Metrolink708: Remembering My Name “See you, Shelley,” says my new engineer. Wow! He remembered my name! Glen still doesn’t use my name. Carey still calls me young lady. But I’ve done it! I’ve met the new engineer on the 608. This is a great place to meet people. I don’t know why I have this fascination with engineers but I do. Maybe its’ because they do something I don’t’ know how to do. No, that’ snot it. I think it’s that they do something that I’m interested in and that’s the drawing point. Wonder how long it will be before I have an entire wall devoted to pictures of engineers. I don’t know but in the meantime there are lots more to meet and stories to discover and I know I’ll do it. But no matter who they are and what they tell me, they’ll all have to line up behind glen. Last week we got busy at disney. Being busy is probably a good thing. Maybe Glen needs a break from me. Maybe I need a break from the drama of the station, the homeless arguing in public, the cell phone conversations, the warnings off the tracks, whatever goes on there. But I do miss my trains. And I really do miss my engineers. This week, Monday March 15 I make it once but all week I have my engineer spotters. Janice tells me Glen has company in the cab. Is he training? Being trained? On Monday I text him: Working o t this week. Finally!” Training the Engineer Thursday I make my way a little shy of Glen’s locomotive window. SJanice tells me that he has been stopping the train a little further down than normal but it seems he’s in the three car or four car spot because I have to walk up to the window. Will he talk to me? If he’s training someone or busy maybe he won’t be able to; or heck maybe he just won’t just because he doesn’t want to. Hey the engineers never have to talk to me. “what’s up!” Glen yells out his window, that MPI is loud. I know I know which one it is but I don’t ask the number. I’m not that good. I don’t recognize locomotive numbers by sound. “Hey! Do you have company up there?” “Yes,” he articulates over that obnoxious clatter. He must be used to a lifetime of yelling over engines, especially freight engines, but that is the stuff of my fantasies for now, don’t have any facts to back that one up. “Is he training you?” “Yes,” he says. I wave and duck my head, laughing. I don’t believe it. It’s possible he could be undergoing railroad testing, but I strongly suspect he is training someone. I don’t know that either yet, he hasn’t told me anything but it is one of my questions. Maybe it’s just my heightened sense of his experience, or maybe it’s my ignorance of many railroad practices, but I really don’t’ believe someone is training him. If it was a new run I might believe it but he’s already been qualified on this run and I’m sure he’s worked it before. Metrolink only operates five county runs, a few engineers probably have experience on all of them. Somehow I think he does. My knowledge of engineer training goes back to Chatsworth. Rob Sanchez trained engineers. The man who took Rob’s place and was working at the time I was last there trained engineers. If Glen is the number one engineer then surely he must train them. But someone training him? “It’s true,” he insists. I shake my head. “Over time,” he says, changing the subject. “yeah.” “Business is picking up.” “yeah.” Now it’s my turn to use glen’s favorite word. “More money,” says Glen. “Not in my pocket.” “No?” he questions. “A little bit,” I say. March is a hard month financially. Well maybe I shouldn’t say hard; rather it is just a little more frugal than I’m used to. I’ve gotten myself into the habit of borrowing from the bank not something I want to do often. I’m working to pay off those loans and not borrow from the next week’s check. So even if I Say I’m working over time I am paying off those loans. I don’t want to always do that and with the additional income from a room mate I want a little more financial flexibility. So I’m working to pay off the loans. Not going to the station so much these days is working in my favor. April should be easier. So it’s true when I tell Glen that only a little bit of money goes in my pocket. I’m taking all the over time I can get. Soon it’s time to go. Glen says goodbye, I stand waving, chuckling. Someone training him, right! The Engineer Remembers My next train meet occurs fifteen minutes later. I wave. “Hello Carey!” “Hi. What have you been up to?” It seems that Carey always looks for me, or maybe he just notices when I don’t make it. Once he did say he knew I wasn’t here. “Because you weren’t here,” he says. He’s brilliant! He’s a friendly guy, too. Tonight he wants to know what I’ve been up to. “Working over time,” I say. I think it’s nice that Carey notices when I don’t meet his train. Once I told him that I came to talk to him. “I appreciate that,” he responded. Sometimes I think that engineers forget me. Why should they remember me they have so many things to do. It’s not that I have a poor opinion of myself, I don’t fall into the trap of having low self esteem, I think it’s just that two minutes isn’t a lot of time to interact with someone so I don’t expect the engineers make it a priority to remember me. Apparently that’s not the case. “How was your weekend?” This is a definite Carey question. “Good. I didn’t get to my Toastmasters meeting.” “Why not?” “I went to my first meeting and then decided just to stay home.” I couldn’t get a ride, the bus trip was too long by the time I finished my first meeting of the day, I didn’t want to pay for cab fair, I didn’t have the money, and so I stayed home, hung out with the kitties. It was nice to have a Saturday afternoon to myself. Next Saturday I have to myself. The next two Saturdays, no. “where’s your friend?” I ask. “Sometimes she takes an earlier train.” Well, no matter, he’s here talking to me. He gets the highball and he’s out of there, and then it’s Time to go meet the engineer on the 608. This engineer is a new adventure, I think. Will it be the stock broker? Will it be an extra like Paul? Will it be someone else? I don’t’ know. Now I make my way across the bridge to the café and take a seat in the lightweight metal chair at the table where Bob and Janice and Bruce sit. Tonight I don’t eat anything at the station, I’m trying to eat more at home and I don’t want to cram anything into a half an hour before I go to meet the 608. I really do intend to go to the 608 and meet its engineer. Do I have a crush on any of my other engineers? I don’t think I do and there’ something different about meeting them now, but it’s still a bit of an adventure and I still do get nervous. If I know where to find them I still have to take a chance and yell up into that window. I know how to use the bell to find the window I just have to be a little more adventurous because not all the engineers are going to initiate the conversation. I don’t’ know if this one will but I’ll give it my best shot. At the appointed time I take the stairs, a trip I have made so many times, sometimes in dismay, sometimes in supreme joy, and sometimes in complete despair; everything from shy contemplation to magic and drama, rekindled vigor, and now who knows what! I remember when I could hardly find those stairs. Now I take them with supreme confidence. On the other side of those stairs lies mystery, adventure, new contacts, new friends, the answer to many of my train questions. I stand and wait, the train approaches, thankfully it is an FP59 that greets me. It will be easier to talk to the engineer. I come closer. “I don’t’ need the train,” I say, “I just came to say hi to you.” “I know,” says its engineer. “Oh, you remember me,” I’m taken aback. That wasn’t so hard was it? And he remembered me? Either that or he just said that he did. I think it is the guy with the gold rimmed glasses sitting here guiding that train. I would say he’s probably about thirty-five or so but I wouldn’t know because I’ve never asked him. I thought Glen was at least sixty and I was almost right but not quite right. I stand there now, unsure what to say. “So do you like running the trains or is this just a job?” My new engineer laughs. It’s an easy laugh, a nice laugh, really. Ok I haven’t talked to him for one minute and he’s already laughing! It took Glen four months to laugh and I don’t think he’s laughed since that night in December when I said “I have to work not like you.” “Some days it feels like a job,” he admits. “What’s your name?” Wow I’m bold aren’t I? It’s kind of like walking on water and then looking down and saying what? What am I doing? “Bobby.” “What’s yours?” “Shelley.” This is the strangest thing. Frank asked me my name once. Glen thought he knew it. Carey calls me young lady. I wonder if I’m getting a reputation. Is Glen spreading the word? Do the engineers keep an eye out for the fullerton girl? Well, the Fullerton girl hasn’t been around much lately but you can bet that I’ll know all those engineers someday, and not just their names because some other train fanatic knew their names first. No, I’ll know them because I’ll meet them all That might take time but I might have that. Suddenly though I’m transported back to that first week when Glen talked to me and I stood in this very spot, nervous. I stand there, time seems to drag by like a heavy chain. Am I nervous? Do I know what to ask the engineer? He seems willing to talk to me. I keep waiting for that idle to pick up insistence but it doesn’t. Does he treat that engine like Glen does? I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t. I never thought of engineers treating their engines any differently. I’ll have to pay attention. Finally I know the time is ended. I wave. “See you, Shelley,” says my new engineer. Wow! He remembered my name! Glen still doesn’t use my name. Carey still calls me young lady. But I’ve done it! I’ve met the new engineer on the 608. This is a great place to meet people. I don’t know why I have this fascination with engineers but I do. Maybe its’ because they do something I don’t’ know how to do. No, that’ snot it. I think it’s that they do something that I’m interested in and that’s the drawing point. Wonder how long it will be before I have an entire wall devoted to pictures of engineers. I don’t know but in the meantime there are lots more to meet and stories to discover and I know I’ll do it. “You have to go meet the one on the 707,” Janice says. The 707 is the train that goes to Los Angeles from Riverside. I will, someday. I Will, don’t worry. But no matter who they are and what they tell me, they’ll all have to line up behind glen.
Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi |