She Likes Trains: Hot Blue Flags And Red Hot Steel
Shelley J Alongi

 

Some days and some nights the train thing is all about the logic of not ending up on the railroad tracks. It’s all about being smarter than a bicyclist in Palmdale, a dog chasing man, and a woman with her push cart. It’s all about the new kid on the block having the right equipment. But mostly, between high railers, cookies, diet soda, Subway sandwiches, strange conversations, and cool nights, it’s about boundary lines, hot blue flags, and red hot steel.

I forget what day it was now. It was definitely one of my days off, though. I don’t even remember what I was doing that day. Somehow, it was evening, perhaps after 6:00 pm. I sat down on my bed and picked up my fancy phone. Scrolling through the text messages I saw that I had received one from Glenn. I should have been nervous. I should have been surprised. I don’t know why I wasn’t nervous. And, I don’t know why I wasn’t surprised. Thinking nothing of it, I opened the message and blinked.
“Hi, Shelley. Please no texts between 3 and 5:30.”
Well, well. We’ve finally achieved status. We got our first boundary line. I sat there, holding my phone, staring off into space for several minutes. Had I really texted him during his rest time? This is the thing I didn’t want to do. This is the thing that I promised myself I wouldn’t do. A few times when I accidentally called in those early days, he would tell me he would have to talk to me later. This was such a shock to me. I had tried so hard not to do this exact thing. Three years, going on four, I knew his rest time was in the afternoon. I had talked to him once or twice between 1:00 and 2:00 pm or slightly around those times. These calls were with permission. But, the texting was completely different. It is a one way conversation mainly to pass along information that may or may not be remembered. I am always surprised about what he remembers from my text message. Now, four years after sending the text that said “have a good night”, I finally received my first warning shot. Don’t text during rest time. I was so distraught by all this that I left two messages and one voicemail. The first text said sorry just got this and apologies. The second one said something I don’t remember. The voicemail was sent on a day when I had an early lunch. Glenn I just wanted to apologize to you. I didn’t realize that I texted during rest time. I sat on my bed when I got the message and stared off into space,” I explain. “Did I really do that? Yes, I did. Anyway, I am sorry. I broke my number one rule. So, I’ll call you in a month. I’m on early lunch today probably won't listen tonight because I’m absolutely exhausted. It was one of those nights.” I’m sure I told him to take care, I always do. I love my engineer. I don’t want to lose him to my own negligence. Finally, he warned me. And, it takes a lot for him to do that. He is very patient. I hope I appreciate that patience. I do appreciate his nap time. I’ll take boundaries. Just don’t tell me to go away.

This particular situation spawned a number of responses, signaling a bit of a paradigm shift in generational thinking, perhaps my first awareness of an actual shift in practice and solution. In discussing this with several people I received the same question. Why doesn’t he just turn off his phone? I don’t know, really. He may be waiting for a call? Maybe his wife and family have permission to interrupt the coveted nap. I don’t. Or, no one may have permission. I don’t know that, either. The second thing was proposed as a solution: get a smart phone, set up hours where you don’t want to be disturbed and only allow calls from certain people or numbers. This is how I have dealt with phone calls or notifications during my work hours. From 7:30 to 5:30 PM I have my phone set up to only show an icon when calls or messages come in. This, too, is a practical solution. It may be more the one chosen by tech phone users simply because of familiarity. The third and final solution perhaps signals the noteworthy event that signifies the biggest paradigm shift. Simply put, he said no, so just don’t do it. It doesn’t matter if he turns off his phone or not. Just don’t’ do it. And, hey, he said please, didn’t he? This fact alone impresses Andreal, my Wells Fargo banker.
“I like that. He has manners.”
Yes, he does. And, that’s not a slap on the wrist, says Wally at the train station. And, you have twenty-two and a half more hours, Gary says. So, see, he didn’t tell me to run away. He just said don’t do it between 3:00 and 5:30.
“Between 3 and 6 pm on my days off are official book hours. Using this text to keep me honest.

There, if he wants to establish a boundary, which is perfectly fine, I’ll use that time when I’m at home to work on the book.
2014 is the year I write the book, I tell him. He really is my inspiration for actually seeing about publishing this book. I have the story written though I’m finding that I am changing parts of it, especially when it comes to a fatality. It could shift the timeline in my book, the book I mention early in my train station journals, the book I go to the planter by the railroad tracks to plan. Back to the planter, I guess. Yes, it is. I find myself sitting there or at the bench on the east end of the platform thinking about the story, again. Truth is better than fiction, but I did tell him that I had chosen Glenn as a name for my character. I don’t’ think he remembers. I think, though, once I get this book written others will follow out of the gate. Book line up. Engineer line up.

One of the things that happens at the train station these days is that Wally tells us how his son delivers Little Debbie snacks to stores. On nights when the freights are slow, or there’s no work on the tracks performed by high railers and the like, he tells about how he gets up at 4:00 AM to help his son deliver the snacks. They’ve built shelving in the truck to help. Steve, the son who delivers the snacks tends to buy too much and so the product expires before it can be purchased by customers. Somehow there’s something going on so that he buys back some of the product he delivers. So, I say, he doesn’t make a profit. That is right. People say Wally will go broke helping his son. Maybe. Maybe not. Between driving Mike to work and making up stories about Mike being sick so that they can go to Laughlin or helping Steve with deliveries, Wally keeps an interesting life. What parents won’t do for their kids. Ask him. Ask Glenn. Children are sometimes more of a financial burden or responsibility on their parents as they get older. Ask me. I should know that.

On Monday January 7 I’m at home working on a transcript. My latest thing as you know is to listen to the railroad radio. It’s easier to do this with the iPhone. Sitting next to my computer, it charges from it and provides me with hours of interesting entertainment. No commercials and always active in real time. No re runs on the railroad radio. On the Orange county stream I can hear Carey, the only engineer I know now who is on that stream. I think bobby may have gone back to San Bernardino. But, not sure, exactly. On this Monday, sitting here, I hear Carey, 606, say that the engine is having trouble at Fullerton. I hear Carey on the radio. On Tuesday we have this conversation.
“I heard you on the radio.”
The MPI hisses, Carey is anything if not valiant working to communicate with me, just like Glen, my two men of the railroad, the gold standard.
“where were you?”
“At home.”
“We had trouble,” he says just before pulling his train out into the rail sunset.

It seems our days are laced with weird conversation such as what you eat and the stools they make. I don’t consciously register all the details, just the fact that the conversation is going on around me. It happens somewhere between the freights sitting on track 2 waiting for their signals and the Little Debbie stories. It happens between sitting on the bench eating Subway sandwiches and crossing the bridge to meet 642 and 606. The rhythm of the station lately for me is to arrive two or three times a week, Friday being social butterfly night. I arrive around 5:00 pm, walk to the platform and take a spot along the wrought iron rails on my perch. The grip contains Subway sandwiches and chips, or granola or trail mix, apples, pears, and, of course, cookies. There’s always the obligatory diet soda. After sitting and enjoying my dinner I proceed to the south side of paradise to meet my second string engineer, the second part of the gold standard. Then, I go to sit by train 642 and don’t usually get a response these days. I’ve heard this engineer on the radio a few times. Sometimes Richard will talk to me before walking his train. Then, I’ll venture to 608 where, lately, I get no response. My schedule is so spotty these days that I rarely make contact. When 608 departs I go to the north side of paradise and talk to Don and Mickey. The older couple, he a heavy smoker, she a cheerful woman, sits there, waiting for 4. The train brings back memories for Mickey whose father and sister both worked for the railroad in their day. Experiencing a number of health issues, just selling a mountain house they picked up from a friend some time back, they ask how my work week has gone. They ask me how Glenn is doing. I say both are fine. We talk about not getting all the 2013 Christmas cards out. We eat cookies. Scooter comes along and tells stories of his family adventures, his sister who has eleven children. There are a number of children who come to stay with his mom for a month each Christmas. They watch the people on the platform. Don likes to ask the crew if they have room for a stow away. No, I’m afraid not, says whichever conductor is on the train at the time. They sit and wait and watch and relax. They’re night owls those guys. It’s what I would be if I didn’t have a full time job. Someday. Again. For n ow, I’ll take the job.

After I take my leave, visit the facilities at the Santa Fe café, buy sodas or ice-cream, I head on down to the east end where I greet the foamers and sit with Kathy and Dave, Ana and Tyler. Tyler, a year and a half, loves shiny things. He has inherited several of my bells. He squeals and walks, bangs on the bench, plays with grandpa, and basically has a good time. He enjoys life. We enjoy him enjoying life. Time passes. Tom talks about whatever bothers him at the time. We discuss celebrity deaths. We discuss kathy’s stolen license plate. We talk about food.
“I want to talk to Glenn,” I tell her.
“Why don’t’ you call him up?”
Why don’t I? Scared rail nut friend? Not scared. Just want to look up something about trains. I keep telling him I’m working on my book. I really do want to talk to him. I’ll have to do that here, some time, soon.

Between diet sodas and cookies, and ice-cream, there is work on the railroad. High railers, sparks, welding, tamping the ballast, digging in it with a shovel, putting it back in place after removing damaged rail. There are breezy nights, me wrapped in scarves and a jacket. Me standing by trains a little intimidated. Seems like that doesn’t ever change. There’s just something magical about meeting the crews. And, the engineers, of course. Engineers are people, too, says Allan once. Yes, and snuggled up in those deadly comforting locomotives they’re just magical. Maybe the railroad is my Disneyland. Better than that. And, then, there’s super engineer who is definitely a person, but has attained magical godlike qualities from his number one rail nut friend. He does get tired, though. He says so himself. Get enough rest, number one engineer. But, only between 3:00 and 5:30.
 
On one night, Mike, a fairly regular foamer appears, talking to the cage 2 regulars. They talk about how to make crystals, chemistry class, cars. Currently unemployed by the BNSF, he says on New year’s Eve, he goes to a restaurant at down town Disney. At Katella, a checkpoint near Disneyland, After drinking a Wild Turkey and two beers he is passed. No attention is paid to him. Guess he wasn’t odiferous or any such distraction, says Robert the attorney. He happened by at the checkpoint right when someone decided it was time to stop. He was not cited. And, it made for a good story to be told at the railroad station. And, now, you know it.

January sees long, noisy deadly comforting trains and tresspassers on the tracks. First, the incident on New year’s Eve, then an Amtrak hits a man trying to rescue his dog. The seventy-five year-old retired math professor crossed the tracks every day, so the paper says. Trying to rescue his unleashed dog proved to be his undoing. Is it like the brakeman in 2008 who used his cell phone and told his engineer to back up the train and then walked behind the train and died because he was using his cell phone? In the case of the retired professor, everyone loved hinm. So, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. The engineer, by all accounts, was shaken up over that one. I’m sure it wasn’t the man that triggered a sad response. The dog, by the way, unlike the man, was fine. Animals may be smarter than humans when it comes to trains.

Sitting on the east end of the platform on Tuesday January 29, one freight train, BNSF 7824 west pulls to the usual stopping point near the bridge that crosses the railroad tracks. They sit while one freight and a northbound Amtrak train comes in, deposits passengers, and departs. Curiouser and curiouser, the train sits still. Soon, another freight train, BNSF 7713 east, lines up with the present train. What could this be? A crew change, they wonder. Is one crew dying on the law? On track one, the crew gets out, carrying grips and stands talking to the crew on the 7713 train. 7824 crosses the bridge and gets into the locomotive of the 7713. 7713 crosses the bridge and gets into the locomotive of the 7824 train.

We don’t’ have a radio, Dave says. I should go get mine, Tom says. Wait! I suddenly remember. I have my iPhone. Pulling it out of my trusty black grip I tune in the Orange county feed. I have a total of four feeds on the iPhone as of this writing: Montana Rail Link, Orange County, Los Angeles, and Lancaster. Tuning it in to orange county allows us to listen to a variety of stations: 644, 642, various Amtraks. As time passes 7713 still sits. Suddenly, finally, a young engineer voice acknowledges his number and gets the highball.
“All swapped out and ready to go,” says the engineer or conductor on the
7824 earlier when it leaves. So, I guess we were right. A crew with less time got to operate one of those trains, though, we don’t’ know which one it was. Dave likes to make guesses. Or, he might be right. I don’t remember what he said at this time. It was just fun to watch the two crews switch trains: don’t know what would be so special about that on any day unless you’re the star struck new kids on the block and you always want to know if there are really people up there. Yes, there are. And, sometimes they say hi Shelley please no text between 3 and 5:30. Sweet engineer. Never again. Scout’s honor. And, even though I was the new kid on the block, I had the right equipment.

The nights are full of teasing about train 221’s blue flag, how hot it is, what we’re doing with it. I’m blue flagging the engineer. I don’t want to see that, says my biggest teaser, Allan who used to drive the crew van. And, I bought a new Starbucks mug. Red. Hot. Steel. Steel? Red hot steel. Yeah, it’s hot alright. It’s hot even if it’s aluminum. You have to understand the joking. Steel, or Super engineer, blue flagging the super engineer. Hot blue flags and red hot steel. Derail is down, and there’s a purple derail. Left hand power and right hand is the cup holder for the red hot steel mug which is really aluminum. But, left hand is power, right hand is the cup holder and no braking this eternally high balling train. Yes, this is how we spend our nights. Talking trains. The railroad is divided by regions and sub divisions and divisions, kind of like Toastmasters. Our part of the railroad is the western division and goes to New Mexico. At this writing I would need further clarification on those boundary lines. I’ve already been clarified on one boundary line by my number one engineer. Everybody has to start somewhere. And, yes, as he once said, I know more about the railroad than most people. I know the names of several sub divisions. Orange sub, Valley sub, Mojave. Two are Metrolink divisions and Mojave, belonging to the Union pacific is freight. So, I am definitely learning about the railroad. This is what I wanted. I’m learning about the railroad slowly but surely and having fun getting there. Just keep me away from hot blue flags and red hot steel.

One of the things that has changed in the last few months is the proximity of the bus stop to the train station. Instead of parking on the east side of the docks lining up with the midpoint of the train station, the bus now parks almost at the switch which puts the trains on to the Fullerton track. In order to more efficiently reach the platform, I have discovered that it is easier to walk to the first crossing point and then find the concrete barrier that separates the parking lot from the ballast and the railroad tracks.
One cool day in January, after talking to Valerie who sits now on the bus bench where the 47 drops its passengers, I find the concrete barrier and trail it, stepping around a few cars. Between the platform and the last building which separates the tunnel which leads out track side is a dock for the old packing houses and then a wrought iron fence which paralels the back of the platform, the space between the wall where I sit and watch the trains and the parking lot. I notice one day that two men are in the parking lot. I notice they approach.

“Stop right there,” I admonish, knowing they’re about to invade my personal space. They want to know if they can help. “It’s gravel out here. You’re going to end up on the railroad tracks.”
Ok, this isn’t quite true. Yes, one could end up on the railroad tracks, I say, but, look, there is a concrete barrier here. In order to end up on the railroad tracks I’d have to step over the barrier, walk through the ballast and basically just be an idiot like a bicyclist in Palmdale, I say. Somehow, this explanation earns me an attitude pin. I have an attitude, one says. If pointing out why one would not end up on the railroad tracks by staying clear of the concrete barrier earns me an attitude pin, I’ll take it. I’m smarter than a bicyclist in Palmdale, apparently. Or, I’m smarter than a guy who runs to catch his dog on the railroad tracks, or, even, a woman pushing a cart full of clothes at perhaps the very same spot where Glenn’s train hit the bicyclist.

Oh, and so, to that story. What is so magical about Palmdale Boulevard? This is a question I ask several people later. Dave says nothing in my book. Brian the Metrolink agent on Friday February 7 says nothing he can think of. Why would anybody want to be there? If you want to step out in front of a train, maybe, I say. Yeah, he agrees. And, someone did. On Tuesday February 4, just after 7:00 PM, listening to the radio, I hear the following transmission. “Emergency. Emergency. Emergency.” Uto, I think, sitting at my computer. I know that one. According to rule 2.10 in my 2010 adition of the General Code of Operating Rules, emergency calls which will seriously disrupt railroad operations are signaled by those three words. There’s trouble right here in River city. I pick up my phone and bring it with me, listening for the next three hours as intermittent transmissions make their way to me. Jack is the conductor and he’s checking out whether or not there is a confirmed fatality. The engineer says the train was at seventy miles an hour as it approached Palmdale Boulevard, just before Sierra Highway. Yeah, that’s about the same place where Glenn’s accident was. “Train 285 struck a trespasser at Palmdale Boulevard,” says the engineer.
“where is the head end of your train?”
“About milepost 68.75,” he says. The accident was just short of the station. Later on, milepost 68.3 and 68.5 there is a speed restriction of ten miles per hour. This is where the activity is later on, activity Glenn observes and complies with three hours later, twenty to thirty minutes late by my clock.
“Is there a confirmed fatality?”
“jacks’ walking back there right now,” he says.
“jack. They want to meet with you in the locomotive,” the engineer says, and then I hear nothing from 285 till they release the train at 8:42 to proceed to Palmdale. The aftermath of the accident is continual extending from train 217 to Union pacific speed restrictions reported by LMC, our favorite dispatcher on the Mojave subdivision. The thing I thought was interesting was that she did not have a chart showing metrolink milepost locations corresponding to Union pacific ones. I kind of thought that was an oversight, but don’t’ know who is responsible for those things. It’s still an oversight. They should have milepost locations. She kept asking her crews if they knew the metrolink milepost locations. She didn’t know what it was on her side, she said. That’s what she needed to know. It turned out to be UP MP4.13 where the restriction was. The UP crews informed her that the police activity and such began at approximately UP MP4.5.
Just after the accident, perhaps half an hour afterward, Dispatch contacted 217, and 219, not sure about 221. He asks 217 to get a passenger count for buses. Train 217 since it is odd numbered is going to Lancaster, west, remember? I never heard if train 219 was assigned buses. An hour and a half late, 217 led three trains to wherever they go after they get to Lancaster.
Glenn appears in the lineup. He’s half an hour or so late, I’m thinking in my head. Now, here’s something interesting. It might prove I listen to the radio a lot. Maybe more than I should? When Glenn spots the train he tells Robert “This is going to have to be a quicky.” I remember several weeks ago he said the same thing, perhaps after the miss on the tracks? I remember he said to me in Los Angeles he would have to be quick if he was going to take me to track 8. So, this is a familiar phrase and I’m starting to recognize what triggers it. Love? Obsession? Just a creature of habit? Maybe all three. It’s a fun thing, really. Tonight, trains running late, I hear my first fatality transmission on the radio. I’m sure it won’t be my last.
The Union Pacific transmissions cut into me listening to Glenn repeat the speed restriction at milepost 68.3 to 68.5.
“Correct on the repeat 221,” says the unfamiliar dispatcher.
My number one engineer is always correct on the repeat. Tonight, he’s a little late and maybe a little frazzled.
“On the engineer’s side, Jess,” he says, perhaps as they pass the accident site which by all accounts is still teeming with fire, police and whatever activity follows a show of brilliance on the railroad tracks.
At 10:30, two minutes before dying on the law, according to my clock, Glenn’s blue flag is removed. All protection has been removed. Men and equipment are in the clear. It’s ok to re spot. Have a good night. This signals for now that I can start preparing for bed. My number one engineer can sleep now, too. Sweet train dreams number one engineer.
Some days and some nights the train thing is all about the logic of not ending up on the railroad tracks. It’s all about being smarter than a bicyclist in palmdale, a dog chasing man, and a woman with her push cart. It’s all about the new kid on the block having the right equipment. But mostly, between high railers, cookies, diets soda, Subway sandwiches, strange conversations, and cool nights, it’s about boundary lines, hot blue flags, and red hot steel.

 

 

Copyright © 2014 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"