Metrolink608: Making The Engineer Happy Big trouble, morning blessing, making the engineer happy and no sympathy even if I have a cold. Just another perfect week with my number one engineer. Big Trouble A crisp nippy breeze caresses the station platform, it’s so early that the flat cart holding the wrought iron and plastic chairs still sits on the patio of the Santa Fe Cafe, not yet unloaded for its usefulness for the day. The usual group coming to meet train 3 has not arrived when I get there this morning. It is my day off, my one day in fourteen days of working for these two weeks. I have wrestled with the idea of coming today since my transcript work is sitting at home waiting for me to get started but the machine is in my room mate’s room and so I won’t be able to get it till she leaves for work anyway. I have three days off next week but won’t be able to make it down there for breakfast, so it’s either today or not for a while. Am I going to the station to have breakfast or to see Glen? Maybe it is a little bit of both. I do enjoy breakfast there. I’ve seen his train there twice before but have never let him know I was there. He may have seen me though I doubt it. It takes me till the middle of Monday afternoon, and even till my second lunch to decide for sure that I’m coming. I want to alert Glen to this so he’ll look out his window so it is with trembling fingers that I find his name in my contact list and press the send button on my fancy cell phone. It is Monday night, I’m sitting in Starbucks at Anaheim and Lincoln with an egg salad sandwich and an iced green tea, the phone rings, people chat in the background, some innocuous music drips through the air waves, the coffee machine grinds, the blender mixes someone’s over sugared drink, and I hold my phone, waiting. “hello,” comes the voice I recognize, not the sleepy one, the signal calling one, energetic, definitely awake. “glen it’s Shelley in Fullerton.” This Time I am not nervous, if I’m talking faster it’s only because I’m conscious of the fact that I have to present myself with more confidence to my railroad engineer, perhaps to prove to myself that I’m not a quivering ball of nerves. But maybe I am. “Hey what’s up,” he quickly responds. “I just climbed up into the engine if you had called ten seconds later I’d be in big trouble.” Here I go again always interrupting the engineer. First he’s relaxing he says on New Year’s day, then today he’s about to go to work. “Oh I’m so sorry!” The words rush out in a torrent of dismay, splashing into my phone with inflection that produces a gentle, sympathetic response. There are two things that happen here and those of you who enjoy self analysis are going to love this. My first reaction is to fall back in dismay, never in my wildest imaginings do I want to distract the engineer, at least not while the engineer is at work. I would not want to be responsible for that. His words make me cringe in my window seat at America’s coffee headquarters. This man I admire has just caused me distress, me who fights the urge to call, thinking I’m an intrusion and now here I am on the brink of causing my engineer trouble. If it’s a bit dramatic it’s still what it is and there’s no getting around it. Suddenly his demeanor changes. “It’s alright,” he says in that way he has of being Glen, quiet, sweet, reassuring. “You did good.” My engineer soothes my injured spirit with the balm of his forgiveness, saying everything’s okay my star struck railfan what did you want? I’m here now, in that engine, holding my phone, so why is it that you called me? I am healed, comforted, eased. “Okay,” I say, taking a breath, easing back into my supremely confident role, “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be in Fullerton in the morning so if you look out your window you’ll see me.” “Okay,” he says. “Enjoy your day off.” We’ve gone from reprimanding to comforting to giving those supreme Glen orders. Sweet train engineer, comfort me with apples and not trains this time. I’m the luckiest girl in the world, I met a nice locomotive engineer who just says things and doesn’t attach huge significance to them. He’s only saying he would be in trouble he’s not chasing me out of his lair. “Okay,” I respond meekly. “Stay safe.” “Alright,” he says. “Bye.” It is life; it is water to my attachment to the rails, it is material for the station faithful, it is my one minute of paradise, it is Glen, it is my sweet engineer being himself. Then the questions start; the mother raisin the child kicks her two cents in. Why the hell did he have his phone on in the first place if he’s about to report to work? Doesn’t he know that if a supervisor sees him with the phone he could be written up? Where’s this man’s boundary line? Well I guess in a way I’m lucky because he let me in to his personal space, at least by telephone, but still, for goodness sake sweet engineer, use that on/off button on your phone. You grew up in the age where there were no cell phones. Glen has his phone permanently attached, just like me, twenty years at least his junior, and perhaps thirty plus years his child’s senior, or my generation’s senior. Doesn’t he know? Never mind that now. I’ve been caressed and comforted, reminded and eased, gentled, and toll to enjoy my day. I think I’ll do that. It is now on Tuesday morning with that mindset that I settle in after a commuter finds a chair for me and wait for my quesadilla, banana and hot tea to arrive at my table. My phone, since we were speaking of phones, is here, waiting for me to use it. This is prime text messaging time for me. The people I text don’t respond right away, they leave it for later, except maybe the eleven year old girl who I took out of her car seat when she came home from the hospital. The main thing I do with my phone at 6:00 in the morning is connect to the Newsline service provided for blind subscribers and read the local section of our paper. If I were sitting in America’s coffee headquarters, Starbucks, I’d be doing the same thing. The food arrives. I enjoy it in supreme comfort, looking around, watching commuters pull their wheeled bags behind them as they get on the various Metrolink trains that pull up to their spots on the platform. Platform Perspective The spot where Metrolink heading to Los Angeles pulls its cab car is a supremely peaceful place. I have discovered it only recently, being curious about where the engineer is during those quiet, quick stops in the morning. Janice says earlier that she’ll walk up with me sometime to find out, but I take the initiative several times, sitting up there, judging the distance between the bell and the first car opening. The cab car, holding the compartment where the engineer sits, rests just beyond the wheelchair ramp that Metrolink must utilize when passengers require it. I’ve never fully investigated where the engineer actually pulls those trains, and so today, at 7:00 AM after finishing my breakfast and packing my bag with all its daily accoutrements I head on over to the other end of the platform. The extreme opposite end is where Dave and his crew sits, this end, closest to the Old Spaghetti Factory and the street beyond is supremely peaceful, quiet, today, commuters dotting its edge, sitting on the planters, awaiting their trains. It is this part of the platform where I now sit that witnessed the man about six months ago who took his cell phone and wallet, laid them on one of the planters and coolly stepped in front of a BNSF freight train. Today there is no thought of stepping in front of freight trains. There is the thought of meeting an engineer here who ran freight trains and knows better than to step in front of one. Now, the cool sometimes quiet breeze comforts me, the quiet of this end of the platform settles in, the early morning in Fullerton, commuters waiting, me, waiting. Freight trains pass as well, there is something intimate about being here; personal, close, comforting. Everything about trains seems to be comforting lately; the sight, the sound, the bell, the voices of those running the trains, never having encountered the hands, smart hands that do not assist me down stairs, only the voices and oh sometimes the faces! Sometimes if I could only see behind those glasses, would I learn anything? I might learn nothing, but now I’m here waiting, sitting in my short sleeve shirt, my nonDisney wear extending below the knee, white socks, tennis shoes, my black fanny bag proudly exclaiming Disneyland Resort and my yellow railroad bag now in desperate need of replacing since the flap is tearing along the edges. I guess I’ve used this bag to a degree where its usefulness is proved. Right now it sits with me, we wait together for train 607, not to catch it, only to meet it, to relish in its presence and send it on its way to an engineer’s sleepy day and my day to type transcripts. Tucking my hands into the belt of my synthetic leather fanny bag I settle in for the wait. Waiting for trains comes easy for me; I’m always waiting for something. The sounds of traffic in the not too far distance, the occasional person walking to the ramp where the car opens punctuates the early morning. Several trains make their appearances, their bells letting me know that I’m in the right spot. The train that comes just before 607 is heading from Irvine to Los Angeles, its locomotive pulls rather than pushes the train so it stops a little further down the platform, almost, it seems to its very edge. It is the only train on this side that pulls its load toward Los Angeles. I don’t’ know why this is, I only know that it is, and so here it comes, an MP model, produced by the Boise Locomotive company, a division of Motive Power Industries. It goes on its way, leaving the space of a half hour before 607’s arrival skillfully guided by my number one engineer. Making My Engineer Happy Right on time the bell sounds its approach. The thing about the cab cars that are still in use on Metrolink and Amtrak trains is that they still have the pneumatic bells, the sound and tone I prefer. It gently sounds, the air moves the clapper against the side of that bell, welcoming me. The train stops; all is quiet. I am prepared to sit only knowing who its engineer is, not necessarily needing interaction. “What’s up, Shelley!” Sweet words from its engineer, answering finally a question I’ve asked in these writings for months. Does he know my name? He knows. He should know, Janice has used it twice, I’ve said it twice on the phone, but I can never be sure, because he never uses it. When I think about it, people who know me don’t usually articulate my name, they understand that I know they know, but I’ve always wondered, especially since that time when he called me the wrong name, not intentionally, only trying to be friendly. This morning my heart leaps; he remembers. “Good morning!” I wave. “Kind of cold out here isn’t it?” he asks from his position in the cab car, looking toward me, observing the lack of activity around him. He is a conscientious engineer, always taking stock tucking information away for assessment. My speculations may be a romantic rendition of what goes on up in that cab, but for here, and for now, this is how I perceive it. “It is,” I affirm, acknowledging that it is cold. “But it’s peaceful. I like sitting here.” Silence. “I’m working my second job today,” I say. “They called me after a year and said can you work for us and I said sure?” “Oh,” Glen exhales in a bit of a surprised way, or maybe it’s just his usual way. “What’s your second job.” “Typing transcripts,” I say, wondering if he knows what those are, probably not a word familiar to him in his profession unless we’re dealing with text messages sent by an engineer, but then I explain further. “Typing interviews” “Oh wow,” he says. “That’s good.” He likes people to work. When I show up at his cab after stating that I have sixty Disney hours in one week he always asks me “I thought you were working” or “you’re supposed to be working.” It’s hard to explain to someone in two minutes, especially when I’d rather talk about trains, why I’m not always working sixty hours. Sometimes it’s because we have adequate staffing and I choose to give up hours, sometimes it’s because Disney might take the hours away. There is more silence. “Have a good day,” he says, getting the signal from Richard, his morning conductor. “You, too. See you tonight,” I say, waiting as 607 pulls away. It is time to go on to my day, to work my second job, something that makes my engineer happy. He Remembers Seven o’clock comes too soon, I’ve spent most of the day typing, cooking, catching a nap since I did get up early to start my day. Trains, age, Disney hours, they all have me starting my day many hours earlier than the mother who raised me remembers, or even earlier than a college student like me who spent twenty years in academia learning and working remembers. If I’m not up by 6:00 in the morning the day is half spent, wasted, finished. Today is no exception. Putting things away, tucking away the headset, turning off the machine, gathering my bags I head off to the station. Shirley isn’t here today, her train is late. Garis comes, awaiting her train, Bruce shows up. We all speculate on why so many trains are late today. Frank’s train, the 708 is late; that makes Carrie’s train, the 606, late; that will, by necessity, make 608, Glen’s train, late. They peer at the metrolink board, giving me the updates. “Glen’s train might be late,” Janice says. “I’ll wait all night,” I intone. “I will wait all night even if I do have to get up at 3:00 the next morning, Wednesday. A nagging headache persistently reminds me of its presence; I drink my Diet Doctor Pepper, I await. At the appointed time with Frank’s train now having passed us I make my way to the bridge. I find my spot. “No standing between the palm trees, miss,” a familiar voice pipes. It Is Andy’s voice, the Metrolink agent we’ve all been wondering tonight where he is when we need to know what’s going on. “I saw Bruce,” he admits, “and there are delays he’d be chomping off my ear.” Yes, Bruce would be chomping Andy’s ear off about delays. Andy’s phone rings gently every minute or so with updates on train delays. A metrolink train 217 hit a car somewhere. Congestion at Control Point or CP Dayton delays traffic by fifteen minutes. Andy leaves to take care of business, Carrie’s train arrives. We talk. His friend took an earlier train, he says, the girl that meets him here. Her engineer knows what delays her; mine knows my name and he knows I should be working. I know he’s the best. “How were your holidays,” Carrie asks. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, my work schedule or just a reluctance to cross that bridge twice. Carrie has company; Glen is my first engineer, Carrie must line up behind him. I’ll have to ask Carrie some questions; I should do that next time. “Is she bothering you?” Andy looks up into the cab, reappearing from having his conversation with “yahoos” not sure what was going on there. Carrie hesitates, getting the highball, not sure. Andy must give him a sign. “She is,” he says. I know they’re teasing me. What am I going to do with all my engineers? Glen hasn’t been teasing me lately; he will, just give him time. “I don’t’ know how late 608 will be,” Andy says. Surprisingly it shows up six minutes later, only seven minutes behind schedule. It seems that Amtrak 784, Metrolink 708, 606, and 608 are stuck behind disabled Metrolink train, possibly 708. Or maybe it’s the incident at Dayton which I don’t know about. Whatever the reason, Glen now sits here looking down at me. “Hey.” “Hi.” “I thought you were working.” “I was,” I say energetically waving my hand, “I came here to get away from work.” “There you go,” he says. “This is my 3:00 AM project,” I say in reference to my transcripts. “Cool,” he says energetically. “You get up as early as me.” “I know.” Shelley and her engineer both greeting the day well before sunrise, him to do his best job and me to do my second one. It’s a shorty tonight, but my blessing, my sweetness has come in the morning, this is just the final warm touch to an already perfect day; Glen remembers my name, and he’s happy because I’m working. If Glen is married, I decide later still not getting the official word on his status, it is to his job; guess he thinks I should be married to mine. This is a refreshing perspective for me with all of its complications, because so many people I’ve met lately don’t seem to want their jobs. They come and do their time and leave. How can one enjoy life like that? Glen enjoys his job; most days I enjoy mine; today I’m happy because he enjoys his, I have a day off, my second one is interesting, and the best part, the sweetest word of all, he remembers my name. The engineer Told Me to Do it The nagging headache that has been present with me since Monday morning is most likely the result of someone who came to work sick and shared what they had with everyone else. It could be a product of many hours waiting for public buses, hanging around train station platforms, or just getting out and living life. Tuesday night after Glen’s train pulls away, the headache intensifies, congestion appears more prevalent and by 2:00 in the morning I know I’m not going to work that day. Sitting on the station platform that night with Doug, something that hasn’t happened for a long time, I wonder if this will be the case, and finally at 2:30 AM, barely able to elk I call in and say I’m taking the day off. I don’t feel especially ill but it’s hard to talk to guests on the phone when I can barely leave a message on the office voicemail. Nursing this malady with hot tea I settle in to work on my transcripts. The day off of work is a reprieve of sorts; it allows me to conveniently work on my second job getting it done well under deadline, leaving me to take a train trip next week or work a million hours for Disney, just as long as I can talk. Since I can take more than one sick day and I have enough paid hours I will take two days off, allowing me not only to go to the station, but also to finish my job without any pressure or getting up extra early. I think Kathy wants this work done by Friday and would appreciate it and I’m up to the challenge now that someone has com to work sick and lovingly shared the experience with me. It has been a long time since I called out sick from Disney. I’ve taken off work to run personal errands, shifted my schedule, taken additional days off when work was slow, but to call out sick hasn’t happened in at least a year and a half, the last time being march of 2008 when a stomach bug laid me low for five days. This is not so traumatic, a little annoying, and useful because I can do what makes my engineer happy, work on my second job. I spend the day working on the transcripts, making much progress. By 3:00 PM I’m showered and ready to go, calling Janice to see if she’d lie to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory for the forty-one percent savings on a meal she said I was supposed to have shared with her last night. Last night, Tuesday, I did go early and enjoy a meal there; this week The Old Spaghetti Factory celebrates another anniversary and on both nights the place is teeming with people enjoying the food. The food isn’t so bad there; many come to watch the trains. Slightly congested, the headache eased, I make my way to the station, order some hot raspberry tea, and wait for her. It is a nice meal. We arrive and talk about our lives. She tells me that she an bob met through her sister 46 years ago in California when the sister lived on church property. I tell her about my various train trips, about working with a relief kitchen in Bay St. Louis Mississippi in 2005. One of the things I remember about Bay St. Louis is that there was a train depot there. It was lost in the flooding caused by Katrina. I do not know if it’s there or not, as far as I remember, it still has not been replaced. Tonight we’re talking about life and get out just in time for me to meet Glen’s train. Janice goes to the café to get something out of the car for Larry. Simon is here tonight, going home to Albuquerque. I stand over by the palm trees, waiting. Excitedly, kids snap pictures, someone says the train is coming and there it is, right on time, ending my day, probably, my last trip to the station this week. Tomorrow I will call out, finish my job, get caught up on some online things, and so tonight is the final parting. He always wonders if I’m working; oh yes I am my sweet engineer, and now here you are, working, talking to me. “You have to walk down,” someone tells me as I wave to Glen, responding to the bell. Tonight he runs an MP locomotive with my unhappy bell. “That is so not a bell,” I finally tell him, expressing my disappointment in the e-bell. “Yes it is,” he says. “No!” I shake my head vigorously in the negative. I could make a face but I don’t. “It works,” he says. “Sometimes.” “I thought you were supposed to be working,” he now says. “I was working. I called out from Disney because I have a cold and worked on transcripts.” “Yeah?” he questions. “If you’re sick you need to put a jacket on.” Oh my! Glen must have a daughter. Janice at the spaghetti factory tells me that’s what he’s going to say if I tell him I have a cold. No sympathy from the engineer, he either wants me to work or wear a jacket, or I’m about to get him in big trouble. I stand laughing, waving at him. “Janice told me you were going to say that.” I placate my engineer. “I have a sweater in my bag.” I do have my cream sweater tucked into my still useful yellow railroad bag. The plan all along has been to don it after talking to Glen. I don’t tell him this; he doesn’t say anything. He focuses his attention inside. “Alright,” he says, sweetly pulling that train into gear. “Okay,” I say, “take care Glen.” I make my way back to the café. If I were a betting woman, I would have lost; Janice would have won. I go find my bag and take out my sweater. “The engineer told me to do it,” I say. “I can’t talk her into it,” Janice says as I pull on my sweater. Well, really, the engineer hasn’t talked me into it, it was the plan all the time, but we’ll just tell them the engineer made me do it, because, really, maybe he did. “He could talk me into just about anything,” I say, and he probably could. Tonight he talked me into putting on a sweater, something people have been trying to do since Glen was two years into running freight trains. Parting Thoughts Janice offers me a ride home after train 4 leaves out of fullerton. I turn it down saying I want to hang around the station for a while. Ray one of the homeless men who hangs around here is drunk, Valerie, another local colorful character sits on the planter doing her thing, people try to warn me off the tracks, it Is all part of the local spectacle I call the show at the fullerton station. I settle into a niche on a planter, a wrought iron fence behind me separating the platform from the place where people who own private cars work on them. The evening is pleasant. Freight trains pass, I wave, the engineers respond. It is a quiet, gentle night, perhaps a perfect ending for my trips to the fullerton station, my interactions with glen for the week. My thoughts wander back to that first week when I tried to engage his attention, and I remember that Curt told me he was friendly, that he had his hand out the window, the customary greeting to railfans watching trains and responding to train movements. This is a comforting spot positioned close to the east end of the platform. No conversation interrupts my moments with these huge machines and the people who run them. I settle back against the bars, my feet dangling from the three and a half foot distance to the ground. My cream sweater protects me from the cold, my engineer makes his way to ocean Side. All the station faithful have departed. I am along with the trains and my own thoughts. I suddenly look down at my watch and realize I have five minutes to catch the bus home. I don’ want to be out too late tonight so I jump down from my perch, interrupting thoughts of my engineer with his hand out the window. It has been a perfect day, a gentle night, a reprieve from phones and such. But now it is time to get bak to work, to finish my second job, to make my engineer happy. This week I’ve gone from almost getting him into Big trouble, getting a morning blessing, making the engineer happy and getting no sympathy even if I have a cold. It has been, for me, at least, just another perfect week with my number one engineer.
Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi |