tears on some days over this loss I am also amazed at the characters I’ve met here, even the ones who are still out there looking for their southbound trains.
Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi |