She Likes Trains: Steel Train
Shelley J Alongi

 

Steel train, whether you run it, wish you did, whether it tries your patience, takes your time, makes you cry, we’re all here experiencing our own railroad journeys, waiting for it. A fan’s casual naming of this glorious tonnage inspires my next essay, and it succinctly summarizes everything. If you run it or watch it we’re all in some kind of fascination with it.

The nights are starting to cool again in October, an October that is so different than the one four years ago when I made contact with my first engineers, and made a special kind of connection with my magical one, and entertained the patio faithful. Some things remain the same, many things are vastly different. I still trek across the stairs to meet trains, this time at the six car marker instead of the five. The elevator bell tinkles, music drifts across the tracks, this time from XM instead of Coast, still from the Santa Fe café. Black and red bags still dot the platform, Amtrak 785 is still regularly late, but I am there less often. People don’t ask me as often if I need the train. Since that October 19, 2009, the same date in 2013 ironically when he experiences fatality number eight, no engineer has proclaimed from his private lair “she likes trains.” Many of the faces are different, many of them unknown. It seems harder to make contact with the new crop of engineers making its way through Fullerton.

Luckily for me, the first magical engineer communicates by telephone every few months, the other one who is still at the station still talks to me out of the cab, one I met two years ago still says hello when I sit by the locomotive on track four.

I find that spot on the wrought iron bench with the arms dividing the bench into three separate sections particularly comforting these days, something I’ve mentioned in a past entry. This day, October 24, I sit on the first bench where the locomotive comes to rest, surrounded by a temporary comforting silence. Four years ago and five days earlier, October 19, 2009, the first engineer I ever talked to informed a helpful passenger that “she likes trains.” Today, October 24th, Thursday, cool, crisp, bespeaking days to come in fall regalia, that engineer has racked up fatality number 8 and I’m in tears. I’ll tell more about that story in another entry, just suffice to say for now that this new spot, kind of isolated from the rest of the station, though plainly visible, serves as a place of comfort to a railroad stricken star struck middle-aged teenaged railfan. That would be me.

On another day, I sit by the locomotive, holding my phone, taking a rudimentary video. James who runs this train at times stops to say hello after tying down the train, setting the hand brakes.
“What have you been up to?” he asks once.

“Missing Glenn.”

I always like to say that; it usually gets the same response.

“He doesn’t get out this way anymore.”

“I know. I still talk to him.”

“Yeah?”

“I couldn’t let him get away.”

Engineer laughter.

On another occasion I mention that I’ve come to see Carey but he’s not running his train today.

“Carey’s off. They called me to work his train. They wanted to know if I wanted to move it up.”

“You didn’t?”

The MPI hisses automatically releasing its prescribed amount of air from time to time. The comfortable, still outside air lies easily on exposed skin. I sit in mid length sleeves, he wears his blue and white metrolink uniform. I sport my Disney best black slacks and black and white sweater.

“Too early,” he explains. “It’s date night with my wife.”

“That’s nice.”

I smile.

“Stand your ground.”

Engineer laughter, again. I always manage to make them laugh, somehow.

Sometimes, the conversation resembles that of four years ago. Only, this time the conversations aren’t’ so energetic. I inform him on occasion that I’ve worked sixty-one hours.

“Just like us,” he says. I smile.

He does fifty-five, he goes on to explain.

“I work a lot of hours,” I say one time, letting him know I’ll only be there on Monday of this week, the week, it turns out, just before the 269 fatality that sees me in tears, the first time I return after the Monday night visit. Tears is an understatement, I think. I don’t notice the passing of the crew outside the train on that day, perhaps they entered the locomotive to tie it down from the inside of the train? I wasn’t much in the mood for noticing, but, the day I talk to James, I’m composed and quiet, enjoying the peace of this extended platform on the south side of paradise.

My routine has a rhythm to it once I reach Fullerton these days. No longer offered the rigors of overtime, at least for now, I cross Anaheim Boulevard at Center Street Promenade and take the bus 47 to Fullerton. On days when I deposit checks from my second job into the Wells Fargo branch near work, I usually swing by Varsity Burger, indulge in my usual double bacon cheeseburger, and take the 43 north on Harbor to Fullerton. On days when there is no check to deposit, I head to the station, go into the café, eat, and then grab my supply of diet sodas and head across the tracks.

The first train stop is 606, if I’m there on time. 606 is Carey’s train and has been since at least October, 2009. I’ve never asked him how long he’s been running that train. Sometimes I hear him on the Orange County feed on those days when I can’t make Fullerton.

“I heard you on the radio,” I tell him once during one of these two minute interactions. Sometimes, they are shorter because lately it seems I have a hard time hearing him. Or, maybe he has a hard time hearing me? I’m not sure if it’s me who doesn’t hear or him, maybe both. Maybe age is telling on him?

“Was I talking loud enough?” he asks me. I’m sure he was.

Whether he hears me or not, I’m always impressed with what he remembers. Years ago he asked me how my shoulder was after not seeing him for several months. In September of this year he remembered that the last time I made an appearance at his train was in July on my birthday.

But, some days when I arrive at the station, Carey is off, as we’ve discovered with James. On October 24, Carey’s train sports an extra. This one, acting on traditional engineer wisdom, leans out of his window and asks me what train I’m waiting for.

Teary-eyed from my favorite engineer’s fatality I smile and say what I usually say when someone at Carey’s train asks me that.

“I come to talk to Carey when I’m here.”

He asks me to repeat myself. I do. I always get this reaction from Carey’s extras. The thing I don’t usually get is their names. I’ve asked several times but have not ascertained the information. Sometimes I get no response, perhaps a visual acknowledgement. I know they see me, they just don’t’ always talk to me. Maybe they’re busy? Nervous? Young? As Tammy on 684 says once, the day I went to Lancaster in June, maybe they don’t talk because they’re paranoid about their jobs. Maybe. I’ll keep trying the cabs when I can make it, but, it may be time for a different approach.

Once, Rob shows up on 608, one of the few times I recognize an extra on any train these days. So much potential.

“Do you remember me?” he asks. He remembers me, it seems. I nod and assure him that I do. They’re all in their own ways unforgettable.

I was just so lucky. I got the most outgoing, energetic, gentle, experienced, insistent, and magical engineer of them all: one who shows up and is brave, and, yes, the engineer of my dreams.

There may be another one out there, but so far they haven’t plied their magic at Fullerton. It may be that some of these will become regulars, soon. Mike, the Redoxx Engineer in July says “they work us so damn much.” James in September says Metrolink is training a whole new crop of them. Glenn says eventually all the extra work will go away. Guess he must do what needs to be done before there is no longer any opportunity to do it. My magic train, where he plied his own brand of magic is now the floater, the one run by extras. I’m always surprised at how young they are. I don’t know why I should be surprised, but I am. On the nights when I can make it, or I’m not too tired to climb those stairs or to muster up the requisite energy required for my daunting task, or I get there just as they pull up to the markers, I will meet them.

On one such occasion I come across the tracks and visit 642, silent, majestic, comforting. I look for my spot at the palm tree directly across from the six car marker. Some days, I miss it, finding the new Coke machine that the Santa Fe Express café has put on the south side of paradise for liquid pleasure. I go back to my spot, the bell approaches, the lights, the train, but something is different. There is a grinding of sorts, the slipping of metal on metal with a soft sliding sound. The bell continues to ring, the cab door opens, the slide, the click, and then the engineer on the platform. But, I’m too far to the left, or he’s too far to the right.

“What was going on with 608?” I ask Dave as I come over later to the north side of paradise.

“The engineer walked on the platform,” says Curt, confirming my suspicions.

“Looks like he missed his spot,” says Dave, the forty year veteran of watching the railroad. “It takes a while for them to figure it out.”

“I know,” I affirm. “They’ll figure it out.”

I do have supreme confidence in these guys. Some day they’ll all talk to me. And, the ones who don’t talk to me will be trained by Glenn and will be the best. Hopefully all the others will, too.

The nights after I make my last train rounds find me climbing the stairs and heading to the north side of paradise. The gentlemen of the rails all tease mercilessly. They talk about the other people on the platform, politics, Valerie who it seems is leaving her territorial mark on the ground she occupies during the day. We talk about Phil Serpico’s new book on the Tonopah and Tidewater railroads. I find it online and pass the information along to Glenn who has lost one of his books on the Tidewater through condensation getting into his storage container.

True to railfan tradition, they always have opinions about books. Steel Rails Through California has photographic errors, Dave says. The Tidewater book I can’t remember what its name is, and Tales from the Rails an opinion I’ll have to check again. It’s the Serpico book that’s new. When I text Glenn about it he asks me the name. Here is my element, trying to find a book. But, I can’t find it without anything to go on except a name. I find the Serpico book and pass the information along, but I can’t find the other one he lost because I don’t have an author. But, my academic training benefits engineer and star struck railfan. Or, perhaps I’m the one with the time to look up book titles. This is part of my railroad journey, I might as well take every opportunity I have to expand my knowledge.

There are other themes throughout my many trips to the station. On average I make two to three trips a week, usually Wednesday, Friday and another arbitrary day. Work for my second transcription job has slowed down, and so I spend time looking up information on Disney locomotives, catching up on sleep, renewing my subscription to Trains magazine, playing with my iPhone, finding railroad traffic to listen to, and amusing Tyler, Dave’s one year old grandson who seems to be drawn to my bells.

I spend hours talking to Wendy in the café. It seems now, till they change things, the café is open till 2:00 AM on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Wendy, the young woman who once garnered the attention of the slow engineer from the orange trains, works the late shift and so, I eat, I charge my phone, and we talk. One time she is curious about working for Amtrak, so, with the help of FaceBook, and Jared letting us know he’s coming in on 595, a new Amtrak train scheduled for 11:30 PM, we arrange a meeting. The now Amtrak conductor talks to the would be employee. His advice is to just keep trying. I feel good about bringing these two together, even if it is briefly. Now, if I can make my second meeting happen, I’ll be even happier. I want Glenn and Dave to meet, and perhaps Alan, too, though this might not be a good idea.

“So, if I can get him to meet you wil you be polite?” I ask them.

NO, of course not. They’re going to tell him all kinds of stories. Maybe I better rethink this.

Older and younger meet on the platform, exchange train chasing stories. There are plenty of pictures that change hands. There is the occasional maintenance of way vehicle that appears on the tracks to perhaps weld a rail or do something else unknown to any of the veteran trainwatchers. The thing that seems to go on is the constant teasing about me talking to the engineer or not bringing cookies. I’m not sure what either of those has to do with the other. Sometimes I wonder if I set myself up for such merciless teasing.

On the night I bring two packages of white Oreos with glittery vanilla, birthday cake Oreos, I’m told I have racist cookies because they’re all white, of course. NASCAR cookies, they say. NO, I insist, ASA cookies.

“glenn has strong hands,” I say.

“Don’t tell us about it.”

Ok, it’s just that when he came and walked with me to the railroad tracks, he had a very strong grip.

Great, now your arm is in someone else’s grip. Not your’s.

Railroad tracks are dangerous.

Just don’t tell us about it.

There’s nothing to tell, I say. Make up your own story. I’m sure they will.

In another teasing episode, its origin unremembered, I say “pass signal indication at maximized slow speed.”

Dispatchers will sometimes authorize rail traffic to move past a red or yellow signal indication at maximized track speed. This is, of course, a play on words authorizing passage of signals at maximum slow speed. Somehow that gets a lot of time in the teasing department. I spend a lot of time there, these days.

Maybe the interesting thing occurs when one railfan makes a reference to women being drawn to power. This statement is made in a political context, in reference to a philanderer being instructed by his latest wife that this recurrent deviance from established marital bonds will not be tolerated.

“So,” I think, analyzing my own interest in talking to engineers, “am I drawn to power?”

“The engineer runs that hunk of steel,” he says. “That’s power.”

I think about that for a moment. I’m always drawn to learn things. I’m interested in how to run the train. This strong interest translates into a predilection to power. Steel on steel, I guess.

The ultimate show of power occurs in the late appearance of everyone’s favorite train: the slab train, i.e., the steel train. There is a certain fascination with beholding bars of steel sliding effortlessly down the track. The heavy pulling of locomotives move these long trains strewn with graffiti toward the Cajon pass. Throbbing, pulsing locomotives, usually four on the back and two or three on the front push this immense tonnage through the station over the Cajon Pass and to points beyond, information not always available to those of us who sit here just waiting for it.

Political discussion, surmising about or discussion of work on the rails in different locations, picture sharing, teasing, talk of mechanical issues, what the brand kids are eating, sausage and eggs, milk, all things doting grandfathers find amusing about their offspring’s offspring all stop as the train sweeps by, silencing its competition, setting off car alarms in the parking lot between the station and the Slide Bar and surrounding establishments, engaging the eyes of the faithful, providing cameras one more opportunity to snap some cool rail pic for Flicker or Railpics.org, or FaceBook, or Trainorders.com.

All the veterans know this is the best part of the day, the slab train. It runs earlier these days, they say. Sometimes, it doesn’t run at all.

Steel train, whether you run it, wish you did, whether it tries your patience, takes your time, makes you cry, we’re all here experiencing our own railroad journeys, waiting for it. A fan’s casual naming of this glorious tonnage inspires my next essay, and it succinctly summarizes everything. If you run it or watch it we’re all in some kind of fascination with it.

 

 

Copyright © 2013 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"