Metrolink111: The Learning Trip
Shelley J Alongi

 

Wednesday November 12 marks the two month anniversary since the Metrolink 111 crash on September 12, 2008, a day that if my mother had not had a C-section in 1966 may have been my birthday, also the wedding date for Jack and Jackie Kennedy, and other events that I know and don’t know about. Now I’ll think of the Metrolink111 accident. I’ll remember it as happening one week after Pearl, brandy and I took up residence in a two bedroom apartment which had been completely remodeled. I’ll remember September 12 as the day I started back to work after moving and taking one day off for apartment maintenance issues, the day I started paying higher rent, had more space to clean, and discovered a Metrolink engineer whose death would sweep through my emotional territory, causing me to plan a Memorial picture of him to hopefully hang at the fullerton train station, and if not there, then somewhere else, the location for plan B not yet determined.

I’m sitting here at the station tonight not eating dinner because basically I’m broke, my credit card is maxed out, my pay check comes tomorrow, and I’ve had a decent lunch and so I’m really not hungry. I settle tonight for the Santa Fe Café’s weak coffee, served by Christina, and the company of three rail fans. Yes, finally, after sitting here for two months, pining, drooping, observing, thinking, planning, sometimes talking, and reenergizing, one of the ring leaders pulls up a chair and says something like “hey, usually you’re over there eating dinner.” This is Bob, the one I consider the ring leader, though he may not consider himself to hold this position.

I do learn a few things tonight, things that I had been curious about, but didn’t ask yet. I learn that the guy who brings the computer down to the station is Otis, that you can only meet a train engineer at the engine, and that Bob sells stamps as his way to make a living.

“So where do I meet train engineers?” I ask Bob, the ring leader.

“The only place you’re going to find a train engineer is in the engine,” he says. Ok. “If they’re in the mood they’ll open the door and come talk to you. That’s what they do with us.”

Recounting this story to a friend the next day I say that I’d go to the engine but I’m kind of shy.

“I wouldn’t think of you as shy, Shelley” says my friend as we walk into the library for our weekly Toastmasters meeting. Me? Shy? Well, I did meet a pilot by going to the airport, so I suppose in order to meet a train engineer I’ll just have to go to the engine. I’m sure I’ll do that, but I don’t’ know when. I’m not quite sure when the best time to do that is, but I’ll find out. And when I do go to the engine, I have to ask one question: Are those bells automated?

I ask Bob this question about meeting a train engineer because he knows everyone, it seems. He talks to a Metrolink conductor, and an Amtrak conductor. I do know one thing, unless I don’t’ know anything at all, I haven’t talked to a train engineer on the phone yet for my job. Pilots, doctors, lawyers, but no train engineers.

Tonight I’ve brought a jacket because last week I came to the station for a rather uneventful night except that it was peaceful, and was very cold, and so I’ve learned my lesson. Even if I’m overweight and well insulated, it still gets cold here in the fall and so this morning before leaving for work I fold my lightweight fleece jacket and stuff it into my red wheeled duffel bag and start my day. The jacket comes in handy. I’m glad I brought it.

After I ask Bob my burning question and sip my weak coffee which I’ve transferred to my handy dandy Starbucks mug, we’re joined by two other fans. What I’ve also learned tonight is that people have observed me sitting there and one man tells me tonight that the last time I was at the station I took out my cane and was walking somewhere on the property and he said “Oh, she’s blind!” Yes, I am. I suppose people are doing the same thing I’m doing: they’re observing me as I come and go just as I observe them as they come and go and watch trains and have their conversations. Tonight I’m included in their conversations. One man whose name I didn’t get talks to me about road trips he’s taken, the reluctance of his son and others he’s known to take care of nature’s business along the side of roads, he talks about his unruly grandchildren and how he has to baby sit, and once while we’re at the tracks, he regales me with stories about films, but by the time we’re at the tracks I want some piece and quiet and I don’t get much of it. The man stops talking long enough to observe a very long freight that he does not want to compete with, and then starts right where he left off with the story. Another rail fan, Larry, talks about an article we read in the OC Register about an editor’s travels on the Sunset Limited, and we discuss Obama’s possible infusion of cash into the Amtrak system, a rail investment may be coming. This reminds me that just shortly after the metrolink accident in September, an article appeared in the L.A. Times in the opinion section basically dismissing Metrolink as an unnecessary inconvenience. Well, said one person to me, not at the train station, he obviously doesn’t ride the train. Obviously not. I also let people know tonight at the train station that I’ve been writing about my travels to the station.
“You’re going to write that tonight you met three dirty old men,” says one of them.
No, I’m going to write what I’m writing right now, and that’s not what happened. I talked to three men I’ve observed at the station, even if sometimes their humor is a little off color. That’s part of life unfortunately, some days, and I just take it all in stride.

Jose makes an appearance to clear the umbrellas and unmercifully tease Larry about some girl. He says they’ve been friends for a while, and by the way I did ask Jose two trips ago if he was a rail fan. No, he says, he doesn’t like trains. Why are you working here, I ask him. Because my boss likes me, he says. Jose appears to be a hard worker. Some days those are few an far between. He thinks that sitting by the railroad tracks is too noisy. Yes, it’s true, it’s noisy, but you have to love it, and as one person wrote in the L.A. Times shortly after the accident, some people are “loco for that motion.” As a historian I should site my sources, so I’ll just tell you that both quotes I’ve mentioned came from the Los Angeles Times in the month of September.

Bob and Larry and the other man whose name I don’t know all leave me alone at the tracks about 8:30 tonight. A tall black man dressed in clothes too large for him approaches me and asks me if I’m blind and then asks me if I’m homeless and says he’s looking for bus money for he and his girlfriend to get to work tomorrow. It seems not everyone who hangs around the railroad tracks is a rail fan. Train stations do tend to attract all sorts of people, and that, I suppose, would include me, an academically trained, poor but rich single woman, owner of two cats, with a long list of accomplishments behind me, and a curiosity about a metrolink engineer and trains.

I’ve started to learn more about Rob, the engineer, from someone who was a friend of his, and I’ve definitely learned more about trains. So two months after the accident my journey has taken a very interesting turn. I’m still working on the memorial idea for Rob, I’m writing a story with a train engineer, I’m doing my favorite thing, research, and I’m spending a lot of money on mediocre food, good company, interesting experiences, all so I can relax with trains. I pay for the cable, I have some of the trappings of the American single woman, and I’m discovering Fullerton’s historic train station. IN the process of discovering things about Rob Sanchez, I’ve been told I should have a book written about me, I should write a book about my job, and that I’m interesting. Apparently I’m interesting enough for rail fans to observe me at the train station, and hopefully brave enough to go meet a train engineer. I’d do that, that day will come, and then I’ll hop on the Coast Starlight to Seattle and be a tourist, all because two trains met on a sunny September afternoon and caught me in the crossfire.

The trip ends tonight with me taking the bus home with very interesting passengers. The bus attracts one type of passenger, the Metrolink still another, and the Amtrak yet another. Small plane flight is mainly for business owners and people with money, train travel is for people with time on their hands or people like me who just don’t want to hassle flying or just want to relax and enjoy the back side of American’s cities while being rocked like a child in a cradle, people who want enough room to stretch their legs, people with interesting stories, and people who just want to get away. In the last two months I’ve become a tourist, a fan, an interested observer, a collector of facts about an engineer, facts that are fun, like eye color and physical characteristics, gift giving preferences, and perhaps what he never found, a mature, loving relationship. That, my friends, sounds like something sought for by many, many people I know and isn’t relegated to any particular walk of life. I’m sure and I’m hoping I’ll learn more, but what I’m mostly learning is that I’m content, God is good, and train watching is free. I know I’ll be back for more, and yes, eventually, I’ll meet a train engineer. And you can bet when I do I’ll write about it, so stay tuned. In the mean time, happy training!

 

 

Copyright © 2008 Shelley J Alongi
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