Metrolink111: The Planter By The Railroad Tracks
Shelley J Alongi

 

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there has been a definite nip in the air at the Fullerton train station. There have been several trips that I haven’t written about, not because I didn’t want to, but because I’ve been focusing on working on my story with Glen Streicher the railroad engineer as a main character. Some may wonder, given my recent drawing toward trains, if I base my stories on real people? My only answer to that is yes I do, but you would never recognize a single individual in any story that I’ve ever written because by the time the story develops even I am surprised at what and who the character has become. Now watch if I ever become famous someone is going to look for all the elements of truth in all my stories. But alas this isn’t an essay about how I come up with ideas about how to get ideas for my stories. I do think however that my train engineer story is my best work, whether that comes from not wanting to say goodbye to the character or just from practice I don’t know but it’s the most conflicted story I’ve ever written and presents the most challenges. More about that later.

Back to the nip in the air bit. If the planter by the railroad tracks at the Fullerton train station presents a place for solace and creativity, it certainly has been a cold space. As the temperature has dropped during the months of November an December, the rail fans have gone inside the café, the tables have disappeared from the patio, but the freights have kept coming and coming. If you can stand the chill on the planter then this is the place to be. Maybe I just like to be alone, I do find the planter by the tracks a comforting place, but also a quiet one, a place where I don’t’ have to be nice to guests or solve everyone’s problems, oh except maybe for Glen and Judy’s problem, how to get her frustrated enough to threaten to leave him though she’s always said she wouldn’t leave him, forcing him to finally do what has needed to be done for over a year, face the truth, tell her what’s really bothering him and get on with it already. The problem is if we “get on with it already” then I he to say goodbye to my characters and I’m not quite ready to do that. Maybe the ending will surprise me. I know one thing. I can’t stand for the story to end without Glen finding resolution to his relationship troubles. No story should ever end without that. Usually I don’t solve Glen’s problem there or show the next occurrence of it; it isn’t till I get home that I usually get creative. Sometimes sitting at the tracks is just a place to be quiet.

Wrapped against the cold in my scarf and hat and gloves I draw the amazement of one rail fan whose name is David. David comes up to me at the tunnel on one occasion and asks me if I’m Valerie or Sheila. Not sure who he’s talking about I don’t answer, giving the impression that I’m rude and unresponsive. Sometimes I think I am. There are the community workers and transients or not sure who they are people that ask me if I need help there but most people just let me do my own thing.

Tonight, December 23, there is noone on the planter but me. I guess I’m the brave one. It is very pleasurable to sit here by myself, surrounded by the sounds and sights of the station, the occasional commuter, some teenagers with skateboards on the south side of the tracks, some homeless people back near the tunnel, the sleek, silvery tracks just waiting for action. Sitting at the tracks I wait for a while, there are a few trains and then David comes up to me and asks me if I get cold.

“Don’t you get cold out here, Sheila?” he asks.

“My name isn’t Sheila,” I say.

“What is it? I’ve seen you here before. I’m David.”

“Shelley,” I say, recognizing the man now. I hadn’t recognized him earlier.

“I could bring Wally over here to talk to you,” he says as a train comes in.

“No, please don’t do that,” I say. “Please. I want some piece and quiet.”

While I’m appreciative of the fact that Wally told me about the Fullerton packing house and that he also gave me some information about Rob’s condition in the Chatsworth train wreck, I’m not willing to have him come and dominate my time by talking tonight. It has been a long week, I’m tired, it’s cold and I want to just relax here on the planter by the railroad tracks. Okay, you say, you’ve sat here and endured this before so what’s so different about tonight? I don’t’ know, really. I don’t especially need comforting over the Chatsworth crash I’m starting to think of that if not less often, then at least in a less urgent way. And just as that happens I have another story about that fateful Chatsworth wreck, but I’ll save that for later, too. Anyway, to the planter on the railroad tracks, soon, Dave brings Wally and another rail fan whose name is also David over there and they engage in a conversation about what I don’t remember now. I keep trying to ask them questions about the locomotives that come through there but no one responds. Typically male I suppose to be so task oriented. Dave did tell me the model of one of the locomotives on the Amtrak that came through to Chicago, the southwest chief. It was a D-40 or G-40 I’ll have to check on that one. There were a few freights. What I remember most about that particular trip was that it was quiet. I suppose in December, the night before Christmas Eve there would naturally be more quiet. There would be more activity at the mall if one is inclined to go to the mall this year. I haven’t done any Christmas shopping in the mall for many years I prefer the gift card or to pick up other gifts at other times. I don’t even go near the mall from Thanksgiving till after the new Year. So I’m at the train station the day before Christmas Eve. I haven’t been there for at least two weeks, maybe three. Wally engages them in conversation about what I don’t know.

“Why don’t you ask him about the Army,” Dave says to me soto voche. “That’s good for an hour.”

On another night, there is a woman and her three children, the youngest one Brandon, three years old, a second whose name was Aden, and there is another child whose name I can’t currently bring to mind. Three boys and one woman heading back to Chicago because she couldn’t get a job in California, she says. I first meet her at the café ordering hot dogs which is the special for the night. Christina asks me if I want the special but I say no I don’t, the usual three pound hamburger that is absolutely made to order will fill the bill.

Sitting by the railroad tracks on any night is just comforting to me. I’m looking for a place just to quiet my mind, and to connect with Rob Sanchez and his beloved trains. The locomotives and their model numbers have become interesting to me. I’ve got to add that one to my list of things to research, switches, locomotives, that should keep me busy for a while.

I ask David and Dave what they think of the show on the history channel “Extreme Trains” done by Matt Baum.

“Oh that idiot,” one of them says. “He works for the railroad you’d think he’d know what’s going on. Some producer probably scripts it,” he says. I’m not sure why he called Matt Baum an idiot, maybe its’ because of the way he says things sometimes, things that are obvious to anyone not even a train fan, things like “if a train hits you it’s over.” Or talking about trains he’ll say something like the biggest fear is the collision of two trains. He talks about engineers afraid of hitting propane trucks. Like we don’t’ know this stuff? Maybe that’s what the rail fan is talking about but that’s just my guess. I’ll have to ask him the next time I’m over there. Another thing I want to ask him is what he thinks of this new business in researching the Chatsworth crash about the sequence of signals being a distraction. First there was a yellow light, then a green one at the station, then a red one a mile out and the supposed experts say that it’s too easy to forget you saw a yellow light when you’re seeing a green one at the Chatsworth station focusing on passengers, or even just doing whatever. Chatsworth is just before the convergence onto another freight line. Okay but it’s been like that forever. Don’t you think engineers would know that? If I was an engineer it’s certainly something I would keep in mind. And let’s talk about this engineer, Rob Sanchez. How many times did he pull out of the Chatsworth station? An unnamed source told me that Rob was not a careless person that he would have not done anything like text messaging, let’s say, if he wasn’t secure in what he was doing. Don’t tell me it was against Metrolink policy to use a cell phone I know that already. Please, spare me!

I thought about that earlier today, New Year’s Eve, while walking from work to the bus stop to go home for my quiet, snug evening with the kitties. How many times have I crossed Lincoln and State College? I’ve made some mistakes before, and I’ve always thought “hey how many times have I done it right? I was trying to do things right and here I am crossing at an odd angle. And I was paying attention!

So how does that compare with Rob pulling out of the Chatsworth station? Well, maybe, saying okay he did this right so many times who was to say it wouldn’t be different this time? But we can speculate all we want, do investigations, write reports, say that the investigator could barely see the red light, as he supposedly did according to an article in the L.A. Times, and still, bam, Rob slams into a freight train! The last thought has to be oh my God I did it right so many times and now this! That is, if there was that much time. A Union pacific locomotive banana peeling a Metrolink train, as I read online, somewhere, doesn’t give one much time to think oh my God I did it right so many times.

Did all this logic emanate from time spent on the planter by the railroad tracks? Yes, all of it, and there’s more. On December 23, sitting there, hungry because I don’t have the money to buy the three pound hamburger, I pull out a box of chocolate cookies, and a bag of potato chips that came from a Subway meal yesterday. That will be my dinner for the evening. It’s not the best meal ever but it will do for now.

A conversation evolves about Dan, a rail fan that I’ve known for at least twenty years, mostly through his brother Curly who passed away two years ago, the same Curly, by the way who wanted me to be the secretary of the railroad club, the one I credit for my introduction to the train station. A very ironic twist as I come to alleviate my distress over the Chatsworth train wreck of 2008, and also to now carry on conversations with rail fans, is that probably ten or twelve years ago, on the side of the station where the southbound trains come to rest and pick up passengers, Curly proposed marriage to me. How was I to know then that I’d be seeking comfort at the same station in 2008? Of course the engineer who died in that train wreck hardly knew in 1996 let’s say, that he would be the cause of me discovering the station, again.

I remember the days when I first found the station I used to be afraid of it because I wasn’t sure where the tracks were in relation to where I was at the time. When the freight trains would come through I would stand their in fear not quite knowing where they were and how close I was to them. I knew I wasn’t on the tracks of course but I didn’t exactly know where they were. As time has gone by and I’ve visited the station more to catch the trains I’ve learned where the tracks are and now I can navigate with confidence no matter what side of the tracks I’m on.

I’ve been at the station at 4:00 in the morning when the Coast Starlight came in to L.A. Union station late and we were bused to all intermediate stops including Fullerton where I disembarked. I’ve been at the station at 2:00 in the morning to catch a cab after taking a bus from somewhere else. So the train station has played an important part in my life.

Right now, that planter by the railroad tracks which has seen commuters, passengers, rail fans, and yes even marriage proposals is a very important place in my life and I’m looking forward to spending more time there. When it finally comes time to say goodbye to Glen and Judy, my railroad engineer and his lady friend, I’ll have the help of the planter by the railroad tracks and Rob’s beloved trains. It will be because I’ve drawn strength from the planter by the railroad tracks, the source right now, for both creativity and solace.

 

 

Copyright © 2009 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"