Metrolink608 The Railroad Facts Of Life (2) “You remembered,” I say gleefully. This is the happiest I’ve been in days. “Well you said you had things to do.” I don’ know why I don’t think Glen remembers anything I tell him. He obviously has a brain; he doesn’t have a hollow head. “Yeah,” I say now in a better mood. “I went to the bank and got my nails done.” I wave my hand, showing my pink glittery nails. “This is it,” he says. “I’m going to Riverside, I think.” “Can I call you?” Wednesday I send him a text. It says “Glen, can I call you on Saturday? Tel me on Friday. Please. You are the best. Good night.” “I have school tomorrow,” he says. “Sunday?” I shake my head no? Yes? “Sunday,” he says. “call me on Sunday.” It’s Time to go. “Okay,” I say. “Good luck.” I still don’t’ know where he’s going. But I have his number. I’ll call him. He knows I will. I know I will, too. “No tears,” I tell Janice later. “I can call.” “You’re doing better today,” Dave Norris says to me on Thursday. “yes,” I say. “Thanks for noticing.” Dave Norris is going to save my life, make my day, and overwhelm me. This week in all the Glen drama he gives me a card to get two dollars off admission to the California Express Railroad show to occur on Sunday February 14, Valentine’s day. Great. I can go to a railroad show; I can talk to Glen. Solace after getting a bad case of the railroad facts of life. Sweet trains. Just Say No “If there’s one pet peeve I have about people it’s when someone just won’t give me a straight answer. Just say no. Say yes. It’s really okay. I guess it comes from raising four children we taught them the value of saying no. NO wonder he married that woman!” I sit in the Santa Fe café complaining to Janice on Monday February 15. “It’s okay, really. If he couldn’t talk to me he could just say no. He didn’t have to say let me call you back, that means he doesn’t have time. In all the months I’ve known him he’s never called me why would he do it now! Besides,” I continue, “today was a bad day. Everyone on the phone was in a bad mood!” Now the drama reaches its high point, or has that already happened. “It’s just a bad day! Someone called and said I don’t’ understand why you don’t’ have the number on your web site for annual passport holders to talk to a live person! Great,” I continue, as Janice listens, bob taking it all in, “the engineer makes me mad, I have PMS, everyone is having a bad day!” I guess I’m really the one having the bad day. The phone conversation with Glen on Sunday is short. “Is your next train to Flagstaff?” I ask. “Tonight,” he says. “Tonight?” “Tonight is the train to Flagstaff.” “Well, that’s where they’re all going to send me!” “yeah?” he says. “I have time. Do you have time?” I want to tell him about the switch key, to ask him about how to run that locomotive. “Let me call you back,” he says. Okay. I don’t ask any questions. Somehow I know he’s not going to call me back. I think I’m more disappointed than annoyed because he doesn’t really say when he will. Somehow I know he won’t do it. It’s kind of like knowing we won’t get together in L.A. because the schedule doesn’t work out, or whatever other reason. What I get is way better than coffee in L.A. but right now the idea is just to get a straight answer. I just can’t stand it when people won’t give me a straight answer. I guess it just proves my engineer is human. I can walk away right now, but I won’t, because he has the information I want and he’s nice otherwise. Maybe someday I’ll get to tell him, look just say yes or no it’s okay. It might be how he’s responded his whole life, it may explain a lot of things, but I’m different, he doesn’t have to make up excuses or promise things he won’t do. Maybe I’m just over exaggerating. Remember I said earlier that he never draws boundary lines? Well I guess in some ways I’m lucky; but I’m the one who gets to draw them so maybe I’m the one who gets to tell him it’s okay to say no. And then I could just be complicating things! I’m just the one caught up in my own personal drama. I’m so caught up in my own personal drama, going on and on about being annoyed that I miss Glen’s train. but that’s the next part of the story. Sweet Carrie It’s still Monday. Apparently I’m done with my diatribe now because I decide to go see Carrie. “She’s having a bad day,” Janice tells Shirley as she comes in from 784. I get up and sneak across the bridge. We have two plans today; I’m going to go see Carrie and Curt is going to go with me to see the new engineer on the 608. Now I stand waiting for Carrie. His bell rings. Carrie is keeping the same route he says. He must be another one of those high seniority guys. I’ll have to ask him how many years he’s been working for the railroad. Maybe he really is my second engineer. “Hi,” he says. “How are you?” “Good,” I say, or some such thing. But it’s his next words that make me feel even better. “Did you see Glen? He was the earlier train.” “No,” I say, “which train? The 708?” Remember the 708 is Frank’s train. He’s the first engineer to talk to me out his window when I waited for the 608 before Glen talked to me. “The 706 I think,” says Carrie as he begins to pull that train away. Andy hangs the new time tables now, he comes and inspects the new switch key I’ve gotten at the railroad show on Sunday. He likes it. I’m flushed. Glen is forgiven though we really must deal with this some time. Not now. Maybe not ever! He’s just an engineer. I’m his star struck railfan. I’m his best station girl. But knowing me he won’t get away with that for long. “Carrie told me where Glen is,” I tell Andy and that starts the conversation about him having top priority. Before I go investigate the trains I want to know who the new engineer on the 608 is. Even if I’ve just unloaded about the 608 former engineer and the bad Disney day, I must continue the efforts to make contact. As I get to the bridge, Curt shows up, waiting for the elevator. We stand and wait. The 608 pulls in its bell clanging. This is almost like old times except I’m not so nervous. Now I get to get nervous about a whole new train. Now I stand here, oblivious to the weather. No one asks me where I’m going. That starts again soon enough, but for tonight the questioners are silent. I stand by the window, maybe a little forward and wave. No response. He rings the bell. I wave. He is gone. Making my way across the bridge I find a large number of people waiting on the north side of the tracks; Janice, Bob, Dave Norris, Dan, all waiting for me. I look up. “So what’s his name?” someone asks me. “I don’t’ know. He didn’t talk to me.” Here we are again; it’s starting all over again. Then the best comment comes. “Did you show him your switch key?” Oh my how rude! Never show an engineer your switch key on the first date! Never ever that’s just bad form! The teasing is brutal! Show the engineer my switch key? “You did get one didn’t you?” Dave asks. He knows I’ve been at the show. I saw him with his table there, selling old Santa Fe time tables, old menus, pictures. The railroad show is like a first trip to Disneyland for me. I feel like a 2 year-old at Disneyland, overwhelmed by all the stimulus, or a deer in the headlights. I’m either at a railroad show o a China ship! The hall is full of tables displaying old railroad signs, China from dining cars, a water dipper from the Santa Fe in the 1920s, pictures of locomotives, maps, but the overwhelming theme is China. My prized possession at the end of the day is a brass switch key from the C&NW (Chicago and Northwestern) railroad. This is the item Dave wants me to show to my new engineer. “So what does he look like?” I ask Curt. “He looks like a gangster.” “Like that guy on Sunday night? The one who wouldn’t talk to us?” I’m referring to an engineer on the last train to Ocean Side we talked to months ago. “Worse! He has his baseball cap on backwards! He was eyeballing you but you were too far forward he couldn’t really see you. I waved at him and smiled he waved back.” But I still don’t know his name, and we didn’t see him two days later. So the suspense continues! Who is the new engineer on the 608? I’ll find out. Not Ditching the Engineer Tuesday is pleasant. It is cool and sunny, probably 65 degrees, the kind of weather that brings tourists to Disneyland, I suppose; at least the ones from Canada and the Midwest. This weather calls only for a jacket, no umbrella, and a little bit of stamina, especially when the breeze kicks up. But today ther’s no breeze. There is another early release, only an hour before ending time, cars whizzing in and out of the street between the bus docks and the station, and the trains. I bypass the café today, at least till 5:30. I’m on a mission. If I am in search of my engineer and I know where to find the Riverside trains, I will be adopting a new schedule. This means I will miss most of the teasing. I suppose I’ll have to live without it. I might be happier that way. Maybe it’s all part of the fun. We will have to see as time progresses. Now Isit up by the quiet west end of the platform. This is where today I try to solve a looming money problem. By the end of the day I have a solution. I need an extra $500 a month. Where will Ig et it? By the time I make my way to the south side of the track I’ve begun to get the idea for a possible solution. It’s amazing how much I get done here at the train station. I get phone calls made, create stories, and even solve problems. Today I’m looking for Glen. Finding the Riverside train does not prove to be as complicated as it would have six months earlier. This is where I met Frank once, this is where I met Glen once when he had a four car train and was sneaky. Today I head over there intending to find my new landmark. I now know that Glen is on the 91 line. The 91 line train 706 comes in at 4:54 and then the 708 comes in at 5:59. I almos suspect that Carrie means the 708 when he said the 706, but I could be wrong. This is why I’m here. This train is a full one. People line up to wait for the706. It pulls in, I find the bell, I’m a little further to the right than I thought, but I am starting to know now that I’m close. I have an idea. All along the side of the track there are benches and walls for train watchers. Fullerton is known for its train watching community, as you no doubt know by now. One man, Dan Dalke, Curly’s brother, tells me that the Amtrak crews call people at fullerton “Foamertons.” Really! Well then I’m proud of being one; it keeps me out of the bars. Ok I’ve never been one for the bar, but the train seems to keep me out of every other place, too. I don’t seem to mind so much. I am a busy girl with or without the trains. Given the amount of energy I’ve put into the trains lately I’ll keep them. I suspect that one of these benches or pillars lines up with the marker that tells the engineer where to pull the train. Tonight though it’s more about discovering which train he is on and not which pillar marks the spot. That will come later. If he is on the 706 I will make that train less often. If he’s on the 708 I can usually make the train, unless I work till 5:30 or 6:00. Now train 706 pulls in ringing its bell. I wave. No response. Most likely this is not Glen. I know instinctively that Glen will talk to me. We’ve been talking for four months I really don’ think he’s not going to talk to me. Surprisingly, the engineer and conductor do not ask me if I want the train. It pulls away, I wave. Walking back to the bridge I pull out my phone and do what I’ve been wantin to do. Originally I want to call Glen and ask him but I’m a little wary about waking him. He tells me on Wednesday that he doesn’t have his phone on when he’s working. “I’m always a little hesitant to call,” I explain, “because I don’t want to call you on your shift.” His admission to having the phone off during his shift makes me feel better. It tells me that he does take that cell phone rule seriously. I don’t call till now because Carrie has given me information to start with and so I can follow up on it. If I don’t’ find him then I’ll call. My next plan is to go to the 708 but if he’s not there then I’m going to call anyway. I suspect, though, that he is on the 708 because Carrie knew where he was; he just didn’t remember the train number. Carrie has no idea that he has with his question saved my ife. Now I get Glen’s voicemail. This tells me he’s working; I bet you anything he’s on the 708. I let him know that Carrie asked me if I had seen him and that I know we didn’t get a chance to talk on Sunday and I didn’t get to ask where he was but that I’m sure we’ll talk soon so take care. I’m nervous leaving the message. I end up back at the café for some reason telling them I’m waiting on the708. Shirley’s 784 pulls in, or is it late? No, that’s Thursday! Now, Tuesday, I end up back at the marker, taking more time to find its spot. I recognize the indentation the marker leaves on the concrete. Train 708 pulls up, I’m standing just in front of the nose of the locomotive, on the platform of course. I realize this and walk around it to the window. “What’s up!” Sweet relief! I’ts Glen! And he’s talking to me! Like he wouldn’t? He doesn’t remember Sunday. Maybe he does. Who cares! He’s here! “Hey! Carrie asked me if I had seen Glen,” I say. “He couldn’t remember if it was the 706 or the 708.” “This is the new job,” he says. “This is it.” So Glen is on the 708. Oh my do I have thins to tell him about the 708. this is the train that I never go see because I’m always too tired when I get to the station. I guess I’ll have to come see him now. My number one engineer bumped my number three engineer. Poor Frank! Where is he now? I haven’t told Glen this yet, but I will. “Well, if Disney is in a good mood I can make this train,” I say. “Yeah?”
Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi |