Metrolink111: Brown Eyes, Technology And Railroad Tracks
Shelley J Alongi

 

Saturday morning, November 1, the decision is made. I’ve been putting it off for a week, at least, a return to the place that has provided solace and strength for me since the Metrolink crash on September 12, 2008.

By now anyone who has read my Metrolink series knows of my interest in the engineer, Robert Martin Sanchez. In one of my essays I mentioned that I didn’t know what that face looked like but now I’ve discovered that his eyes were brown. Ok so what does Rob’s eye color have to do with where I go today after work? Probably not much, or maybe everything. I do have to tell you that the person who told me his eyes were brown didn’t think that was a strange question and if she did she never said anything. It might not be your usual question, but when an accident statistic becomes human, and that accident and person enters into Shelley’s emotional and mental territory, you can bet that small, personal details such as eye color attains huge significance. Well, before I get shunted onto the siding of making some academic nonsense out of Rob’s eye color, let me explain where I went to night after work, or do you even have to ask?

Saturday night at the fullerton train station is kind of a quiet night. While there in the entire span of three hours I think I see three or four freights pass through there. And yes, two of them, that I can recall offhand, ring their bells while approaching the station. Anyone who knows me knows that eventually I will get into a discussion of bells. But tonight there is only one little discussion of bells and the entire evening is quiet, uneventful, and somewhat educational, and mostly relaxing.

At first when I went to the station I was overwhelmed with my grief or amazement, shock, stunned questioning, or obsession, however you want to look at it, or maybe there’s a little bit of truth in all of it. I can just see someone writing about me posthumously that one of the and I quote “most interesting things about Shelley was her fascination with the Metrolink engineer who parished in the September 12, 2008 crash between his commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train.” I can just see some scholarly hand writing it now, but I’ll leave their words for the description, I’m sure I wouldn’t agree with its interpretation anyway. In any case, back to a simple little trip to the fullerton train station and its significance.

Leave the Technology Out of It

Tonight the Fullerton train station trip is significant, because I realize that not only is it a direct result of my interest in the metrolink engineer, but it is providing relaxation, and creative drive. When I go to the station I leave my computer and technology at home. Yes I do have my cell phone with me and I do make one single phone call to my father to firm up plans for a dinner date tomorrow, a call that I leave on his voicemail. However, the phone only sits with me tonight and provides little assistance during the evening, mostly because finally after eight or nine months of putting it off I have finally purchased a wrist watch. Because I’m blind I can’t just go by any watch, and because I was moving in September I put off purchases that I considered luxuries till they could be fit into the budget. Finally in October the watch became a complete and life giving necessity (shows how tied to a western model of time I am) and so tonight while at the station, on the patio, on the planter near the tracks, or on the way home, the watch usurps the place the cell phone has taken during its absence.

There are those who do bring their computers to the train station, no doubt to simulate train movements or whatever else can be heard or seen online in relation to trains, but not me. I spend my entire work day online, and most of my spare time when I’m not cooking or cleaning or doing anything else I do here or out in the big world. The train station for now is a place to get away from all that, to become unplugged and escape all that keeps me wired onto the super highway. It is a place to tune into my other senses, and the surroundings at the station; a place to observe people, watch children running with boundless energy to the elevator, saying “Mom I’ll race you.” It’s a place to listen to conversations, to feel the cool breeze or the bright sunshine, a place to rediscover the taste of a simple cheeseburger, to listen to cars as they traverse the streets, discern the different sounds of train whistles, and think of other things to ask about Rob Sanchez. Other things I might want to ask also occur to me here, such as what did Glen make Judy for dinner in my Flirting with Monday” story, and do metrolink engineers use bell codes while approaching stations. Are the bells in the trains automated? Are the engineers ringing them? And perhaps a good one for a former music major, what kinds of chordal structures are represented by the train whistle? Are they minor chords, augmented chords? Sometimes I hear note combinations that defy my training. A train whistle may be designed to be musical or not, more than likely it is designed to be discordant, but one thing is for sure, it is designed to get your attention.

On the Patio

Tonight, dinner at the train station is served by Rosa, a new face for me at the café; a small girl with a pleasant demeanor who takes the time to take a can of Diet Pepsi and put it into a cup for me. I’m always happy with the can but her added gesture does not go unnoticed by someone who is supposed to take guest service to new heights, that would be me. Rosa is working alone tonight, though Jose her counterpart does appear at 7:00 pm when it’s time to take down the umbrellas that provide some shade to the tables on the patio. Rosa brings me my order for the day, a bacon cheeseburger with French fries. Tonight there’s no ice-cream, no second Diet Pepsi. The cup with ice she provides follows me later out to the planter by the tracks and provides ice for my occasional desires for drink. The cheeseburger is good tonight though I do find the Catsup a bit too sweet. I probably won’t eat the Catsup at the train station anymore, I’m not a big fan of the tomato based condiment, though I am a huge fan of tomatoes. While I am eating my dinner, someone gets upset because they haven’t gotten their food and they go into the café. I don’t see this person again, so I don’t’ know if they just sneak by me or if they just leave the place altogether. I don’t even know what he was upset about, but he’s gone, and the usual knot of rail fans adorns the patio, talking about different things. Bob, who is a regular, I’ve noticed him there each time I’ve come to join the group, sits there and exchanges words with a conductor on one of the Amtrak passenger trains that comes into the station. One man whose name I don’t catch engages another one of the guys in a discussion of a bike he has gotten, his encounters with a homeless man, the sheriff, city hall in getting a lock, and whatever else he can think to discuss. After a while I tune it out, his speech gets a little monotonous though he is happy enough and does take time to say thank you when I say that I like the bell he has. Sometimes I sit at the station and I don’t talk to many of the people, but I always discover that when I do they’re more than willing to engage me in conversation. I’m getting more comfortable with the people who show up here on a regular basis. Who would have thought as I lay on my couch listening to the news on channel 9 on September 12 2008 through discussions of Rob’s troubled past or speculating about it, or what went wrong, or telling us about Chatsworth High School becoming an information center for the families who had lost people in the accident, that I’d be sojourning through my own emotional wreckage and discovering one of Fullerton’s oldest sites. I like this train station. In some ways the experience is as rewarding if not more so than the exploration of the fullerton airport. The accident that drew me to the airport has been reported on, the mechanic who engaged my attention is now safely ensconced in Nevada adjusting to life as a pilot paraplegic, a man with lots of friends and lots of resources. The airport provides vital service to the community, and so now I’m involved in learning about and resorting to the train station when my questions demand me to do so, my creative drive needs some reenergizing, or still when my unexplained sadness over the loss of Rob pulls me out to the connection that is the best therapy: trains.

At the Tracks

If you’re at the train station in the evening, you will know that at 7:00 pm Jose takes up the umbrellas, and soon afterward the chairs start disappearing as the café closes at 8:00 pm. The intrepid rail fans and me still in half learning half comfort seeking mode traipse out to the tracks, feet away from the yellow safety line, knowing that if a car ever derails right there we’re all going to be meeting our maker. Tonight is no exception and when I get out to the planter by the tracks, I discover that two of the guys from the patio, Bob and another man, are sitting out there along with Eric, a younger quieter guy, who might be homeless but I’m not sure of that. We all sit there talking about Live Steamers, little narrow gage trains you can ride at Griffith Park, and watch trains. There is a freight heading right for the place where we are, its lights warning of its eminent approach. The thing that I notice tonight, and knew all along but never quite tuned into is that you can’t hear a train until it’s practically on top of you. This is an extremely good reason to stay off the railroad tracks. It may partially explain why a brakeman I read about got hit by a train using a cell phone while walking on the tracks. Here comes the train, pulled by the locomotive, the bright-eyed engineer, and there are 135 cars. This information is given to me by one of the guys sitting on the planter, minus the part about the bright-eyed engineer. I made that part up.

The men engage in a conversation saying that there are tracks piled up on a siding near the station, that a railroad crew seems to be doing some kind of work.

“Maybe on the ATS?” I ask. The Automatic Train Stop, a red bar that signals a sensor on a locomotive if a signal is red, in response to which an engineer has to push a button to stop the buzzer from ringing in the locomotive. If the engineer does not respond to the buzzer as I understand it, the train stops. This occurs if the signal is red. It is an eighty year old technology that is supposed to stop trains from running red signals, it is an attempt for the train to be smarter than the engineer. Given the reports I’ve read about railroad accidents, it seems to be a necessary installation, one that still baffles novice rail fans like me as to why it isn’t more widely used. It could have, speculates the endless armchair strategist, lessened the impact of the two trains in the Chatsworth accident, and saved lives. Then perhaps I wouldn’t be wondering about Rob Sanchez’s eye color. That would be endlessly better than burying loved ones, I know, but it is not what happened, and it is, simply, what it is. When I mention the ATS the younger of the two rail fans says “No, not yet. Not so fast,” he says, ”not so fast.”
At two separate times during the hour that passes while we sit by the tracks the same guy who answers the question about the ATS tells me the colors of the signals and what tracks they’re on. The first one I don’t’ remember, but it is the westbound Amtrak that is approaching. The second one I do remember, he said we had a red over green signal on track two which probably means that a freight train was coming and would be crossing over to track two. It’s amazing to me that the rail fans know I’m blind and they sometimes explain things to me for my added benefit. Sit around rail fans enough and I may learn something. I already have. The freight train does come and it does cross over onto track number two.
After the freight train and another passenger train come through the station, Bob and the signal Sayer say goodnight and head off for their own worlds. I sit there for another hour, not thinking of anything, not even a Metrolink engineer with dark hair and brown eyes. No, I just sit there, feeling the cool breeze, there are occasional raindrops, and I just unwind. The day has been quiet at work so I’m not too exhausted from the schedule. I sit and think briefly about my story, observe another freight, it sounds so close I can almost touch it. You can’t really touch the trains as they pass, there is ay yellow safety line, but sound sometimes is very deceptive, and sitting there, I am surrounded by the groans and clatters, the engine, the cars clacking along the rails, and the wind. A freight train is an amazing invention for an economy that relies on goods for its fuel, the freight train provides paychecks for some people and endless moments of pleasure for others. Why is that exactly? Who’s to say.
Experiences tonight with freight trains are wonderful. Throughout the evening, I’m tempted to wave at the engineer guiding such a huge glorious deadly thing across the rails but I keep my hands resolutely in my lap. Maybe next time.

Brown Eyes and Railroad Tracks

The evening ends on a happy quiet note, as the last freight slides effortlessly through the station and I observe its passing, I gather my big red bag and my cup and my cane and head back toward the front of the station to call a cab. Sitting on the bench to wait for its arrival, I realize that this has been a very rewarding trip. They have all been rewarding in some regard, whether it’s to learn new names, or ease my emotional discomfort. Remember that in other essays I’ve written that Rob and I shared the same tracks at some other time, and he drove the Coast Starlight. In learning about him through outside sources I’ve discovered that we may have had similar likes and similar medical conditions, he seems to have been quite an enjoyer of food. I can definitely relate to that. In preparing the memorial plaque for him I’ve tried to learn other things about him that emphasize his personality and not just his eye color, though for me eyes have always been an important part of what I know about a person. This little place where trains come and go and people embark and disembark on their separate journeys has become a place to grow and to plan for the future and learn. Nothing ever enters my life without leaving its mark on me. Now, this evening, as the cab arrives and I prepare to go home to my welcome committee, two girl cats, I realize that the next time I return to the station, whether in two days or two weeks, it will be a trip to reenergize and learn, not just a place to mourn the loss of a Metrolink engineer with brown eyes.

 

 

Copyright © 2008 Shelley J Alongi
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