Metrolink111: Finding The Engineer Two trips to the fullerton station and joy in the engineer. “A scanner,’ said bob Marsh the man who has sat on the patio at the fullerton station since that day in October when I went there to mourn the death of a Metrolink engineer. “That’s what you need, Shelley, so you can hear all your Metrolink engineers talk to you!” Oh my! Has it come to this? All my serious interest in trains, my dedicated efforts to find a spot for a memorial plaque for a Metrolink engineer and it all comes to this? The exchange starts when I ask bob where his scanner is, and tell him he should bring it on the patio. Five months after having a stroke Bob will be taking Access, the Para transit service for people who don’t drive anymore, or are senior or otherwise prevented from using the public bus system. I’m not fun of the service being a middle aged blind woman with a crush on a Metrolink engineer I suppose, used to get around without private transportation, though I think the train has taken the place of my love for driving when we would take long trips as a family up to see my grandmother, the daughter, by the way, of that railroad engineer who seems to have visited me in my later life. Lying on that couch watching Chatsworth accident footage triggered a connection with my family past I suppose, and I just thought it was because the media gave Rob Sanchez a licking, not worse, by the way, than the one he seems to have inflicted upon himself. Anyway, we’re not getting into that right now. Read my other essays if you want to experience that whole painful journey for me. Tonight Wednesday September 30 sitting on the patio it seems to be about the engineer, again. This time, however, it’s not about me discovering one, but everyone else teasing me about waving at one. “So is this my prince Charming?” I ask as the northbound Metrolink pulls into the station. “Prince charming?” Shirley chimes in, joining the harassment. Shirley is an attendant on train 784 I think, or is it a different one? She bring snack packs from Amtrak and distributes them at the table. I love those snack packs, they’re one of the main reasons I upgrade to business class each time I take the Amtrak to Chatsworth or any other point. Someone says something about Shelley having a boyfriend on the Metrolink train. “No,” I say, blushing furiously, animatedly discussing this, “I do not have a boyfriend on the Metrolink Train!” I’m laughing, of course, and everyone else likes teasing me. The high point however is when Bob says at the beginning of the exchange that I need a scanner so I can hear all my Metrolink engineers talking to me. This is the man I call the ring leader. He sat there for eight or nine months without talking to me. Of course I didn’t talk to anyone though I wanted to, it took a while. It’s the same position I’m now in with the engineers. I want to talk to them but I’m a little bit shy, and maybe the opportunity hasn’t presented itself yet. “Okay,” I announce. “Heir’s the thing! It’s not a BNSF engineer, it’s not an Amtrak engineer! No, it has to be a Metrolink engineer! Why a metrolink engineer?” Well, the obvious answer might be that (1) I take Metrolink trains and they come to this station and they’re easier to get to, or it might just be that the thing that brought me to the station was an experience with a Metrolink engineer, one who is no longer here to explain himself. Tears for an Engineer This week I find myself in tears quite a bit about the death of that metrolink engineer, Rob Sanchez. It doesn’t take much to bring tears this week. Maybe in some strange way I really am grieving for him. I never met him but sometimes I really do recognize those classic expressions of grief: anger, shock, I wouldn’t say denial and definitely I don’t think acceptance. I don’t think I’ve accepted the fact of his death on an emotional level though certainly on a physical level I understand it. Perhaps this is why I want to find a spot for a memorial plaque for him. “You knew Rob?” says Gary on the Metrolink 113 when I’m in Chatsworth last Thursday. No, I didn’t know him, but I sure miss him. Lilian is ready to move on, I’m the one who’s grieving him. Maybe it’s because no one else will. I don’t know. I’m hard put to explain it. I’m fully functional. I’m not losing sleep, I’m not missing work, I’m eating properly, and I am socializing. But I miss him and maybe that’s why it has to be a Metrolink engineer that I wave at, because it was a metrolink engineer who brought me to the Fullerton station. I figure in my online journal I can be brutally honest and admit my obsession with the accident. I can admit that I don’t’ have all the answers and I can admit that I miss the engineer. IN any case, the teasing ends at some point and I eat my grilled hot dog and drink my soda, go to the other side of the tracks and await Glen’s train. It might not even be Glen who is operating the train tonight. I suspect it probably is. Chris Guenzler seems to know who the conductor on Metrolink train 608 is. Treat Him with Care The northbound Metrolink to Los Angeles comes in, late, just before the south bound train comes in. I stand by the tracks a little worried tonight because I’ve done something that only I would do. I’ve printed a note that I’ve written to Glen and hope to hand to the conductor. However I don’t do that; I hold it and wave as the train passes the bridge. Walter who sits on the north side of the tracks tells me later that they can see me standing against the palm tree. If they can see me, then Glen sees me, too. Somehow that brings comfort. Somehow if I’m brutally honest and because I’m writing online I will be, it is waving at this engineer on the Metrolink 608 that brings comfort for the death of another engineer. Besides it’s fun and I want to have engineers for friends. I’m usually pretty good at making things happen. Eventually I’ll make friends with engineers just like I made friends of the fans on the patio. I think also waving at Glen and getting a response helps me deal with something that I’m not sure how to resolve: a financial problem. Usually I’m good at solving those, too. Right now I’m not figuring out how to do it. I leave it in God’s hands, he has always provided magnificently, and sometimes if I just go think of or do something else the problems work themselves out. So I’m waving at Glen, and I’m having fun doing it, and comforting my stress. I get great joy out of waving at a Metrolink engineer who’s name I know. He can have his own life; he doesn’t have to be part of mine. But somehow he is and I thank him. All because on day in Los Angeles a woman said his name and I picked up on it. I’ll treat my engineer with care, that’s for sure. I go back to the other side of the tracks. Walter is there; he talks endlessly, I interrupt him to talk to Jose about Dennis the guy who is the new helper at the café. Dennis is pretty good, but he sometimes says the funniest things. I asked him once what was in the special with the egg salad sandwich and he said egg salad. Okay, I said, I have to go and so I went and ate at the Spaghetti Factory. He makes the hot dog tonight and it is good. Shortly rafter the Metrolink 608 leaves and we finish chattering I go home and stay up for three hours writing. I’ll get to make one more trip to the station this week and that will be tomorrow. The rest of the week sees me working and perhaps I’ll go on Saturday, depending on my mood I may just decide to stay home and work on writing since I work on Sunday. We’ll see how that all goes. Tonight I’m happy because I’ve waved at the engineer. A man tries to tell me I’m too close to the edge of the tracks but I tell him that I know where I am, that he doesn’t know anything about who I am and what I’m doing out there. I have a year’s experience with train tracks I think I can decide when I’m too close to them. I’m not too close to the tracks. I’m happy. Life is good. Engaging the Engineer Thursday has come and gone, finally. We’re working lots of hours and I’ve signed up for overtime on Friday so tonight is my final wave at Glen the Metrolink engineer. But there’s plenty of adventure before Glen brings that train to a gentle stop by the bridge, bell clanging and air brakes hissing as he sets them and powers down the engine to a gentler idle. There’s something huge and amazing about that big Diesel engine idling, his hand ready to increase the power and move all that tonnage. Rob Sanchez told a frothing teenager that running a passenger train was easy. It might be easy but to me standing there it’s an awesome display of power and it better be used properly or else it can, as we’ve discovered all too many times, be deadly. Tonight Glen’s control of the train is comforting to me dealing with travel questions all day, but before he comforts me, the fun begins on the other side of the tracks. The usual teasing begins, a lady misses an Amtrak train and Shirley helps her find the Metrolink ticket and shows her where to catch her train. A man needs help using a Metrolink machine. A freight train pulls up on track two and this is where it gets interesting. Janice who has decided to give me a blow by blow account of what goes on over the bridge as two women miss their Amtrak train decides I need a blow by blow account of the movements of the freight engineer. “Shall I describe tem to you?” she asks. Thus begin her narration. The freight engineer climbs down the stairs, walks across the tracks and walks up to two women on the planter near the spaghetti Factory and hands them two bottles of water. He has hair, she says, and sunglasses. He then after a few moments goes back to the tracks, looks both ways, walks across track one, climbs up the stairs and gets into the cab, closing the door. There! I’ve had my first description of a freight engineer doing his work, but wait, it’s still about the Metrolink engineers! The big freight train pulls away, leaving us with Amtrak and Metrolink trains, my double cheese burger which I’ve broken down and purchased tonight, and then the trek over the bridge. I’ve decided that climbing the stairs on the bridge to and from track 3 I good for my health. I’m out of breath when I climb those four flights up, letting m know that I must indeed work on that. I remember climbing multiple sets of stairs in college to the practice rooms. I guess I’ll be taking the steps more often. A woman helps me find the stairs and des a nice job of giving directions. “I know were the elevator is,” I say, “But I want to take the stirs.” I go to the other side of the tracks, finding my spot, using my cane to locate the edge of the track and count the bricks that tell of its nearness. Other people file across the bridge waiting for their train. Soon I hear the bell, the Metrolink 608 approaches stopping near me. Surprisingly no one asks me tonight if I need help. I’ve made a phone call or two while standing on the platform maybe they all think I can handle it tonight, who knows. I don’t really care. I’m happy. Glen sits in front of me, it’s time for my private communion with an engineer if it’s only in my head. He does power down the engine. “Power down” I say, “power down.” I stand with my bright yellow bag on my shoulder, my white cane in my left hand, smiling, lifting my hand in greeting, just hoping he sees me. The brakes hiss as he prepares to move the train and the bell clangs, it’s one of the older bells, maybe it’s an older locomotive. I need to learn the engine number. I will find it out and then they’ll change it. The bell signals my last wave, I say goodbye with my hand and my smile and the train moves away. I turn back to the bridge, comforted, happy, knowing there is some kind of strange relationship going on between Shelley and a live, breathing locomotive engineer. This is where I am for now. I’ll take it. I make my way over the bridge. “Shelley, we’re over here,” Curt tells me. I make my way to the patio and Walter is there talking. Curt is about to take my can and recycle it, I tell him to give me the can as a huge freight train comes up behind us. I’m out of breath again from the climb over the bridge. I finish the soda and give him the can. “there’s something different about the station,” he says. We can’t figure out what it is. He says there’s a sign and we have to learn to read it. I don’t learn what it is tonight, I sit there awaiting the next adventure on the patio. It’s time for the verdict about tonight’s episode with Glen. “He got up and said hi to you,” says Janice. “He doesn’t know your name he might be kind of shy,” Curt explains. “He doesn’t want to yell hey lady.” Maybe he just doesn’t know how to respond to me or maybe he is shy. Glen shy? Maybe. Me? I’m shy that’s for sure. But I’m determined to communicate with him. But he said hi and I’m happy. I’ll take it. “He has a white uniform on” Janice says. She’s decided that when she sees the guy who always rides the metrolink to San Juan, the 608, she’s going to ask him when Glen comes through here the first time going to Los Angeles so she can see him. Now they all want to know what he looks like. He looks like Glen. “According to Curt,” she says, “He’s an older man.” I like that. That means stability, family, experience. It might mean debt. It might mean lots of other things. Maybe it’s because I’m older but I like that idea. I’ll take it. An animated conversation begins on people who work and their excuses for not working. Denis isn’t here tonight he didn’t want o come Jose says. Walter talks about a guy who said he was sick and couldn’t go to work and that he saw on the phone with a pickup holding a girl and a guy. He told his employee that he had thirty minutes to get back to work or he would fire him. The guy went to work. I explain that if I’m let go for non attendance I can’t draw unemployment. The breeze dies down, it’s cooler now. Jose brings out the flat cart and begins to remove the wrought iron chairs from the patio. We drift out to the tracks. I go to the spaghetti Factory, use the restroom, get an Italian soda, and then go out to the bus stop. I find that station sometimes a little confusing. There are twists and turns, boxed in brick sections with tucked in benches, a few trees, light posts, and so it’s sometimes a navigational challenge for me. I’ve found that if I follow the safety line on the railroad tracks that I get around moor easily. One problem however that I don’t seem to have lately is finding the engineer.
Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi |