She Likes Trains: Engineer Questions
Shelley J Alongi

 

The evening has been pleasant, but I await my next trip to the station with bated breath. My beloved railroad grip is back in my possession. It is a new one, the material is different, the Redoxx company determined that the material they used for my bag was faulty and so they sent me a new one. It seems to be of a lighter weight and the same sturdy construction. I see no unraveling threads. I have anticipated its arrival for two weeks with mounting pleasure and cannot wait to break it in. The bells are back on the zippers and I am ready for my next railroad adventure. I�m not bored, I�m a little traumatized, extremely happy, and awaiting 2012 with pleasure. Bring on the trains! Hard green.

�Shelley, this is Glenn. I�ve got two questions for you.� Pause. �Are you� pause, start, �For sure are they going to be the Starlight�s gonna be rerouted?� If you could give me some more information on that.� Pause, again. I wish I could see this man�s face. Come on, honey, ask it! Lay it on me!

�What was the first train in 2012 at Fullerton?� �Alright,� he says, �have a good day. Bye.�

If I didn�t know any better I�d wonder if he sort of liked me? You know what I mean; but then I�d assign myself too much importance, and, well, he likes everybody, and maybe voicemail just makes the forty year veteran of the railroad a little nervous? He talks to dispatch, he says �we�re in on a red� once to me, leaning out of his window, imparting this vital information in quiet, expressive, serious tones. If the eyes match the voice I might be in trouble.

�Shelley this is Glenn!� sweet engineer music to my ears. I stand holding my phone on Saturday night, the night after the railroaders on 642 sweep me off into the sunset, or at least take me to dinner. Eddie the conductor is a tease; it�s James the engineer who takes me seriously, or at least pays attention.

But wait! While I�m being escorted to authentic Mexican food and treated to their company another engineer is leaving a messaged and then, right after the call from my number 1 favorite railroad engineer in the world, there�s a message from Cal State Fullerton. �Shelley get bak to work on this project.�

I have been curled up in front of the computer typing like a mad girl for a week, wondering how to answer Glenn�s two questions.

�Funny you should ask that,� I say on a voicemail to him. �I asked Brett that a few days ago and I haven�t gotten an answer yet. He says it�s on the video.� I keep plying the number one railfan at Fullerton with the question, Brett did you forget me? The engineer wants to know what the first train was and I want to know so I can write it down. But, hold on, wait! He looks at it and well Glenn I�ve got good newss and bad news,� I dramatically inform my favorite engineer. The good news is I got Brett to look at the video. The bad news is the headlight and the fog obscured the road number. He couldn�t read the number.� I�m sure I�m dramatic on Glenn�s voicemail. I always am. One night I thought I would cry asking him by voicemail if he was on a train that had encountered a fatality. Tonight I�m not crying. I�m happy. And I�m amazed, too. The engineer, the one I go to for many of my train questions, is asking me questions. But he has asked me them before. Once he asked me what happened on his train the night a year ago that 221 hit a man on the tracks out of Sylmar. Tonight he wants to know if the Starlight is really going over the Tehachapi loop. Yes, it is. But I think the train will be detoured over two sets of dates. As of this writing, due to transcript work seriously curtailing my research time with trains I cannot verify that information, however, I am working on it. So while I have answered his one question, I haven�t answered the second one.

�But,� I say, �I was there when the first train of 2012 came through Fullerton. It was a westbound.�

That sounds like something Bruce would know, says Tom the school teacher when I recount this story.

�I�m sure you can find it on a web site,� someone else says, who was that? They may be right.

�In six months,� I tell Glenn, �We�ll probably find a video where we can see the number. Where is the guy with real paper? He�s at a function for his church.� So I�m so sorry Mr. #1 engineer, here I go apologizing to my favorite engineer again, I don�t have the answer to your question. Well, you did tell me to look up specs for locomotives on EMD, once, so I guess I�m not answering your question like you couldn�t answer mine once, but it�s okay, really. It just shows we don�t always know the answers. The railroad engineer tells me to check the source and he�s right. So I�ll go check my source in this case, too, and learn something new. This is the light that draws me to railroading: there is so much to learn an there are so many different sources of information, some things have not been compiled yet, there�s always work to do and things to learn.

�Railroading is the only thing in my life that I haven�t found boring,� I tell Norm the former BNSF engineer on Sunday January 15, and it�s true. Three and a half years after Chatsworth I�m not bored yet. So I didn�t go to grad school for nothingdid I? . I�ll probably find that out sometime.

On the night I write this, Tuesday January 17, I finally get a chance to go onto the West Coast railforums web site and ask if there are two sets of dates for the Tehachapi detour and am told that when Union Pacific does maintenance on their tracks they send number 14, the Starlight going to Seattle over the loop build in the 1880s by Southern Pacific. Reading the entries on the various FaceBook pages I don�t want to be on any of those trains.

�Okay here�s what I found out,� I tell Glenn although I haven�t told him everything because I can�t find out everything just yet. �The detour is February 1 through 8 and it�s only 14. I don�t think I want to be on that train.� The conductor I�m very casually aquainted with says he�s trying to arrange time off to go ride that train. So there you have it number 1 engineer, all that I know. But being the graduate I have to investigate further and haven�t had the time to do that yet. I have one more transcript to type and that is due next Tuesday. So after that I will apply my graduate skills and learn more about this Tehachapi detour. I am honored my engineer asked me about it. I guess I gave him the information and so he came to me for the answer. I�m usually coming to him for the answer. You think we might be train enthusiasts? I think so.

The Tehachapi loop has another significant meaning for Glenn, and possibly for me, too though I hardly know it. In our first conversation by phone Glen told me that he knew someone killed in the Chatsworth accident. Three months ago he told me who his friend was and I went and read the memorial page. There was a post from Glenn�s family on the page saying that they went to the railroad model shop together and took several camping trips to the Tehachapi loop. All of a sudden I was at square one emotionally. It has always been a one fatality at a time accident for me, I can�t do this; I don�t even know if I can ask him about it. He said once he would tell me a story about his friend but I don�t know if I can ask him about it. This is where I am on the journey. My connection came through the engineer. I can barely stand that one and I�ve given up explaining it. This accident is still very personal for me though I hardly know why. Look where the whole thing has gotten me. All of a sudden, the connection to my number one engineer takes on increased significance, this is my whole connection to trains. But, we�ll go from here, as Glenn says once in a voicemail to me, and not about chatsworth. He says leave him a message about Mo�s memorial and �we�ll go from there.� That�s about what�s going to happen with the accident. When I get to talk to him about it we�ll see where it goes. His qualifications as an engineer have been tested by a company wanting to ensure its engineers are properly trained in seeing signals because the company that hired Rob Sanchez was found to have falsified testing records, putting engineers and conductors through endless signal tests since then. Knowing someone who died on that train and then having to be tested on top of that must be an insult. No wonder he says that Sanchez let the whole railroad industry down. When I first met glenn Lilian, Rob�s friend, advised me to find out how he felt about the accident before telling him my experience with it. She was wise in telling me that. I�ll have to be careful and yet it�s gotten so much bigger than the accident by the time it comes up again it may work itself out in my head.

The whole idea of Chatsworth comes up on New Year�s Eve while I walk with Lena to the Spaghetti Factory to take a restroom break.

�Is he here?�

I�m talking about the guy who was texting Rob on that day, he is an adult now and makes trips to Fullerton on occasion. No, she says. And then she says that as an adult Rob should have been the one to cut off the texts. Yes, I fully agree, I say, you�ll find no argument from this middle-aged, star struck teenage railfan on that one. Knowing people with friends who died on that Metrolink train, and knowing the name of the engineer on the freight train, and knowing the minor at the time comes to our station does not change for me the overarching question: how could you not know a freight train was going to hit you? So maybe it just all boils down to the engineer�s eyes. I only know this: I don�t� want to see my engineer�s eyes angry; it would be spactacular, I think. Maybe it�s a good thing I can�t see them at all.

My entire railroad journey in December and January has been traumatic, humorous, enlightening, but has not always possessed such a somber quality. I�ve been to the station a few times in the last weeks, sitting on the planters, coming last week in the rain thoroughly unpreparred and loving it, talking about the food poisoning trip to Montana to chase trains, yes, somehow that came up again. It seems this is the same trip that the nameless freight engineer interrupted, but this Sunday night, January 15 there is no freight to interrupt Dave�s explanation that this trip happened to be when he was last in Billings. Billings is my summer destination so I will be asking about that again, I guess. �By the time we got to Butte,� he says, �I was feeling okay.� I�m not sure why we even discuss this, maybe it was a reference to the movie Bridesmaids. Sunday may never be about trains.

�If this is what the fans taka bout on the platform what do railroad crews talk about?�

�You�ll be dismayed,� says Dave.

Okay, probably, but I�m looking forward to it. Gone may be the polite engineer that takes me to dinner, or the guy who answers my railroad questions. We�ll see what happens when they violate rule G, except there won�t be a violation since they�re not on the clock, will it?

In the meantime, the rain falls, I stand against one of the pillars, the freights do not comfort us so much tonight. The humor is a little off color but the comaradarie is there.

I arrive at the station on Sunday to find Norm, Mike, and Bruce sitting around the table at the caf�, awaiting number 4.

�It�s Sunday night you�re not supposed to be here,� says Bruce. I explain my schedule change and take a seat. I�m taking a break tonight from typing, coming here straight from work. My days off now are Monday and Tuesday which means I can go to the station on Sunday and here Norm tell engineer stories. But there are no engineer stories tonight.

Instead, they are wondering why the Amtrak train is stopped at Harbor. Investigation reveals nothing and so the conversation turns to wondering if Janice is out of the hospital yet. There is a rumor that she was in City of Hope for cancer treatment, something I haven�t been able to confirm, but if that is the case, here we go again. More information on that when I get it.

�Why is the Starlight going over the loop?� I ask the BNSF former engineer.

�IF the railroad does anything it�s about money,� he says.

I tell them that Glenn has been working many hours.

�He can�t have two days off in six weeks. That�s against the law� he says.

Ok so one engineer tells the other engineer he�s wrong. Far be it from me to break up an engineer cat figh! Here kitty kitty kitty! If the crew gets the proper eight hour rest period it seems they can do that. Guess I have another subject to research. I know a few years ago there were some changes to the hours of service laws. Some say yes, some say no. Engineer cat fight!

Sitting in the caf� having this conversation, we learn that the girl who replaced Wendy has left. Chase is no longer working at the caf�. Dennis is here tonight but I�m going to the Spaghetti factory for dinner because I have a lot of work to do and I�ll work at night and if I have such a meal I will not go to sleep right away and will get some work done. I am looking forward to my spaghetti feast and so at 9:00 I excuse myself from cage 4 by the platform�s eastern end after a discussion of veal and how it is made, the offending food item in the whole food poisoning affair, and make my way down to the restaurant that once served as the Union Pacific depot. The rain has abated and so it is with great pleasure that I make my way to my familiar place. The meal? Spaghetti with meat sauce, a side of maranara, two loaves of sour dough bread with one to go, guess they really wanted to get rid of them since they closed at 9:30 that night, iced tea, salad, spamoni ice-cream, and perhaps the most remarkable thing, a family with two very well behaved children sitting across from me. We meet as I catch my cab home.

�You have very well behaved children,� I say. �It takes a lot of work,� I remark remembering when I helped my friend with her four children, and knowing the experience of others who do not follow my own diligence.

Yes it does,� they say. �I hope we didn�t disturb you.�

Disturb me? Hardly. A child running around or having problems staying seated disturbs me. That wasn�t the case here. The parent�s diligence made the meal much more pleasant. And the food was quite good, too.

The evening has been pleasant, but I await my next trip to the station with bated breath. My beloved railroad grip is back in my possession. It is a new one, the material is different, the Redoxx company determined that the material they used for my bag was faulty and so they sent me a new one. It seems to be of a lighter weight and the same sturdy construction. I see no unraveling threads. I have anticipated its arrival for two weeks with mounting pleasure and cannot wait to break it in. The bells are back on the zippers and I am ready for my next railroad adventure. I�m not bored, I�m a little traumatized, extremely happy, and awaiting 2012 with pleasure. Bring on the trains! Hard green.

 

 

Copyright © 2012 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"