Metrolink708: Replacing The Engineer I’m having too much fun and yet there’s still a sadness at losing Glen. Tonight Sunday I’m in tears for a few minutes, not as intensely as last Sunday night, but enough to let me know I do still miss him. Glen was the connection. Someday I’m going to tell him. Someday when the time is right I’m going to tell him how important it was for me to meet him. In the meantime I have so many more stories to discover. They all remember me; they call out to me; they apparently like to be talked to. I wrote months ago in another essay somewhere that I didn’t think this journey was over for me. It truly isn’t. Engineer Status Cary is on the 606. He runs the 607 in the morning, Glen’s old train. Sam is on the 708 where Glen once plied his magic. John takes the place of Bobby on the 608 who took time off to get married. The one on the 707 to Los Angeles from Riverside is happy, smiles, and energetic. He has been waving at us when he passes the patio, but I don’t know his name. That will be next week’s project. But there’s no replacing petulant, magical Glen. I’m sure it will all get better, my next adventure with Glen will be better than the first; but so far, for now, I have so many more stories to discover. This week is all about meeting the new engineers, working some over time, learning of the death of one of the rail fan’s father, and merciless teasing, maybe most of it generated by me. Mostly this week it is cold and I leave early after venturing out to the tracks to talk to my engineers. But it is a good week and this weekend I bought a new green heavy sweater so I will be prepared to endure the wind while watching the trains. On that magical night when Glen asked me if I was standing in the rain, I was doing just that; clad in my blue jacket and cream sweater, brown hat and scarf I stood ready for interaction with my then number one engineer. The blue jacket and cream sweater have been replaced by a green sweater and a mauve jacket. The engineer has not yet been replaced. And I will stand in the rain for the next one because I love standing in the rain. But honestly I’m waiting for Glen to come back in this direction. I’m getting better, there aren’t so many tears right now, but there is a definite hole where he used to be. Mostly it’s because of the emotional connection between the engineer who died in Chatsworth and me making connections with my first train engineer. But Glen has so much information, so much experience running all the old engines on the Santa Fe. He saw the railroad in its hay day. When I was four years old, sitting cross-legged in my kindergarten class on the rug he ran freight for the Santa Fe. But now here we were, we finally met. He has a special place in my heart, he is, perhaps as someone once suggested, my romance with the rails. But the other engineers, they have so much to offer. They all have different stories and it’s my job to discover them. Cary on one of my trips over to the station, I believe it was Monday, tells me he’d been running trains for thirty years. It is a cold night, but here he is with the FP59, my favorite engine, the right one. “You’re just a baby,” I tell him. He smiles. Cary is of African American descent, tall and carries a bike. He is a friendly guy. He talks to someone, I believe her name might be Kylee. But he knows my name, and he looks for me, and he responds when I call his name standing on the safety line just before the railroad tracks. “I’m just getting started,” he says. “How was your weekend?” he asks. He always asks me that. “Sad,” I say and have to repeat it. I guess there are too many consonants to be heard over the idle of that sweet purring engine. I draw my finger down my cheek like tears. “Glen,” I say. “I miss Glen.” “Oh, Glen,” he says. “Glen is in Lancaster now.” Let’s see, I think three engineers tell me that this week. Yes, I know. And some of the patio faithful ask me if I have a key to the Super in Lancaster. Glen is staying in the Super he says now that he works for more money, four trains a day, and doesn’t have time to drive home and back. That would be an awful commute. “Maybe she’s happy like that,” says Dave Norris about glen’s wife. Maybe Glen likes it that way, too. Never mind that now. Cary tells me he’ll say hi to Glen when he hears him on the radio. Oh, please Mr. Cary don’t do that! He’s just trying to be nice. I don’t say anything. I have his number. I called him on Saturday to ask what train he’s running because I didn’t get a chance to ask him on Friday. “Yeah,” he says into the phone. It sounds short. I think it’s just Glen. “He doesn’t want you calling,” Shirley says. “You’re in denial. If you call someone and they say that then you slam the phone down in their face.” Now, that would be rude. I wouldn’t want someone to do that to me. “I’m going to tell you the truth.” “Okay,” I say, getting up, “but wait till after Cary.” I don’t think that he doesn’t want me calling. I worked too hard to get that man’s number and all his information I’m not going away that easily. “I forgot to ask you what train you’re running,” I say, and I say it fast because I’m “between engagements” I tell him. I always go through massive anxiety when I call him. I’m holding on for dear life I’m not giving that up. If he doesn’t want to talk to me he doesn’t have to; it’s a free country, right? And somehow I think he’s seen all this before. I’m really not that worried. “The 208,” he says. “And then I turn around and go back.” “No sleeping time?” I ask. “All day.” “Okay,” I say. “Well I’ll touch base. I’m between engagements. I gave a speech in Irvine this morning and I have to read some stories for a fiction contest I’m judging.” “Good luck tonight,” he says. I do a double take. What does he mean? I don’t know but I’ll take the luck. Glen always says the nicest things. He tells me to enjoy my day off and he tells me to enjoy myself in San Diego, he just says the nicest things. He says have a good weekend and have a good night. On the day when I first call him, overwhelmed by my own admiration for a man who runs a train he says “happy new year.” I don’t know what I’m so worried about? But you can’t stop me from worrying I guess. I’m a Toastmaster I’m trained to talk through my nervousness. It’s time after this to present myself with more confidence. Hey if Glen can live with a woman with 22 cats he can probably handle me. I only have 2 cats. But now I know that he’s running 4 trains. I’m sure Cary will hear him on the radio plenty of times and Cary, sweet friendly Cary will tell him hello for me. Remember Cary is the one who told me that Glen had gone to the 708 back in January. Cary, he’s going to ruin me or make me. No I think I’ll do that by myself. NO matter, now I know. Getting to Lancaster “Let’s go to Lancaster,” says one of the railfans as we stand watching number 4 leave out of Fullerton. “It’s the only one I haven’t done,” Larry says. “Do you have to go to L.A. to get to Lancaster?” asks Mike from Victorville. Mike tells me earlier that two weeks ago his father died. He was suddenly afflicted with a reinsertion of colon cancer. It was sudden, he said. Now he wants to go to Lancaster. “Yes you have to go to L.A. to get to Lancaster,” I say. Funny do you think we’ll end up on Glen’s train? I don’t know. NO matter, while Glen is in Lancaster, John is on the 608. Remember the time when the engineer on the 608 asked me if I would be there tomorrow? Well, this is the same engineer. I come up to his train on Monday. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” he says. Does he know me? “Oh you remember me?” I think the engineers remember me now. This engineer is the replacement while bobby who told me someday working for the railroad was just a job takes time off to get married. Tonight it is cold. I stand where I used to wait for Glen. “What is your name?” I ask the engineer again. “John,” he says. Oh, that’s his name. Well if I am here tomorrow then I will see him. “The regular guy is on vacation,” he says. “I know.” All week I don’t go see who is on the 708. Monday I’m still a little wistful. “You were crying,” says Garis. “There were tears on your cheeks on Friday,” she says. “Yes I was. I was crying Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.” No one says anything. Remember, it’s all Janice’s fault. It’s really not her fault. It’s just the emotional connecting between Chatsworth an the engineers an a six month relationship that lasts two minutes at a time, a half hour conversation about Chatsworth and trains. I haven’t really lost Glen. I’m sure he’ll talk to me again. It just won’t be for two minutes a day. An remember he’s the one who asked me for my phone number when I asked him about coffee in L.A. someday I’ll get that coffee in L.A. What I’ve gotten is already so much better. But somehow I don’t think he’s going away. Please don’t let anyone miss any signals. The new Engineer Kid on the Block All week and even last week the engineer on the 707 has been waving at us on the patio. “I’ll go meet him,” I say once. “Do you have your phone?” I ask Janice. ‘Yeah.” “Call me if it’s not the same guy.” In order to get to the west end of the platform I have to leave five minutes before the train gets there. I get there and take a seat at the edge of the platform on the concrete planter. There is a gate there, something I discover later when a child goes through it, entering the lawn to the Spaghetti Factory restaurant. I sit there, the bell rings, the cab car approaches. I wave. There is no response and no phone call. Somehow I know this isn’t the same engineer who has been waving and I don’t want to yell out today. I go back, but not before realizing that I still enjoy sitting here. I can text, I can just think, I can do nothing. I enjoy sitting here. The wheelchair ramp for the Metrolink is to our left, the benches tucked into a planter sit up on the ramp that leads to the Spaghetti Factory. Tonight no one sits here, all that is here is the tall and short brick walls were train fans come and perch and watch trains; read car numbers, perhaps read the graffiti that is scratched on the cars, or even admire the new paint jobs, the new color schemes, the green and white of the new Metrolink engines. Some of the older ones have been repainted, too. By the way, the engineers don’t like the new Motive Power Industries engines. It proves the FP59 is still the right one. But tonight the waving engineer is not with us. Maybe he has gone, too. Am I losing all my engineers? But no, hope sprigs eternal. I am not losing my engineers, or at least not the waving engineer. On Thursday I come down the platform and take my spot at the west end. The sweet cab car bell greets me. “Hi,” says the engineer and then talks to someone about the car. “It has a lot of graphics on it; a lot of broken equipment. It’s from new Jersey.” It turns out that Janice has told Curt that I’m down on the west end of the platform waitin to see if the new engineer is with us. He comes down, trying not to race the train, he says. “Race you,” says the engineer and he knows he’ll win. “Goodbye you guys. Take care,” says the nameless engineer and then pulls his train away. I don’t know his name yet but he’s the new kids on Shelley’s engineer block. He’s the new kid in my collection of engineers. To Get or Not to Get the key Thursday, I sit on my little perch where I used to dream about an engineer with a moustache and glasses. Sometimes I still do. This little perch is located about three quarters down the east end of the platform. Along the back of the brick wall is a wrought iron fence, rails with two or three inches of separation with gravel behind it. It is here where rail cars are stored while their owners work on them; cars that will be chartered for various rail excursions. Albert the man from Argentina is there, Mike is there, Mob’s friend. I haven’t seen Mo lately. I haven’t talked to her since that traumatic day when she asked me if I knew Glen was married. “Don’t let it bother you,” Glen says. I haven’t let it bother me. I’m not letting everything bother me. Somehow tonight, Dave is here, too. “Hello gentlemen of the rails,” I say. And then for some reason I spend the next two hours laughing. “I want to know about signals,” I must say, I don’t’ know quite how it gets started; maybe I say something like now I really have to get a scanner. “Can you explain signals? Red over green diverging clear,” I say in a seductive manner. “You sound so sexy when you say that.” “Is he a bachelor?” Dave wants to know. “No,” now I’m laughing. “He might get married real quick if you say that.” Someone says something about flirting with the engineer or something, I don’t know. “I just want to know about signals.” “That might be approach medium,” says Dave, causing Mike to laugh. I don’t’ know what that means. “Hard green,” says Mike. I know what that means. “Proceed,” Dave says. Someone won’t pay $25.00 for something. “I’ll pay $25.00 for a key,” I said, but not something else. I can’t remember what it was I wouldn’t pay for. I sit here now my feet clad in their Disney work shoes, black, white socks, black slacks, green shirt. I know my socks should be black but they’re not. No one can see them anyway because my slacks go all the way to my shoe. The weather is breezy, the station is quiet. A freight comes through and everyone engages in their own train watching ritual. Dave writes down numbers. Mike looks off into the distance. I stare, knowing if those cars or empty or loaded. The train passes. “Is it a key to the Super in Lancaster?” Dave says when the train passes. Somehow this is funny. Sure and should I bring a couple of cats so he’ll feel at home? “Here kitty, kitty, kitty!” “She’s losing it!” Mike says. “She’s giddy with anticipation.” Ha-ha I wouldn’t do that. First of all my mother would slap me from her grave if I went and spent the night with a married man, and second of all I’d be late for work. Somehow all my serious academic training, all my interest in knowing if Glen has run GP30s, Sd45s, GP40s and all the other models that shrieked along the Santa Fe route seems lost in this barrage of teasing. I think it’s mostly me who is doing the teasing. “I asked him a lot of things,” I say trying to redeem myself. “I asked him which hand operates the throttle.” That brings laughter. It was an honest question, really it was. He answered it. “Just don’t’ ask him what hand operates the reverser,” Dave says. I’m not going there. I don’t want to know what it means. Maybe it’s the implications that are the teasing, the joke. Well the jokes’ on me we’ll leave it there. I remember sitting here in tears because Glen was going to Riverside. Now if I’m in tears it’s because I’m laughing so hard. “I got him for half an hour once,” I tell Dave. “That’s almost a relationship,” he says. “There is a relationship,” I say, “it’s just very casual.” I have great relationships with men I’m not going to wreck this one. For me talking to the engineers is better than a picture. It is a human connection with running the locomotives. I have a lot of homework to do before I talk to Glen or anyone else about running engines. Glen says once that you can only get into two or three positions here when running the train but that with the older ones you could get into more positions. “You could relax,” he says. I think glen probably needs lots of reasons to relax; it strikes me if I haven’t written it already, that glen sounds more relaxed in the cab. On the phone he always sounds harassed or in a hurry. That’s just an observation from someone who knows almost nothing but listening to voices on the phone all day gives me some kind of experience. I’d say the most relaxed I ever encountered him on the phone was New year’s day and even the day we talked about trains for half an hour. It just may be the way things are with him. “I’m tired of crying,” I tell the railfans when someone mentions how much time I spend laughing that night. For some reason on Thursday I don’t make it to see who is on the 708. Tuesday I end up working over time and by Thursday I am ready to see whomever I can see. I make it in time to see Cary but I don’t see him because Amtrak comes in right before him. Amtrak north and south both come in minutes apart. The 784 is late, the 785 is on time. Usually the reverse is true. Usually the 784 is on time and the 785 is late. 785 can run from fifteen minutes to an hour late but tonight they both arrive simultaneously. Sitting in the café I decide to try and make Cary’s train but get waylaid by someone who asks me if I’m waiting for Access. “I always see you talking to the engineer,” Laura says. Then she tells me how sometimes she’ll help someone she knows who is blind at Union Station navigate a tunnel. “Where do you get off the train?” I ask. Union Station can be confusing for anyone but it’s manageable. I just don’t like arriving late there as we all know. If you haven’t read my story about holding up Glen’s train, the reason I found out his name, you should read an essay called “All My Engineers.” The whole story is there. It’s interesting a year and a half ago I hardly knew where to find the engineer on the trains at Fullerton. Now I know something about Union Station. It also strikes me that I’m not particularly in a hurry to get to the other side of the bridge to meet Cary’s train. It also strikes me that I’m not so stressed out about people telling me to stay off the tracks or stopping me to tell me stories about people they know who are blind. Maybe I’m the same way with the engineers. I want to talk about trains; they don’t. Somehow that night the only train I make is the 608 where John tells me he hasn’t seen me in a while. He’s back! “I’m not going to go over there,” I say. Somehow I am still a little nervous about making contact especially since this is an extra. I don’t know what it is; maybe that’s why it’s so fun. If it were easy I’d probably get bored and run away. But I’m not bored at all. I’m combining my natural curiosity with my inclination to say hello to anyone and putting them to good use. “See>?” Dave Norris says when I say something about talking to my new friends. He’s telling me Glen’s not my only engineer. He is right, of course, but as I text Glen later, and tell Curt, “glen I don’t mean to pester you. It takes four engineers to replace you.” Double the stories! Quadruple the stories! The crowning jewel of Shelley’s engineer week occurs on Friday. I get off work on time and come down to see the engineers and enjoy the last Friday of peace and quiet, at least for a while. Apparently there have been noise complaints about the bands from the people who live in the condos across from the train station. If I had heavy metal rock music assaulting me through my window I’d complain, too. But I don’t know all the circumstances, I only know that Jose says they’ll be back next weekend. But I go home early to cook and get ready for tomorrow. I am hungry and don’t want to spend money at the café. I am cold and am convinced I am going to go get a sweater and a jacket tomorrow. I end up getting more than that, but tonight, at the quiet station, with bob and Janice not here yet I go down to track 3 to meet the 708. “Straight ahead right here,” says the engineer who I am positive doesn’t know me. Maybe he’s used to foamers. Maybe he is one. “Hi,” I say. “My name is Shelley and I always like to come talk to the engineers.” Remember when I wouldn’t touch the train? “I’m scared,” I tease Doug whom I see on Sunday night sitting near the east end of the platform. “Don’t be scared,” he says taking me seriously. “Just introduce yourself.” It’s funny but I’ve never thought of something so simple. It took two or three weeks to talk to Glen. Sometimes they still ask me if I need the train. This one just says “straight ahead.” “Right here in front of you,” says the engineer. Interesting how much easier it is to talk to them now when I go over there. “Everyone wants to know who Glen’s replacement is,” I say. Somehow I’ve gotten this idea in my head that they want to know. I think Janice mentions it earlier during the week. Tuesday, the day she tells me this I say that I’ll be back in business on Thursday. It takes a week to get over to the 708 and I’m happy because the guy is friendly. But no one has ever said to me: “She likes trains.” “Glen is in Lancaster now,” he says. “I think glen’s replacement is Kathy.” I explain that I like to talk to the engineers and that they’re starting to know my name. “Glen will know,” he says. I think he’s talking about who his replacement is. “Oh glen knows my name,” I say. “What’s your name?” “Sam,” he says. “Do you ever go to the Braille Institute in L.A.?” asks the new engineer. Okay someone knows about the Braille. “No. I work for Disney I don’t have time. But I do check out some of their library books.” “My friend does,” he says. “He gets video cassettes.” Probably he’s talking about descriptive video service. He’s the only engineer who has ever asked anything about anything relating to blindness. Glen tells me in October that the cab car has two steps. Cary once tells me where he is when someone is trying to help me. This is the first time anyone ever mentions it directly. “How long have you been running trains?” I ask. We don’t’ have that much time. “Sixteen years for the railroad. I used to run Santa Fe when it came through here.” So this engineer has run for Santa fe, too but up in this direction. The Fullerton station saw Santa Fe trains through there before they were bought out by Burlington Northern. “He said he has sixteen years on the railroad,” I tell Dave Norris on Sunday April 23. I sit on my little perch again wearing my green sweater. Is it a green signal or Shelley’s sweater? That’s the new joke. “You have a dog to your left,” Dave says as I approach the place where everyone sits. A man who switches out cars for the railroad in Barstow sits there, Dave is there, Curt shows up on his bike asking if he missed anything, Robert the attorney, and Tom sits there. “I’ll just walk down the railroad tracks,” I say. “We’d prefer you not to do that,” says Tom. “Well with my green sweater they’ll wonder is it a signal?” “It means full speed ahead,” says Dave. Great, from being teased about a hard green to being told to proceed to going full speed ahead, I think I get the idea what green is. It’s going to get me into trouble. But now standing by the track talking to Sam I learn he worked for the Santa Fe, too. Now I have two Santa Fe engineers. I’m having too much fun and yet there’s still a sadness at losing Glen. Tonight Sunday I’m in tears for a few minutes, not as intensely as last Sunday night, but enough to let me know I do still miss him. Glen was the connection. Someday I’m going to tell him. Someday when the time is right I’m going to tell him how important it was for me to meet him. In the meantime I have so many moa stories to discover. They all remember me; they call out to me; they apparently like to be talked to. I wrote months ago in another essay somewhere that I didn’t think this journey was over for me. It truly isn’t.
Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi |