Metrolink111: In Search Of The Engineer Today, as usual, it’s about friendship, characters, and the engineers. An Unlikely Meeting Place It’s a hot, dry August 28 Friday afternoon as I exit the call center and head for the bus to the Fullerton train station. Today I’ve put my name on the early release list at work which means that if there are enough people to cover the calls they’ll let some people end their shifts earlier. If I put my name on the early release list it’s usually on a Friday because it means I get a three day weekend, and I don’t do it unless something is making me not want to answer the phone. I’ve worked overtime this week, or at least it feels like it, and so what may be termed as “female complaints” are making me a little impatient so I decide that today might be a good day to go hang out with the railfans and eat expensive food or something. The checkbook is a little tight, that’s happening with more frequency these days since we’re not pulling overtime, but it’s okay, God is providing and somehow the lights are still on. The tightness in the pay check only eliminates the frequency of the over priced cheese burger, but never the waving freight engineers or the spectacle of the station. I arrive around 1:00 Pm or so and immediately order a bean and cheese burrito and read my book. Last Monday was the second meeting of the Southern California Train Travel group and I went to the station that day and even tracked down to the engine with Bruce, or at least I followed him down there, and observed the engineers talking to him. Bruce spent most of the time talking about what trains were on time and talked to Kenny the younger engineer who stood there and then hopped up the ladder. I wave and say bye but they don’t talk to me. I’m probably just a crazy railfan, a foamer, to them and they’re making the money. I don’t really think that they think that, but sometimes it just sounds good to say it. Eventually I’ll talk to more of them, but hey I’ve been promising myself I’m going to do this for months and so I finally get the courage and do it. And why not? When the train pulls away Marty comes down to the end of the platform and then a man I met three or four years ago at Toastmasters is there, talking about Target and trains. “I didn’t know you liked trains,” I say to the man whose name is Richard, a man who was division governor of division D in district F of Toastmasters. “I think it was because I was born by the railroad tracks,” he says. At the restaurant that night I met Chris Guenzler, one of the most prolific provider of articles for Trainweb.com. He’s the “million Mile Man” and so he’s been on all the Amtrak routes at least twice. That day he traveled with Winston on a bunch of the Metrolink lines. Chris is a fast walker and very active. He tells me there are two companies that make locomotives, General Electric and another company whose name escapes me. Guess I’ll have to do my homework. Larry tells me that my great Grandfather who as a railroad engineer did work for the Santa Fe railroad in New Mexico. They owned the trackage back then. In an earlier essay called “Railroad Family Ties” I mentioned that my father reminded me that my great grandfather on my mother’s side was a railroad engineer. Apparently he wasn’t very nice according to family lore, but you know how family lore is, it all starts with a grain of truth and expands from there. I’m not so sure I want to know everything about him but it would be nice to know where he worked. Railroads came to me late in life, it seems, and all of his children have died, and so the only way I might learn such information is if I can track down their children, most of whom I haven’t’ seen since I was a child. Sitting by the tracks in the early, cool Monday evening, six of the So Cal Train travel group members talk about trains, and freights clatter by, the hands of some of the engineers out the windows waving at us. What is the intrigue about engineers waving? Is it that one of the descriptions of Rob Sanchez was that he was always waving and smiling from his open window and so I connect that way with him? Is it just that I like to say hi to people as I pass them? Is it that they’re all running those huge machines? I don’t know what makes people want to wave at engineers but if you are one you’re probably the most popular person in the world without the throbbing, merciless headache of being a celebrity. Perhaps being a train engineer isn’t such a bad occupation as long as you stay out of politics. God knows there’s plenty of politics in railroading, always has been, and most likely, always will be. I suppose that gives railroading it’s own set of headaches, but at least it’s not the headache of being a celebrity. Tonight, Monday, we’re not discussing politics, we’re waving at engineers, and talking about trains. I show Larry, the SFRR historian, the Braille version of that Santa Fe book and show him the diagrams which give us the number of axles on the locomotives. A year ago I would have never cared about such things. This year I know a little bit about them. He keeps trying to explain them to me and someday I’m going to remember all of them. Now if I could get under one that would really help, but getting under a locomotive isn’t always a pleasant thing. This would be for educational purposes only, I hope. Someday I’ll get my chance. Some poor engineer or mechanic is going to take pity on a curious railfan. An engineer took pity on a seven year old boy once and let him blow the horn. That boy went on to be an engineer and now his picture hangs on my wall if nowhere else. An article I read somewhere, its source unnamed for the moment, said we might have a shortage of railroad engineers soon. Aviation experts have been saying the same thing about pilots. Engineers make good money. Larry thinks so; he says I’m a gold digger because I want to meet one. But that’s a different story and we’ll get to it soon enough. “Is your connection an emotional or intellectual one?” Larry asks me about my interest in trains. Lilian says it’s because they’ve let me into their circle that my interest in trains will last longer. I explain to Larry that at first it was an emotional connection with Rob Sanchez that makes me be interested, and then it turned into an intellectual one. Trains seem to connect with key components of my personality: emotional connections, history, legends, personalities larger than life, (see the story of the building of the transcontinental), friendly people (at least so far), and whatever else makes me tick. I like passion. Railroading seems to have been full of passion. I hope it is now, too. “You would have never picked up a book like this,” he says if I hadn’t made an emotional connection with an engineer who crashed his train into a freight train. Yet another one of those long stories. He’s right, of course. Even if I did know about trains they might not have come to have such significance for me if I hadn’t turned on my television that Friday night and seen what must have been the closest thing to hell I ever want to see. Larry is very perceptive. He’s also very overwhelmed. The guys walk me out to the bus stop and then it’s off to my week. It’s A What? I don’t reappear again till now, Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM and I sit in the café for a while eating and reading. A woman comes in and orders some food. She shows up again later on the patio with some of the older guys who come there in the afternoon. I end up there, too, on my way out to the tracks to wander the station and see what’s going on. I stay there because the conversation gets interesting. We somehow talk about locomotive horsepower, is it 4444 horse power for passenger trains? Some huge number sticks in my head giving me more fodder for my intense curiosity about trains. I’ll have to look them up. Dick and Pat are the ones I talk to most, pat asks me if I’ll be here next Friday but I don’t’ think so, now that I see my schedule, unless I ER that day, and I might. I have a shorter week this week and I’m looking forward to the shorter hours, but I have a lot of business I’m putting off doing till then so I may not er on Friday. I’m sure I’ll end up at the train station. They ask me which book I’m reading at the Santa Fe and so I show them the book. Silvia, the woman in the café who is it turns out waiting for the Southwest chief, asks some question which I don’t remember now and surprisingly enough I know the answer. I remember coming here last year staying in my corner pining, missing an engineer I never met, and now here I am just chattering away like I know something. I do know something, but there’s always something else to learn. “Why do they sit so high in those locomotives?” I ask. Someone says it’s because they’re big machines and if the engineers sit up high there’s a better chance of survival in a collision. “That didn’t help the Metrolink engineer,” I say. There’s no response. Pat tells me that the Desert Wind used to come through Fullerton but they closed the route or changed it. Now, we see the Southwest Chief, the Pacific Surf liner, Metrolink trains, and a bunch of BNSF freight trains. The southwest chief is the attraction of the evening everyday and now it’s the later group that shows up. I go to the café and order more food and then sit down and wait. Two older guys talk about something that happened earlier today: three trains at once in the station: the Pacific Surfliner going to San Diego on track 3, a BNSF freight train going somewhere on track 2, and a Metrolink train going to Los Angeles on track 1. The engineer from the freight train hustles past us, saying “Good morning how are you guys doing” as he goes into the café. Freight engineers coming into the café seem to be the highlight of my day, if not the others. I’d say the highlight of most railfans is counting train cars. There can be a lively conversation going on and suddenly when a train comes screaming through the station showing off its flat cars or tanker cars, conversation stops and all eyes turn to the train. It is as if there is a religious experience going on, people turn pensive, reflective, or just goggle-eyed. I guess I’m in that category now, but I think I’m more interested in waving at the engineers. “Scoundrels,” I tell Larry, who thinks I’m a gold digger. If you want to know why I want to meet a train engineer, I’ve decided it might be because they hold a lot of power in their hands. Maybe it’s because I just like to meet people who are involved in the action if it’s action that I want to know about. And maybe part of it is the historian in me who wants to know where I can get answers if I have questions about operating trains. I’ve met one freight engineer, Norm, who’s not here today. A Metrolink train pulls up and people run for it, throwing away their soda cans and bottles, cups, plates, grabbing their bags, ending cell phone conversations, reaching for their tickets. “My love,” says Larry. “There’s your engineer friend! Where are you my love?” he teases. “lady in red!” I’m wearing a red and white shirt and black slacks and so now I’m the lady in red. “He’s not here long enough to give me a ride,” I say, my back to the Metrolink train. A year ago I wanted to face the train, now I’m just sitting there sipping from my 1.5 liter bottle of cold water. It feels good on an eighty-five plus degree day, probably more like 100 degrees. It’s evening now and so there’s more shade, but that patio becomes stifling during the afternoon. The veterans know which way the sun moves and we all stay close to any resemblance of shade. “That guy was here long enough to offer me a ride,” I say as the Metrolink just sits there. They pull away and there goes my chance. The Other show Attention is diverted tonight by a drunk man falling down by our favorite spot, the planter by the railroad tracks. Two guys get into a fight, a woman calls the police although Jose says the taxi driver called the police and someone says the taxi driver says that Jose calls the police. The police chase two guys up on the overpass, handcuff two of them, bring them down and disappear. Two other guys walk away, and a woman walks away, too. Perhaps part of the interest at the train station is what Walt Disney termed “the show” in reference to people. He said that the people at Disneyland are the show; the people are certainly on somedays the show at the station. Curt tells us on Monday that there was one man beating up another one, a drunk man sucker punched the parolee who picks up the trash at the station, and there’s still blood on the pay phone where it happened. I’m not there for that one but I’m there for this one so I make sure people tell me what’s going on. If anyone is confused, ask Curt, the Scooter Boy, he knows everything that’s going on. He should put Twitter updates on the station. We’ve discussed that one somewhere. Wonder if it will ever happen? In Search of the Engineer Sitting on the patio with the now cool evening breeze caressing my back, I decide I’m going to go down and talk to the engineers on the Southwest Chief. The train comes in way too fast and it’s a good trek to the end of the platform and by the time I make my way through the baggage and the people I won’t get there on time. The optimal position is standing by the EB (Eastbound) Fullerton Junction sign in the roadbed at the end of the platform. The sign, old, metal, and weather-beaten stands proudly atop a pole, one that reminds me of a tetherball pole at Lake Marie Elementary school. This station has been here a long time and so it’s probably the exact same kind of pole. The road bed houses the three tracks, side rails for loading of old cabooses, a repair cage for cars that have been under repair for a long time it seems, and then merges with track 1, extending past the parking lot and out to the sunset. There is no safety line out there, there is no fence across the tracks. The safest vantage point is the Eastbound Fullerton Junction sign and then the stacked light signal just beyond it. The signal box is accessed by a ladder with thin, round metal steps, , also weather-beaten and of a solid metal construction. Maybe someday I can go up there and inspect the signals. Guess I’ll be meeting some important people to do that; guess I’ll just have to be where the action is. I’ll get there. Now the Southwest Chief leaves and there’s some discussion about which crew operated the train tonight. Was it 9? 10? Bob who had the stroke tells me I’m forgetting things because I don’t remember that crew 9 is operating the train tonight. “I can’t forget things I don’t know,” I tell the man who sits in his walker feasting his eyes on the old familiar cars. “I never knew the numbers of the crews.” But then no one can remember what crew is on duty tonight, and Bruce isn’t here to tell u. He only comes on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday Janice says so tonight I can go talk to the engineer all by myself and he won’t be there to interrupted, she says. Well, at least I know now where the engineer is, and I know where to find the locomotive. I keep reminding bob that he’s the one who told me the only place I would find the engineer is in the engine. So I’ll keep looking. The train leaves and most of the guys depart the station. Larry sits there and tells me he saw a television show on the upcoming maglev trains. Soon he leaves and I make my way out to the end of the platform, my black dress shoes crunching the gravel as I make my way to the road bed. Curt appears on his bike, his front basket full of recyclable cans, and tells me that BNSF keeps an eye on who comes out here where the platform ends. A foreign-born woman whose accent is undetermined comes up and asks me if I’m waiting for trains, tells me her son is taking videos and talks to me for a while. I head back down the platform and there’s Chris Parker from the train travel group. He has come down there he says, to get away from his job since he’s self-employed. Hey I came down to get away from mine and I’m not self employed; at least not anymore and not for now. Curt who is for some reason lying on the sidewalk tells me that the engineers in the freight trains are the ones who mostly have their hands out the windows, waving. “Tell me when to wave,” I say. Curt getting up from the sidewalk and sitting on the wrought iron bench that lines the wall says that Curt, the Austrian, knows about hand signs used in Germany. I mention something about giving the engineer a wave and that turns into a discussion about “giving the engineer the finger” because we’ve talked about the finger verses some other gesture I can’t remember. “Do you want to give him the finger?” Curt asks me. “No,” I laugh and smile. “If that train slows, and backs up, you’re in trouble,” is the consensus of the railfans standing on the platform. Well I guess I have about two miles to worry because it takes a while for a train to stop. Ask the engineer who was running the Leesdale Local on September 12, 2008 how long it takes. He’ll tell you. Why would I give some sleep-deprived, hardworking, scandalous, responsible, friendly, or even just task-oriented engineer the finger? Some might deserve it, but most are probably married with children, single with troubles, in debt, broke even if they do make money, looking for love in all the wrong places, or even perhaps the right ones, or maybe on a station platform, some train-starved railfan desperately waving hoping they’ll pick her, that’s if you believe Larry’s version. They might be dealing with domestic partners who won’t make house payments, or children who don’t want to go to college, medical issues, job security troubles, headaches, bad colds, noisy neighbors, pets, the IRS, lawyers, or maybe might have just placed their order for a roast beef sandwich. I’m not giving anyone the finger. I’m just smiling, saying hello, and if the conductor is in the car, we’ll say hi to him, or her, too. “You want to meet the engineer to get a free ride,” Larry says. “You need to meet a conductor.” A conductor may be an engineer soon, so perhaps I’ve met a bunch of future engineers. A Happy Ending: At Least for Tonight Soon even those stalwart fans leave and Doug and the Islamic man who claims to be a woman appear. I look at my watch. It’s been a long day I’m heading for the bus stop I say. We all walk out to the bus stop, Curt disappears into a bike riding group, I take the bus home and gratefully enter the air-conditioned apartment, calling for Pearl and Brandy. As usual, there’s no answer, but they know I’m there. What a day it has been! A trip to the train station, and a day off work. None of the engineers know my name yet, but they will; I promise.
Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi |