She Likes Trains: Crossing The Railroad Tracks
Shelley Alongi

 

Happy new Year, says my engineer in 2010. It has been a year since I made that first phone call to glenn. Since then I’ve averted trouble, had to move, gone to court, and finally, crossed the railroad tracks. Wonder what’s next for 2011. Stay tuned and we’ll both find out. Happy new Year all my Engineers!

I remember the first time I ever touched railroad tracks. I mean touch them, not drive across them, walk across them, or know about them. I don’t remember what grade I was in, maybe it was the fifth grade. I wasn’t particularly interested in knowing about the railroad tracks. I had a mobility teacher, when you’re blind and young, and sometimes older, depending on the circumstances, you get training in certain things, in order to gain information around you. I never thought of gaining information about railroad tracks. They were for trains; they didn’t affect me at all. But on this particular day in this particular year, my instructor and I sat at a railroad crossing, bells clanging, crossing gate down, obediently waiting our turn to cross with the rest of traffic. Somehow the train passed us. How could I know then that I would develop an overwhelming interest in the railroad in my forties? Maybe Glenn was that day’s engineer. Who knows. Maybe that engineer is retired now. I don’t know that either. What I do know is that suddenly my teacher decided I had to touch the railroad tracks. When the train passed and traffic moved along, we got out of the car and approached the tracks. I bent down and touched them; they were hot. They were hot, she said, because the train had just passed over them, creating friction, the flanges sliding over the rails to keep them on the rails, I suppose. There I was standing in the street touching railroad tracks. I don’t’ remember the experience being particularly devastating but somehow over the next years I developed a reluctance to walk across railroad tracks. I’ve crossed a few in my day, with people, I don’t think ever by myself, not that it’s impossible, but just because I didn’t have to-do it.

This unexplained reluctance has remained with me over the years, even though I have spent my free time for the last two years standing by railroad tracks, talking to engineers, getting on trains, navigating parallel to the tracks, even as the case was, two weeks ago, in the poring rain. I’ve met a dozen railroad engineers in the last two years even if in passing. Why am I still reluctant to cross railroad tracks? Logic defies this; everything I know says that when taking ordinary safety precautions, crossing railroad tracks is a completely safe experience. Engineers and train crewmembers do it al the time. People boarding the north bound Amtrak train at the Santa Barbara station or a number of others are required to do this. Conductors constantly warn detraining passengers to look both ways before crossing the tracks. Freight engineers who have climbed down from their cabs on track 2 look both ways before crossing to get their ice-cream from the café. I did that very same thing a year ago when I went to Los Angeles from one of my trips, this one the one that took me to a Payless Shoe Store in Santa Barbara. You can read about it in the essay called “Shoes, Songs, and tunnels.”

Even at the station when dispatch is controlling train traffic there is a reluctance to cross the tracks. Standing next to them is no problem, crossing them is the problem.

I bring this up because in one of my text messages to Glenn last week I admit this to him. “True confessions. I do not like crossing rr tracks. I will explain sometime.” My infinitely patient Glenn, who deserves a break from my heavy handed texting, will hear the story of how I had to cross the tracks last week on a routine trip home from the Fullerton station; a trip it turns out that wasn’t so routine. I guess it just goes to show you that anything can be dealt with; even crossing railroad tracks. I seem to have conquered my reluctance to cross streets, something that I was forced to do after getting a full time job. Now that I live one mile from a direct route to work I cross streets quite frequently. I suppose I can handle railroad tracks. Glenn may tell me just to deal with it, and he would be right. This is exactly what I did last Tuesday and it fits well into the week of adventure from the Fullerton station.

To be honest, there isn’t much to write about the Fullerton station this week. Maybe that is a good thing. Mostly the trains seem to run on time. There are a lot of faces missing because of the extreme cold. Bobby and Cary, my two men of the railroad guiding their trains through our cold part of the world are there; bobby wants to know if I have a scanner.

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t want to know if the trains are on time; I want to hear the engineers.”

He laughs at me. To his credit I must say bobby is the one who laughs at me the most and I think it’s fun. He is easily amused. I’m glad he is amused by my interest in talking to engineers. If any engineer asks me why I like to talk to them, I’m not sure what I would say; a dead engineer in the Chatsworth accident? The personalities? The interest in getting information? Just wanting to know their stories? Who knows, maybe it’s all of those things. This week, bobby laughs at me. He is good at expressing astonishment. Once I tell him that there are speed restrictions out of Norwalk. Norwalk is two stations before Fullerton.

“How did you know?” he is surprised.

I pull my phone out of the pocket of my green slacks and hold it up to his window.

“Twitter,” I say.

“Twitter!” he inflects. So maybe I don’t’ need a scanner. Or maybe I’m just worse than any fan with a scanner, I have constant updates to my phone. On Thursday, I tell him that I’m going down to the station on Friday to hang out with the railfans. I don’t. My New Year’s Eve doesn’t go at all as I had planned it for months. I stay out so late on Thursday that I wake up at noon on Friday. It is cold. I am tired. I don’t want to bundle up and take two buses to the station. I’ve run out of money though if I really wanted to get there I wouldn’t let that stop me. I would find a way. I think the real reason why I don’t’ go to the station on new Year’s Eve is because I have decided to get a new phone. Yes, I have finally bought the phone that reads the headers of the text messages. I write in an earlier essay that my phone doesn’t read the headers on the text messages, only the messages. Now I don’t have to ask the resource desk at work if the text message is from Glenn. I should know it. Of course I haven’t’ gotten a text message from Glenn since I bought my new phone. But I’ve gotten a few messages. I got one as I was walking out of the store on Thursday where I bought the phone. But what does any of this have to do with railroad tracks?

Everything and nothing.

Tuesday is an early day for me at work so I have plenty of time to get down to the station. I run a few errands, find something to eat since I really don’t want to spend a lot of money at the café, and head down to the quiet night. When I first came to the station I spent money with no problem there, but lately I’ve decided that the prices for some things are too high. A cheese burger and fries and a drink is pretty reasonable, but hot tea at $1.75 or ice cream for $4.00 for a drum stick is a little too much right now. I don’t seem to mind putting down $1.00 for a soda when I can get a six pack or sometimes a twelve pack for $6.00 or $7.00, but right now I’ll still pay $1.00 for a can. I’ll even pay $6.25 for a cheese burger, sometimes. I haven’t bought what used to be my mandatory favorite in a while: the double cheeseburger, the one that used to lure me there when I first wondered about the engineers snuggled down in those cabs, controlling the desktop configuration with their left hands, listening to radios and watching for people who are too close to the trains. On this particular Tuesday I probably buy a few sodas and store them in my red and black backpack, the new bag of choice. With the rain over the last few weeks I am glad I have switched to a backpack. I usually line it with towels so that any water that gets in is absorbed by the towels and not my scarves, hat, and gloves. The traditional garbs these days is the green sweater, the mauve jacket, a red Christmas sweater, at least three scarves, a brown hat, knit style, and a pair of red gloves, or any combination of all of these. I can also be spotted this year with a blue pokadotted umbrella. These go into the bag along with all the accoutrements of anyone who doesn’t own a car, or perhaps me, maybe I’m not everyone. I carry food and a water bottle, sodas, a notebook and paper, a slate and stylus, my phone, my wallet, and all of this is topped by my railroad keys hanging proudly from the necklace which on most days consists of the Disney ID, and brass and silver bells. I don’t’ know if I’ll add to my key collection come February when we do the railroad memorabilia show, but you never know. For now, the bag is full and heavy, useful, wet, and with me. It accompanies me to my train meets, except my 606 Cary train meet. I usually leave it in the café this week. Yes I’ve been sitting there with Bob, Dan, Bruce, and Miguel, the new guy who runs the café lately. Janice has been working this week. I guess the Shanghai Circus is in town. She always tells us about her interesting experiences and I’m sure she’ll have a bundle of them when she can share them. She calls me this week to tell me that Bob lets her know I’ve been there and that I have four days off work starting on Thursday December 30.

“We know about you,” says Bob when I say that he’s the ring leader. Apparently I’m the ring leader now. I don’t’ know about that. He’s just teasing but it’s a good tease. He’s the one who tells me I should meet engineers at the engine, and also he’s the one who suggests that Mo knows Glenn pretty good when she tries to start trouble back in March. We haven’t seen her lately. We don’t know if she’s sick or traveling or just not coming to the station. Right now, tonight, coast plays it’s usual gaggle of love songs and then catches me off guard by playing my favorite Bonnie Rate, song, the one where I got my nick name “Bright Eyes” for everyone. I’m so mesmerized by the song that I miss Bobby. I glance Down at my watch and see that it is 7:00 pm, 4 hasn’t even come yet though it has been announced. I won’t make it over the bridge and to the six car marker in less than five minutes so I just sit there and wait. I do see Cary, though, on the 606 and tonight he blows the horn for a father and little girl. Another child and adult stand at the tracks, Thomas is the child’s name, and they are excited to see a freight train. They’ve already been there an hour, they say, and haven’t seen anything. Their persistence is rewarded, kind of like mine, I guess. If I can just hold on till the next time I talk to Glenn, it’s always worth the wait, just like seeing the freight is worth it to Thomas. I guess the train thing is all about waiting and patience, and love, and people, and not trains. Tonight it is about crossing the railroad tracks.
 At 9:00 Pm after sitting in the cold and probably texting, observing the heavy freights that come through here, some blowing their horns at me and others who dot the platform, it is time to go. I don’t notice curt here tonight, or Doug or Stephanie, who has apparently been banned from the station. Curt, Scooter boy, tells us earlier that someone told him something and he’s not sure he should share it. I guess it results in Stephanie being banned from the station. What the story is I do not know because I tell curt that if he doesn’t want to share it he shouldn’t mention it. He doesn’t. I think he wants to, he’s just that kind of person. He has his finger on the goings on around there. The station is a rumor mill, a locomotive spotting, engineer chasing, train watching paradise. We do not have to cross railroad tracks here. Occasionally we do see the brave soul who will put a penny on the tracks but they’re usually stopped by a wandering ticket agent. No, here, no one crosses railroad tracks except by the pedestrian bridge. Climbing the stairs is much safer and sometimes standing between the two stair ways, on the span of the bridge can be the warmest spot in the area, especially when a Metrolink or Amtrak train idles or moves quickly through, pushing its exhaust up over the bridge. I like the railroad tracks most days. They are my tickets to paradise. But still I am reluctant to cross them.

At 8:45 when my alarm tells me it’s time to catch the bus I make my way-out to dock 4 to catch the 47 down Anaheim Boulevard. The pillars that sit six feet high for what reason I do not know, the brick lined pathways, the benches, made of wrought iron, and the curving pathways that hold planters with trees in them are empty tonight. I make my way through the bus lane that parallels all this, and step up near dock 4 to wait for the bus. Boarding the bus is no problem, we leave with out incident but soon it is evident too me that I have missed my stop. This driver is usually pretty good about remembering but tonight the GPS is not working, maybe they’re out of service because they’re updating, but whatever the case is, suddenly I am getting out at South Street. I have to walk two blocks up to Anaheim and Lincoln and then proceed one block to the 42 bus stop. It is cold and I do have time, but I have to be up early in the morning, and I don’t’ really want to miss a bus. But I haven’t been this way in a long time, so I must use logic to navigate my way through the streets. I think it’ interesting that my room mate who is blind and doesn’t travel as much as I do has one of those expensive talking GPS systems and I don’t. I would use it; but I don’t. In any case, exiting the bus I make my way north on Anaheim Boulevard to the next light, Santa Anna Street. It is a lightly trafficked place and so I start across on my cue and discover the smooth rails and concrete plank that indicates the railroad crossing. I hear the cars crossing, I know there is only one set of tracks, but still I shrink back. What is this incredible reluctance all about? I am traveling the same direction as parallel traffic, the smooth rails, there are four of them, are safe, there is only one set of tracks, and somehow I just can’t bring myself to do it. On Thursday Robert the attorney says that he can understand my reluctance to cross them because most information received about a train is visual. Well, okay, you see lights before you hear bells, I’ll grant him that, but there are ways, this is done everyday by people all across the country, and this is only eight feet of rail with traffic to guide so theirs no problem. Before a train appears there is the bell and the horn, there is plenty of warning that a train is coming. If you get stuck between the rails, as Robert suggests could happen, and you walk parallel to the tracks there is time to correct the problem. If there are say four sets of rails there is the added responsibility of safely navigating, but logic should play a part in this. The rails are wide, a cane or shoe can detect the difference, and if one proceeds in a relatively straight line and is in an urban area, there is a curb, grass, a signal box, and in this case, a chain surrounding the switching equipment, discouraging people from walking on the concrete parcel of land that holds the equipment. I discover this, because I eventually cross the tracks, but the analytical process I go through to do this is spectacular.

A lady pulls up in her car and asks if I need help crossing the street. No, I say, but do ask her to confirm that these are indeed railroad tracks, though, of course, every inch of me knows exactly what they are. Yes, she says and then goes along her way. I miss a bus because of my reluctance to cross the tracks. What if the bell starts up while I’m on the tracks? Well, it really takes about two minutes to cross the tracks if that, though it feels like two days. There is time. The train can’t stop, but since I cross streets everyday and have gotten used to processing sound cues on a more regular basis this isn’t impossible. Hey at least I’m not Penelope who gets tied to the railroad tracks and gets rescued by Dudley Do Right. Well, there’s really no place to tie one to a track here, but you get the idea.

Finally I know I have to do this. I have no choice. I take a deep breath and cross the tracks, cross to the curb. No train appears out of nowhere. I always have this fear for some reason that a train is going to appear out of nowhere. Not quite yet. Someday, but not yet. And by then I’ll probably be over this reluctance, but for now it still exists. I imagine it gets easier but I know the next time I cross them I’ll be analyzing and processing every cue I can get to safely navigate the crossing.

Perhaps other should do the same? Every time there is a death on the rails I wonder how they weren’t paying attention. It makes me pay attention even more because I don’t’ want to get caught dead on the railroad tracks; especially not when I spend my time walking up to tracks and talking to engineers. I guess I had to be pushed to do that, too, since Janice had to show me where Glenn was sitting. He wasn’t going to do it. He might have eventually, but now he knows I don’t’ like crossing railroad tracks.

The funny thing is now that I’m a few days away from the experience, and even when I wasn’t, I wanted to stand there by the equipment, at a safe distance of course and wait for a train to come by just to experience it. It did happen later on that night, but by then I was two blocks away and almost where I needed to be. I did run into some troubles navigating later by turning down a wrong street, but I still found myself wanting to go back to the railroad tracks, just to wait for the trains. I think the railroad thing embodies my personality: a little bit of trepidation and a whole lot of excitement.

Thursday is also uneventful in the station cycle of things. I sit and play with my new phone, even looking up to see Cary’s train just as it approaches. That would be the first time I didn’t stand in rapped fascination waiting for the train.

“That’s not safe,” I tell Cary. He wants to know what I’m talking about.

“I was distracted by looking at and playing with my new phone,” I say, holding it up for him to see.

I was at the proper distance behind the line but I have to admit the train caught me off guard. This is coming from someone who is reluctant to cross railroad tracks? It just shows even I am prone to distractions.

“It works pretty good?” Cary asks.

I assure him it does. We wish each other new year’s greetings and then Cary is on his way to his holiday and I go back to playing with my phone.
 
I make my way down to the east end of the platform, again, no one is there. I play with my phone till it runs out of battery power. I end up talking to Robert about my financial situation and we exchange stories about our cats, and so I do get home very late that night, but by then it’s the beginning of my first of four days off and so I end up staying up till 2:00 Am, adding contacts since the two phones I have aren’t compatible in the software department. No matter I’ve done that before. But from now on I may know every time I get a message from Glenn, and I’ll definitely be sure and safely cross the railroad tracks.

Happy new Year, says my engineer in 2010. It has been a year since I made that first phone call to glenn. Since then I’ve averted trouble, had to move, gone to court, and finally, crossed the railroad tracks. Wonder what’s next for 2011. Stay tuned and we’ll both find out. Happy new Year all my Engineers!


 

 

Copyright © 2011 Shelley Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"