She Likes Trains: The Railroad Sweet Spot I won’t be back here till Monday, but tonight I’ve been where the lights and horns and brakes comfort me, and even the engineer. I have found solace in the railroad sweet spot. I am comforted, and ready to hear the answer, yes, or no. Thursday June 23, I head straight from work over to the train station. I head right for the bridge. I have ten minutes to make Bobby’s train. Number 4 pulls up, people leave me in peace. I follow the bridge around to its main staircase, a man and woman look at the Metrolink machines and wonder if the angels train runs on Saturday. No, I interject, but it will run on Friday. I don’t’ notice any children out right now. I guess I’m on a mission. Guess I’ve been on a mission since June 14. I cross the bridge and make the familiar turn to the right to find the six car marker. Already I can feel the waves of the railroad sweet spot lulling my worries. My Glenn will be fine. Of course he will. He’s been at this a long time. All my other engineers are fine. He’s the best of the bunch; he has to be fine. I wait. My train, the one with all the magic, 608 is late. A freight barrels past us on track 3. I stand back against the pillar supporting the bridge, relishing in the peace, the familiar power, the railroad sweet spot. The train pulls its load north and I line up with the six car marker. Silence falls and then, quietly, reassuring, I hear it and it is comfort. The bell clangs sweetly, it doesn’t lose its rhythm, it’s not tired, it’s hear and it’s engineer is hailing me. “Where have you been?” “Working!” bobby’s bell is silent now, but it has been gentle, comforting, especially since it belongs to my EMD with its throbbing almost jet like purring. It idles quietly. Behind him the conductor does his duty. “Tell me do you know about train 205 last week? Was Glenn on it?” I walk up to the locomotive, I put my hand out, look up, drawing strength from this two minute interaction with the man we have dubbed the stock broker engineer. He looks out his window. “What happened?” “Train 205 hit a guy out of Palmdale. Was Glenn running the train?” All night I find the EMDS comforting but none quite as comforting as this moment. Bobby seems surprised. ;”What about glenn?” I must be desperate. I’m trying. “Was he running the train?” “I didn’t’ know about it” he says. Ok so I really am stocking the engineer. Antelope Valley line trains don’t broadcast their messages here, it’s too far away so the Orange county trains don’t know what the Antelope Valley line trains are doing. At least this guy doesn’t know. Ok so this avenue is exhausted. Bet he could find out. It’s ok I’ll wait a month. I’ll go into prescribed mourning period for my favorite engineer. “How have you been?” I don’t want to seem uninterested in him. I haven’t seen Bobby for two weeks. “Same old same old,” he says. That is a good thing. He says something and then pulls the train away. I think he said a freight train was coming or there was a change. I think it was the freight, because as I walk up the stairs over the bridge, one swoops past us, blowing up its exhaust, comforting me with its all surrounding power. My power, deadly, therapeutic trains guided by gentle hands. My love. It’s all about power and I want to know people who have it. Don’t tell me the conductor runs the train. The engineer runs the train, Mr. All Experienced Railroad Guy. My engineers run the trains. It’s pure comfort to my overactive imaginings. Even bobby doesn’t know if Glenn was on that train but he runs his own train and I hope he stays safe. So was glenn on that train? No matter. I’m hear now. I’ll find out soon enough. Right now I head to the café and get ice-cream. Wendy hasn’t seen her man from the orange trains. The café has a new assortment of ice-cream but I opt for the old ones. The new Ben and Jerry’s I’m sure are wonderful sitting in their Magnum freezer but I’ll take the vanilla drumsticks with the chocolate in the bottom. Wendy wants to apply for Amtrak. Will the guy who works for Amtrak and who comes and buys sandwiches here serve as a reference, she wonders? No one comes into the café, it’s almost closing time. I don’t’ know if he’ll serve as a reference, but go for it, apply for Amtrak. I leave her to clean the smelly restroom and walk down the platform to see what I can see. I spy the familiar railfans sitting at the east end of the platform. Life is good. “Remember me?” It’s cool and pleasant for June, June 23, 2011, Thursday night. I haven’t been here since Monday June 13, and it has been a most eventful two weeks. I slide into position dropping my red bag beside me, cuddling up with the wrought iron rails that line the wall parallel to the tracks on the north side of paradise, or today, the railroad sweet spot. John the retired schoolteacher, Tom the schoolteacher about to go to Erie, Pennsylvania after the successful or unsuccessful ending of the school year depending on his mood, Dave the train watcher, and Jeff sit on the benches, talking about politics, as usual, or old railroads, something these guys know well. My only concern today is the present railroad. I’m not particularly interested in steam, I don’t know al the steel tangled lines of all the branches that once roamed the country, I only know about Metrolink, Amtrak, BNSF, and our own gloriously shining rails. I know there’s a spot down by the Spaghetti Factory that needs a weld. We keep hoping someone shows up to fix it. I know that you can nap for 45 minutes on the train, if the other member of the train crew stays awake. I’ve been reading my general code of operating rules when I’m not falling into bed, getting up early to catch buses, reading or updating journal entries, responding to an occasional email, paying bills, or cooking or eating, but not visiting trains. This does not mean that the last two weeks haven’t been active in my own train world. “Hey number1 work is crazy busy, both jobs. I’ll call you in a month or so. Reading my GCOR. Sweet train dreams,” I text my number1 engineer, who I’m sure reads my messages. What his state of mind is I do not know. He’s probably back to work by now. “I’m sure you’re fine,” I tell him in an emotional voice mail. “I could call and ask you a lot of things but honestly all I want to know is if you were on that train.” This message goes out on Friday June 17, the text on Monday June 20. I’m holding off for a month, I figure that I can leave my favorite engineer in peace. I have a nutty schedule and way too much work, but maybe it’s keeping me sane. I’ll take it. All the scenarios go through my had. He’s working on the racing team. He’s working on the railroad. Maybe he wants out of the pool? Is there really one more year to retirement? If so, can’t he just get out now? Does he still think working for the railroad is miserable after Chatsworth? That’s not to say he doesn’t love trains he does. And then I hit pay dirt last week. I found his name on a document where a judge dismissed the Union’s concern about Metrolink putting cameras in the cabs. He told me a year and a half ago that his name was on the lawsuit as senior engineer. I found it. I don’t’ know why I didn’t find it a year ago when the motion to dismiss the hearing out of the Central District of California court was filed. But I found it. It’s an old story, really, the BLE opposes the installation of cameras in the cabs by Metrolink after Chatsworth because the federal regulations make such installations unnecessary. Sure, they were so unnecessary that a man texted and killed 24 people and himself. Wait that was me who said that? Yes it was. Because it happened. I never make a decision without seeing both sides of the story but now there are cameras in the cabs of at least the newer locomotives and hopefully they were on Tuesday June 14 and recorded the engineer on train 205 whistle the crossings and call signals. What were there speeds out of the Palmdale station? Oh but I digress. I’m talking about two things, an accident in Chatsworth and one on Jun 14 where no one was injured on the train but a man died, because he was on the railroad tracks. You have to go out of your way to be on railroad tracks when there’s an approaching train. I’m blind, I stay off them, once in Santa Barbara, I remember there was a train and we were very close to the tracks, but we stepped back. So what’s your excuse? You wanted to die. That’s what most of the excuses have been all year. Two of Glenn’s trains have had fatalities. Cary and bobby have experienced fatalities since January, 2011. These people want to be on the railroad tracks. So maybe cameras might show again who’s right: the engineer, the train. There’s no question about whose fault the fatality was in my own head or anyone else’s I think, it’s just part of the process. Andy once said that when Glenn went to Lancaster he was going to want cameras in the cab. Well, maybe he had them and they proved he was a careful engineer. Just like all my other men of the railroad. But they all have to line up behind Glenn. And if he wasn’t on that train then this is an amazingly stunning piece of analysis with a whole lot of grains of truth and I’m still the middle-aged adolescent railfan. Now I take my place among the older railfans, comforted by their familiarity, by the gloriously shining tracks which I do not like to cross and which are so deadly and give people hard days. Lillian told me that when a person commits suicide they want to emotionally punish others. I think it’s true. Someone stepping in front of any train sure wrecks the crew’s plans for that next three day period, and maybe causes sleep loss or anger. One man’s decision to step out in front of a train makes me cry and it wasn’t because I knew him. I am slammed with over time for the last two weeks, something for which I am very grateful. The bills are getting paid and that is a good thing. I’ll take as much over time as they’ll give me when they offer it. By the time I get here tonight I am just coming off a three day working period. Since Memorial day I have worked nine days in a row, had one day off, worked six days, and then taken four days off. Now I’m off three days, working five, off three, working six, off two, and working nine. This schedule extends from now till July 21. It’s how I arranged my schedule. Lillian told me that Glenn may be emotionally recovered by then and ready to talk to me. I think he’ll be fine before then, but I’m sure I’ll be fine, too. I’ll wait to talk to my engineer. I’ll keep him in my heart and hope everyone stays off the railroad tracks, except if you’re supposed to be there, of course. Tonight’s visit makes only the third time I’ve been here since before memorial Day. I’m here now and I pull out a bowl of rice and vegetables that I’ve made at home. If I stay out of Subway I’ll pay off those bills more quickly. I’ve stayed out a few times but I always return. Even the credit card bill is on the way to being paid, again. Bring on the over time and the transcripts. Glenn would be proud. No early releases for me, But I won’t swear off trains. They are the balm of Gilead, the sweet spot, the therapy. Wonder if my engineers go to trains for therapy? Trains, powerful things, deadly, sweet therapy. I think I understand the forty year magic. And maybe for me it’s still about the people. Trains trail past us, Amtrak is late, a station agent says the southbound train is going north, but no one misses their train, at least not that I know of. Curt isn’t here till later, and he’s not here because, he explains as he pulls up and rings his bell, his scooter got a flat spot and he had to push it from Yoruba Linda to Fullerton. He rings the bell I remember from my first trip to Fullerton two and a half years ago. I have to laugh a little. It seems that something is always happening to Curt. I’ve not always remembered to write them down. A few months ago he ended up getting knocked onto the road when a car turned too close to his open door and knocked him onto the ground. He was scratched up for a while. Tonight he has to take a bus home. I text the location and tell him what time the bus leaves. Curt doesn’t have a cell phone. Dave doesn’t have a cell phone, either. I have two cell phones. My sweet Glenn sleeps with his phone. But he does turn it off, only not when he’s got a day off and he’s sleeping. Hope he gets enough of that this week. Curt makes several trips to the bus stop to find out exactly what bus he needs. We decide he needs the 143 going west to la Habra Boulevard. Wonder who he met on the bus and what kind of stories he’ll have for us the next time I see him? I should remember to ask him. I’ll make another trip on Monday to Fullerton because that is the night the southern California travel group meets. Curt disappears to take his bus and we all sit and watch the increasing number of freights. Kathy is settling into retirement, Dave says. She’s at the stage where she’s wandering around the house, not thinking. The cat is still on its early morning schedule. Dave has been having trouble with his sinuses so he’s been lying abed later. Kathy still gets up earlier than he does. Wonder what glenn will do when he retires? Tell me stories? Maybe, Dave says. Maybe not. Herd cats. Maybe they’ll go to Hawaii? Maybe he’ll change his phone number and not give me his new one? I don’t’ say that but hey break ties and get away from fatalities. Fall in love with trains? Again? Get some new dogs? Go on the full time car racing circuit? Argue with his wife? The possibilities are endless. But I don’t’ know if he’ll do any of those things. The guys that sit here watching the trains all have had successful careers or are in the midst of them. I’m just in the midst of working hard and missing an engineer and worrying about a man whom I admire. One of his characteristics seems to be that he doesn’t need hand holding. Maybe he does after fatality number 8. Maybe not. Maybe I need the comfort and he’s fine. Maybe he goes back to work after the fatality and I’m the one who needs the three days off. I have a feeling that as usual Glennw ill be the one comforting me. Whatever it is, it’s all the railroad sweet spot tonight, and I’ll take it. Doug and Stephanie show up later, talking signals, a train with a hopper car shows up, making Dave who has left, return to see it. I wave the engineers to me. Some freights stop nearer the café, their signals are red. More freights pass us and then their colleagues who patiently wait their turns. “I want to go see them,” I say. But I sit here. Most of them aren’t interested in us. Next time I’ll go over there and see if I can get their attention. The slow approaching freights get their signals, one guy has a flashing yellow, I remembered that the next signal should be solid yellow and then red. The information I gleaned from Chatsworth and reinforced by my last conversation with Glenn has stuck, finally. “You see if I owned that restaurant” I say, in reference to the Santa Fe Café, something I’ve been thinking about lately, “I’d be marketing to these guys send your crews over here!” You just wan to start a railroad hash house where people can swap stories.” “Sure,” I say. “Where the locomotive was messier, the girls were prettier, and the bosses were meaner.” Railroad stories could flourish in my restaurant. Maybe I’d call it the Sweet Spot, just like tonight is. Glorious tons of metal on metal poor soothing salve over my injured soul. The trains pull away, and it is time to go. Doug and Stephanie who has been constantly telling me off color jokes, decide to go. I go use the restroom at Stubricks, the steakhouse I finally realize is open late, giving me another idea for dinner here sometimes or offering a restroom stop on the way home, and then call a cab. I won’t be back here till Monday, but tonight I’ve been where the lights and horns and brakes comfort me, and even the engineer. I have found solace in the railroad sweet spot. I am comforted, and ready to hear the answer, yes, or no.
Copyright © 2011 Shelley J Alongi |