She Likes Trains: Not Looking For Trouble This time, I promise, it wasn’t me who started trouble. Well, not real trouble, at least not yet, but who knows. There may be trouble brewing atth fullerton train station, but I promise it wasn’t the fullerton engineer girl who started it. Two weeks have been eventful in the train department. A fatality on one of Glenn’s trains, a visitor from the orange trains, two engineers on the stairs, and me, enjoying it all, relishing in my luck, but not looking for trouble. The Man from the Orange Trains “You know,” Wendy says standing behind the cluttered Santa Fe cafe counter, its usual assortment of granola bars no one wants, too expensive packages of cookies and powdered mixes for your water bottles coming between us, “the orange trains. I nod my head sagely. Yes, the BNSF freight trains, what about them? “He came in and used a credit card and bought a bread bowl,” she continues her story, laying out the facts for me about this mysterious visitor. “He had a tattoo or maybe he did because his sleeves covered them up. I remember you,” he said to the young girl working too many hours for too little money at the café under the greedy ownership of the family whose name I won’t mention, because that’s how It seems to me. She brings her parents in to work, people used to being exploited, I guess. That’s just my unhappy opinion isn’t it? Anyway, back to our story and it is a good one, I promise. “What is his name?” “I don’t know,” she says. He didn’t tell you? How will you find this man again? Oh, he’s going to drop by, he says, even if he doesn’t get this way very often. A player? A scandalous railroader? Just a friendly guy? Who knows. When’s he coming back? She doesn’t know. I think he likes her. I think she likes him. We could have trouble brewing at the Fullerton train station, and it wasn’t started by me. This man, according to Wendy’s statement, is the engineer from the orange train. I don’t want that kind of trouble with the engineers. I don’t need that. But then I thought of a way she could find out that guy’s name. She could look at his receipt. He had to sign it right? She said he bought a bread bowl. Does anyone buy them? Does the receipt have a time stamp on it? No, she says when I mention this later, there’s no time stamp or date on the receipt. So we’ve lost track. We don’t know our engineer’s name. We only know he remembers her. I bet he does. Leave him, I say, he used a credit card. Is that bad? Well, railroad engineers make good money but if he’s using a credit card then he’s probably in debt like the rest of us. Here I go expressing my uninformed opinion again. Maybe its’ a reload able card? Maybe he’s a responsible guy. I shake my head. No, don’t leave him. He likes you. I remember you, he says. I bet he does. All I know is this time it wasn’t the crazy Fullerton engineer girl who was the subject of this conversation. Once a freight engineer told someone I got around good. I get around alright. People at Taylor know my name, at least three engineers do. One of them may have been involved in yet another fatality on the antelope Valley line on Tuesday June 14. I don’t know. I haven’t been able to confirm it, but if he wasn’t on vacation or taking time off to help someone move, he as running that train and this is fatality number 8. That engineer, my number one favorite engineer, knows my name. Two others know my name. Stock broker Bobby from 608 asks me where I’ve been lately because of my infrequent appearances. Cary from 606 tells me to have a better weekend when I tell him to have a good one. But none of them like me or try to flirt with me, I should say. They’re all professionals. Or they’ve seen my type before and they like the attention. They think I’m fun. But trouble? Only Glenn might think I’m trouble and then, honestly, I don’t think he thinks that way. But Wendy? She could have trouble. Or fun. I’ll keep you posted. On the Right Track You know of course that track 4 is now in operation, serving right now as the lay over spot for the two trains that carry fans to the angels games when they play at home during the weeks. This is a Friday night, the place is hopping, quiet now since the bands are no longer in operation, much to the delight of many of us who come down to do our train thing. Tonight, I head over the 49 stairs to the south side of paradise and wait for carry’s train. The place is quiet when suddenly out of a purple-colored sky, Jazzy Jeff from Vegas appears. He’s got a ticket for an aero plane, no, make that an Angels game, and he’s worried. Someone told him to catch the train on track 4 and it was supposed to be here at 6:21 so where is it? The train comes on track 3 going to Anaheim stadium, and returns to track 4 to lay over, then go out again. You can’t catch the train on track 4. Someone has confused him and needlessly caused stress. Even I the star struck middle-aged adolescent railfan knows or thinks she knows that the Angels Express doesn’t come on track 4. It’s a matter of logic. Nevertheless, he’s worried. He can’t find the train. Cary’s train appears and he asks if the Angels train comes on track 4. No, it’s 3, carry the engineer says, but I’m not quite sure Jeff believes him. But ok, I wave Cary off and wait with Jeff. We go down the platform and turn at the gap in the wall that allows access to the benches and the wheelchair ramp parallel with the tracks. If you walk further down the line parallel with track 3, now separated from track 4 at this point by a low brick wall, you find a wrought iron gate, probably blocking access from the ramp to the street. That’s what we need, someone walking onto the street, getting hit, not by a train, but by a car. Well, there’s no danger of that right now, the place is quiet, we’re between engineers, the Angels train is late, 606 is off to the orange subdivision and 608 is loading in Los Angeles. It’s a beautifully cool night. Life is good. The first train backs in on track 4. Track 4 ends at a wall, it is a spur, connecting to the main line at Lemon street, going south. Trains will begin running to LaGuna Niguel here on July 6, at least this is the official start date. This can always change. I remember Glenn pointing behind me to the track when the lights were out, before there was a track, only a chain link fence separating the construction area. Now tonight the first Angels train comes in. I can’t ever remember which one comes in first, the one going north or south. Jeff runs to talk to the engineer and disappears leaving me alone with the big machine sporting the new Metrolink cars whose seats are too small and whose paint job is god awful, according to some. The paint job is a white background with wavy sea green in a narrow band toward the top of the car. I haven’t ridden in one of the new cars yet so I don’t have an opinion. Some say Metrolink wants to change its image after Chatsworth, but I’m not sure most people who ride the trains remember what the cars looked like before they were reconstructed in Korea to be stronger. They keep appearing stacked on freight trains barely clearing the bridge top. In the meantime before I form my own opinion, I sit here, waiting. The northbound train starts its journey in Los Angeles while the southbound train starts its journey in Laguna Nigel, arriving at Anaheim Station and then returning to Fullerton to wait till it is time to make the return trips. Hopefully Jeff catches his train. I don’t know yet. I walk over to the position for Bobby’s train, it is time to make my own train meet. Not Looking for Trouble “You had this train on Wednesday,” I tell him. It is my sweet EMD. “Where were you? I didn’t see you?” “I was over on the other side. I was too hungry.” Yes twice this week I’ve missed bobby’s train. Monday I was at Knowlwood with the Southern California Train Travel group, which mainly consists of the core of railfans that discovered me two years ago on the platform carrying their yellow bag from trainweb.com. Steve tells me I can upload my writings to Trainweb.com and so I will work on that when I get some time. I’ve been working over time and on transcripts, sleeping, or running other errands. But I’ll get there. Now as I turn to walk away and wave Bobby into the sunset, conversation gets my attention. “I left some people in Laguna Nigel standing at the other end. I was blowing the horn and everything!” “If they’re standing at the other end and you leave they deserve to be left,” I pipe into their conversation. Two engineers and a conductor stand by the pillar waiting for the elevator. Here they are, two engineers in the flesh, out of of the cab. My lucky day! I keep saying I’m going to go meet the engineers from the angels trains. Here they are. “My name is Shelley. I like to come over here to talk to you guys.” “I see you,” says one of them. “I go to Ocean Side.” Oh my, now here’s proof that the engineers know my name. I was afraid they didn’t. No fears, Miss Fullerton Engineer Girl, they see you and now they know your name. But I don’t want any trouble. “So where’s the other one?” I ask them. “Probably hiding,” responds one of my new friends. “Are you guys going to go eat?” There has been speculation across the tracks that the engineers and crew go eat during their lay over. Now their speculation is confirmed. “Are you going to Knowlwood?” “We went there last time,” one of them says. He looks at his colleague and they agree on the Spaghetti Factory. The elevator dings and they enter. I wish them a good night and head up the stairs. I guess I could have gone with them but I’d rather take the stairs. I’m too excited for the elevator. But I’m not looking for trouble. “I could have gone with them to dinner,” I say now as I head back to the east end of the platform. Dave and Kathy and the usual sit down on the benches, enjoying the cool pleasant evening. “But I don’t have any money,” I say. “Then they’d really think I was gold digging.” I’m not looking for trouble, But maybe someday. “They went to Know wood,” says Robert the attorney later as I make my way down the platform. It turns out he knows the conductor, but he doesn’t know the engineers. . “they were going to the Spaghetti Factory.” “It was too busy,” he says. Robert has a Face book page with the conductor. Ah the joys of Face book. It may be my connection to the station while I’m away from it working over time and typing transcripts, making money to pay bills. In the meantime I’ve met two more engineers and they know my name. But I’m not looking for trouble. This time, I promise, it wasn’t me who started trouble. Well, not real trouble, at least not yet, but who knows. There may be trouble brewing atth the fullerton train station, but I promise it wasn’t the fullerton engineer girl who started it. Two weeks have been eventful in the train department. A fatality on one of Glenn’s trains, a visitor from the orange trains, two engineers on the stairs, and me, enjoying it all, relishing in my luck, but not looking for trouble.
Copyright © 2011 Shelley J Alongi |