Metrolink608 The Railroad Facts Of Life (3) “As long as I get morning shifts.” I’m very happy. All my tears are dried. I found my engineer. It’s uncomplicated again. The only complicating factor is my schedule, but I can work with that. I have his phone number. He has a flaw. He has a hard time saying no. It makes me even more respectful of his time now. Maybe I’m just happy because I found him! “It’s nice to see you again,” I say. “He must know I have a crush on him,” I tell Clarita on Friday in the Santa Fe café. “But he doesn’t tell me to go away.” “maybe he doesn’t want you to go away,” she says. Maybe. Maybe not. Well, here I am again chasing after my engineer. He pulls that train away and I start to walk away. “Stay right there; there’s a moving train,” someone says. I’m not at all patient. “I know that,” I yell over the clatter of the engine. She’s gone. I’ve made my point. I’ve found Glen. I’ve walked by his train a hundred times. Don’t give me any of that! If Glen can’t say no, I have no trouble telling people to go away. Guess the world wouldn’t be a nicer place if there weren’t people like Glen in it. But then he’s not telling me stupid things like there’s a train next to me. I think he knows that I know that by now. “She saw her honey,” Shirley says as I come into the café. The announcement has just been made for 785. “Yes I did,” I respond. “She’s smitten,” Garis says. “Now she can eat.” This remark comes from Shirley. I think in some ways I’ll be glad to get away from this teasing; that doesn’t mean I won’t get plenty of it after I come back across the tracks, but these two are merciless. Garis apparently has ditched her engineer. I’m not sure what he did, but she doesn’t want him calling or something. Hey mine may have gotten on my nerves a time or to but I haven’t ditched him; not after five months of contact. NO way. I’m not ditching Glen. He’s a valuable asset; I sense that. Besides it was never my intension to have a romantic fling and I’m not sure what the deal is with Garis and her engineer who apparently makes some phone faux paux but it’s not what’s going on with Glen and so I’m not ditching him. I’m a grown up adolescent railfan with an engineer friend, I’m not ruining that, not if I can help it. Hey if Glen can be friends with Mo and stay with his interesting wife so many years for whatever reason, I’m a piece of cake. I hope I’m a smart girl. I think I am. I cherish him even if he does make me mad on occasion. It’s my own fault anyway, right? I walked into this with my eyes wide open. I’m not going away unless expressly told to do so. It occurs to me that Glen if he can’ say no isn’t trying to work things out like when we can talka bout trains. He does on the phone tell me if he has time or not orf how much time he has so it’s not like he can’t completely say no. Maybe he’s just nice and he really does want to talk to me about trains and he’s trying to work out when that can happen. I guess time will tell. Sometimes I misread people’s intensions. Hey I’m the one who wanted to meet the locomotive engineer. I did it. I have to take the whoel package. So no, unlike Garis, No I’m not ditching my engineer. Showing the engineer the Switch Key I can’t help it. Wednesday morning at 5:30 I text Glen. “Went to an rr show on Sunday. Bought a switch key. Have a safe day!” Wednesday Janice is working and bob sits here watching, waiting, eating. They are leaving on Thursday for the stamp convention in Riverside. They won’t be back till Monday. I don’t know where anyone else is tonight. The weather is the same, the best weather in the contry, not too hot, not too cold, not humid, only perfect. Some think it’s cold. I don’t think it’s cold at all. I don’t remember what I order for dinner. Maybe it’s a double cheeseburger because I can’t think of what I want and so at first ordering the special I change my mind because a hot dog doesn’t relly sound good, or Denis is just being too short, not really paying attention to me the customer. I think it was more like I didn’t really want the hot dog. I think it’s just time for me to go over to the other side. I’ve been on the same schedule all week, 7:15 to 4:15 ad so now it’s 5:00 and I just go to the other side. Today is when I discover the proximity of the marker to the pillar that marks the set of benches where one can catch the Riverside train, or the Ocean Side train if it’s a shorter one. I sit there, waiting. I’m starting to get used to playing my game with the bell. I don’t’ have a lot of margin of error with this one because if I move too far to the right I’m way off base so I have to concentrate all over again. Hopefully no one will interrupt me while I’m having my romance with the bell. “You got a key!” says the engineer. “Yeah. It’s a C&NW,” I say, digging through the brass and silver bells on my neclace. I find the key, hold it out. He can see it but he can’t really inspect the writing from here. “When I see you out of the cab some time I’ll let you see it.” “Where’s the lock?” Oh brother here we go teasing me again. I stand speechless. “I don’t know,” I say, truthfully. “Someone had it before me.” Finally I told my engineer about the switch key and hey I even showed it to him. Now he’s special. He saw my switch key! “Adios,” he says an it’s time to go. Later I text the following: “The lock for the key is in Flagstaff.” Here where the fourth car marker is, the sound is different. The engine sounds spread out, I have to work a little harder to hear his words. I don’t know if it’s the engine or the placement of the wall behind us. It may be that standing over by the five car marker there is a stairway, a large earthquake retrofit pillar behind us, who knows. I only know I have to work harder to hear him, and I don’t notice the engine sounds s much. It may also be that we’re working with an MPI tonight. We haven’t seen an FP59 in here for a while, at least not on this line. I guess he’ll just have to torture me with the bell. Another Day in Paradise “No loiterin on the park bench!” “This isn’t a park bench. Hey they called your name.” “What?” “they called Andy from Metrolink.” I’m talking to Andy on the south side, the Amtrak office pages him just as I arrive. “They have my cell phone.” He gets up. “I guess I better get over there.” Andy leaves me on this very eventful day. I don’t see him till after 7:00 when curt checks out the new engineer on the 608. But before that happens, I discover train routine all askew. Northbound traffic is on track 3, southbound traffic is stacked up, signals are not functioning properly, switches have to be thrown by hand, it’s just a train engineer’s nightmare. As long as everyone arrives safely where they need to go things are good. It’s one of those hurry up and wait days. People line the benches on the south side waiting for the Amtrak and Metrolink trains. The 5:24 Ocean Side train pulls up an sits for a long time. An ambulance appears. Andy says later that someone fell off the step, scraping their ear, falling into one of the dibots that mark the platform, places that hold the electronic switches that open the gate separating track two and three so that the Amtrak baggage cart can get across the tracks. Occasionally they carry passengers requiring assistance over on the baggage cart. There are some deep dibots there, one must be careful. In fact the dibot that is between car five’s marker and car three’s marker is my clue that I’m almost close. The Ocean Side train does pull down further today, it must be a shorter one, and someone isn’t watching their step, either that or they need a cane. If that’s not the case then simply holding the hand railing on the way down will help, but I’m not there, I’m sitting on the bench over by the five marker spot. That’s not my train. Soon it will be time to go meet my train. “Another day in Paradise!” I greet my engineer, walking up to his cab. “Not quite,” says Glen. “I know,” I acknowledge. “There was something going on on the Metrolink to Ocean Side,” I say. “Probaby there was a transient on there,” Glen says. But this is the train where the lady falls from the step so I doubt it was a transient. I know you can get kicked off the train and fined $250.00 if you don’t have a ticket for your station stop. I know they’ve taken people off the train before for that reason, but not by ambulance. I guess in this case Andy has the right information. The engineer probably has experience with transients. I bet he does. “Take a number,” I say. “Wait your turn.” “That’s it, Glen agrees. “It makes your day longer than it needs to be.” “We get there eventually.” “Is everything good up there today? Are you okay?” “Yeah,” Glen says, and then his words are lost. It sounds lie he’s acknowledging my question, appreciates it. Just as long as my number one engineer is okay up there, I’m happy. “Good,” I say. Now it’s time to go. I wave him off to Riverside where his train duty will end about 7:00 or so. He may have to move the engine after the train is disconnected but the last scheduled stop is around 7:00. Glen may be home by 8:00 or 8:30, his day ends a lot earlier than it used to. We wave and hope and pray; may all the signals and switches be at your back, an adaptation of the Irish proverb that says “may the wind always be at your back.” Yes, Glen, it is, just another day in Paradise and you’re my part of Paradise. The 608 today has a new engineer. “An older white guy like glen,” Curt says. He waves twice at me then he asks if I want the train. “The conductor said there’s a PNA down there, andy says to me later, “but I told him it was just you; you were a foamer and you are fine.” A PNA is (a person needing assistance.) Well I don’t need assistance unless you want to help me find the engineer. “Curt!” I yell over the tracks. That’s when he sees me and goes up on the overpass to check out this engineer. At least this engineer talks to me. “Next time they’ll probably say hi Shelley” Andy says. I don’t know. All these new engineers still have to line up behind Glen. He’s still the best. He’s Shelley’s number one engineer. Off to the Races It’s supposed to rain this weekend, or at least on Friday, and maybe Sunday. Sitting by the marker for train 708 a woman asks me if I’m looking for the train. She talks to someone else who is parking a car an then as the time for catching the train approaches I stand by the marker, my new cane on its safety line. I’ve taken the day off today because I need to go buy two new canes. I’ve lost both of them in traffic, meaning they’ve both been clipped by cars making turns when their back wheels run over the bottom joint. Both times it’s my fault I think the cars are sitting, but, no, they’re turning and for some reason I think I have clearance. Well in both cases the canes have taken the worst of the damage so finally today since I haven’t yet replaced either of them I have to make an emergency trip to buy two new canes. Now I stand here holding my shiny new aluminum cane, touching the marker. All I can say is it hasn’t been a train that has broken my cane. The train may have broken my heart, but not the cane. Now the lady talks to me again. Her name is Lonnie, she says, she’s losing her sight, she was at Braille Institute today. What was it like being blind? I’ve never had anyone ask me that. It is an interesting question. “It’s not dark, it’s not light,” I say. “It just takes miles and miles of practice to get it right.” “You know the engineer?” she says. “That’s cool.” Yes it is cool. I wish her luck, she walks down to get her car. She likes my bells, she’s interested in my life. Is she interested like I’m interested in the job of the engineer? Maybe. Now here he is, his bell welcoming me, his head out the window. “Do you have plans for the weekend?” I ask. “We might go to the race on Sunday if it’s not raining. We’ll just have to see.” Glen’s voice is low, quiet, comforting. “Nascar race in Fontana.” “Do you have a pit pass?” Since his son drives a race car I ask if maybe he can get back in the pits during the race. He doesn’t seem to understand my question. I guess I’ll have to text it to him then he can answer it from the cab. “Are you sleeping in this weekend?” “I have class tomorrow,” he says. “Again?” “It lasts a month,” he says. I’m going to have to ask him what classes he’s talking about. Maybe he has one more week and maybe it’s block training. If it is I guess he’ll tell me about it some time. “Have a good weekend,” he now says, gently easing his train away. His bell says goodbye. I wave. Yes, this is my number one engineer. He really is the best. Even after finding the flaw I still like him. I guess it just proves we’re all human, even Glen the engineer. These two weeks have been about the railroad facts of life, the changing of the routes, the death of the yellow bag, breakfast at the station, goodbye, the call, and oh so sweet reconciliation. There’s the train show, the switch key, rain, funny railfan stories, sweet Carey saving my life, and love. It’s all part of the adventure. and it’s all good. It’s all so so good!
Copyright © 2010 Shelley J Alongi |