Storymania - She Likes Trains: The South Side Of Paradise by Shelley J Alongi

She Likes Trains: The South Side Of Paradise (2)
Shelley J Alongi

Now I separate myself from the patio faithful and make my way to the café, order a roast beef sandwich, Rob Sanchez’s last order on September 12, 2008, and pay for an ice-cream and soda to be picked up after 7:00. I don’t want to rush my eating experience at the station so I order it for pickup later and then return to the group waiting for 608.

Curt follows me over to the south side of paradise to meet 608.

“Hey!” he loves giving me little details. “The trains are coming in headlight to headlight.” Indeed, number 4 and Metrolink are coming at us, slowly, one to stop here at the six car marker and one to stop wherever it wants to, usually past the platform out in the ballast. Its consist is longer, of course, dining cars, sleeping cars, coach, baggage, all four of its locomotives; it is a very long train and so it passes Bobby.

“Not this one again!” It is locomotive 895 that races number 4 tonight, the squeaky one, the nasty MPI. I’m so disappointed where are my EMDs? Maybe Glenn is operating them! I hope so far 708, 606, and 608 haven’t operated them.

“Guess what I did?” I guess I sound like a child wanting to share exciting news, this time with an engineer. I think all my engineers should be as happy about this as I am. They sit up there every day, this is how they make their living. Why would they be excited about that? Just because! And so my stock broker engineer with two daughters of his own takes the bate.

I went into the cab of a locomotive.”

“what kind of engine was it?”

the engineer has asked me the most basic question and I think locomotive specs. I don’t know the specs of that ALCO only that it’s 1,000 horse power and has a pneumatic bell. John knows about it but here I am with the engineer who just wants to know what kind of engine it was.

“steam?” the stock broker who has been running trains 15 years has to ask.

“Oh, no,“ I say, finally understanding, “Diesel. 1942.”

Bobby gets the high ball. My tech talking engineer is ringing my un favorite bell. I wave, my right hand is trying to cooperate, one of these days it’s just going to work without me and I’ll be glad. Now I turn and head back to the other side.

Two trains approaching headlight to headlight make up station excitement for the day. No police activity, apparently that happened yesterday, no homeless arguments, no one yelling at Metrolink for being late, at least not on the public phone, no vandals, no one missing any trains, maybe there were two guys that almost missed it but the conductor held 4, no clogged up toilets, that was last Thursday, a problem that was fixed when I left, Wendy tells me. No, Tonight there is the excitement of two trains approaching simultaneously, an energetic 3 year old called Ethan, and me eating ice-cream and sandwich, and seeing my engineers. A perfect, warm night, and now I trek my way to the east end of the platform, waiting, enjoying my ice-cream, the sandwich, reading through some Metrolink texts. Glenn’s train, 214, is late earlier today because of a late 207 meet; their train was delayed because of a passenger needing assistance.

“There are some fruit cakes on the train,” lady tells me at work today, a caller from Lancaster.

There have been more lately, it seems, and so Glenn waits for 207, and I wait for all my engineers. The elevators don’t work at Buena Park, no freights greet us. An agent with an accent that is undecipherable tells us that Amtrak 589 is running twenty minutes late.

I enjoy sitting in front of the tracks, perched on my wall. I start my post engineer dining delight with the ice-cream bars, covered in almonds, their rich, creamy vanilla goodness slaking my desire for the exquisite smooth sweetness of ice-cream, followed by the good rye bread, high quality roast beef, the gentle moist taste of mayonnaise, it is all good, I am relaxed. It has been for me a good day at work. I’ve had lunch at Subway, have my lunch in the refrigerator at work for tomorrow, I text my dad and my friend from my new church, a man I’ve known for twenty years and who I’ve had the pleasure of working with this year, bringing music back into my life. He is a ball of dynamite who takes time to communicate with me by text. It used to be years ago that one could never get hold of him since he was never tethered to his land line. These days, the cell phone and technology have followed him, making communication more readily available. He likes my work I like his work, and it works. The texts are brief and friendly, perfect for this night between engineers.

“What’s for dinner!” John the switch key guy asks as I eat a bag of chips, their salty goodness coming after the sandwich and two ice-cream bars I consume earlier. I paid for an ice-cream that Was $3.50 but when I went to find it in the refrigerator it wasn’t there so I substituted the two ice-cream bars for it. Conversation with Wendy leads to me volunteering to help her on Friday with dish washing at the restaurant. I’ll get there after I deposit my pay check from the second transcript I finished and will see how long she needs me. It will be fun to combine food and trains. By the time Friday comes around I have train news to share and Wendy’s parents are there to help, so I escape my promise and go to the south side of paradise to see who operates the angels Express. The crews have left it seems and so I don’t talk to them, but I do talk to Elena and always wonder why I do that. But that is Friday, and another adventure entirely.

Tonight, Monday, Ethan the 3 year old and his father whose name I don’t remember, it might be Chris, come bounding down the platform excited to see me and the switch key collector. John now obeys Susan’s summons from the parking lot and they both return to out talk each other and tell me stories about riding through the canyon on a train on a flooded, rainy night in New Mexico. Approaching the hanging bridge, a war fought between Rio Grande and Union pacific in the late 1880s to build that bridge over the pass, the engineer on the train where Susan rides in the cab and takes pictures, gets on his hands and knees to check the rails for give when the rain washes over the rails. The war fought between Union pacific and Rio Grande to build the bridge in the pass, is a place too narrow for two trains. You know that’s narrow because standard gage is 4 and a half feet from rail to rail. Narrow gage is 3 feet or 3 and a half feet depending on the railroad that used or uses it. Narrow gage is used by tourist lines now. The problem became the cumbersome task of off loading railroad equipment and transferring freight to cars that could only travel on 3 foot gage. Well in this instance the engineer thought it was safe to put his two ton locomotive on the flooded rails. John and Susan are here to tell the story Wonder where the engineer is?

Earlier today I’ve called Norm, another engineer I know, who has asked Janice on Sunday where I am. She explains that I don’t come on Sundays because of my work schedule. Sitting against my perch I pull out my secondary phone and call him and leave a voicemail. It was so kind of him to ask, I explain that I don’t’ come because of my work schedule and that maybe now that he’s retiring he can sit down with me and tell me stories about running the trains. Have a good night, I say, still kind of nervous. He is the engineer, after all. Now the phones both ring, the alarms telling me that I should catch my bus to Anaheim and Lincoln and head on home. I don’t catch the bus as it turns out. I discover Wally sitting on the planter and he offers me a ride home tonight, or did I ask him? Anyway he knows right where I live and he’s willing so we sit and watch for the longed for freights. He tells me about the antiques in his garage, his mother’s dishes, his dishes, a sausage grinder from the forties, all kinds of things you just can’t get rid of. Some of the railfans make fun of him, I always ask them what they say about me, but Wally is very entertaining. Tonight he gives me a cd of Mitch Woods in his car when I say I like it. He says he has another copy so I can have this one. The man has 78 records, 33 records, he is a pack rat. There is room in his car for me and so he drops me off tonight, Monday May 2. On Tuesday May 3 he leaves early to pick up Mike and can’t do that. It is on Thursday that he gives me the ride home after we spend five hours wondering about the well being of a freight train.

It is a semi late night this Monday. I head home and get ready for work on Tuesday. I return on Tuesday, the weather warm and inviting, I arrive a little late, talk to my engineers, go to the café and order another roast beef sandwich. I have an afinity for roast beef sandwiches. It is on Friday that I really go all out, something I haven’t done here for a long time. I order the ham and cheese, two diet Pepsis and more ice-cream. When people mention what I carry in my new Orange Empire Railway Museum bag, they always mention diet sodas. Am I looking of them? You know you always carry them. I guess I’m known for carrying a different bag every time I come here, usually the same color, red and black or some combination thereof, diet sodas, ice-cream, switch keys, bells, food of various types, and a soft spot in my heart for engineers, especially one with grayish red hair and a beard and a sparkling personality. I have to say all my engineers are pretty sparkly but this one, takes the cake, in a good way. I had to meet the best one first, didn’t I? I can’t wait to talk to him again, my number one engineer. Sometimes I do miss him. I keep promising myself I’m going to return to the north side of paradise and meet the engineer on the 707. But he’s too far up there, away from my patio faithful. Still, I must try it. I’m sure I’ll like it. Bobby tells me he runs 609 in the afternoon but I still have to meet Harvey. Maybe bobby or Cary can tell me where harvey is. Cary is always helpful that way. My engineers like telling me where everyone else is. Maybe I’ll see him on the south side of paradise, too.

It seems that the days run into each other, I’ve spent the most time down here in a while, four days to be exact. Four days of warm weather, talking about job numbers, Kathy’s retirement, branch lines of the railroads, California boiler codes and what happens when the water level gets too low in a boiler. It can go up “like a rocket on the 4th of July” says Doug to John on Tuesday as we all sit on the planter by the railroad tracks. John shows pictures of Knots Berry Farm engineers dressed up, posing by the steam locomotives. I don’t’ make Cary’s train on Tuesday for some reason. But it is a pleasant night and ends with me catching a late bus, spending time at the doughnut shop at Anaheim and Lincoln, jacks Doughnuts, and then going home to do it all again tomorrow. Wednesday I don’t make it to the stationer to Cypress because I need to put a check in the bank to cover the rent. It’s a good thing that I do because the check clears the next day. The bus connections are a little dicey here so I spend time at McDonalds my other childhood favorite fast food place, wait an hour for a bus, and then after work on Thursday, end up back where it all started for me two years ago on the platform, one hand waving, and one hand somewhere else.

It is Thursday now and Here I am back at the station, where we end up chasing a freight train. The Pacific Surf Liner plagued by lateness has been on time this week. It is other trains all up and down the five county Metrolink line that have been plagued with mechanical issues, making other trains late because they wait for their train meets. It is either mechanical issues or freight train meets or even on one day, a late Amtrak 796 that makes trains late this week. Rob Sanchez mentioned 796 in his text messages on that fateful day when he forgot what he was doing and plowed into the Union pacific freight train. The Pacific Surf Liner is on time but I am late today, as it turns out. I’m not really late for action, I’m just late for all my engineers. I arrive just after 4 leaves and make my way down to the east end of the platform. I settle in with my diet Pepsis and ice-cream. Curt drops by, telling us what’s going on. It’s pretty quiet though things will start to liven up here soon since it is cinco de Mayo, the Mexican independence holiday. The restaurants across the way will do a lively business tonight. Dave says he will go down Santa Fe Avenue to get home and not take his usual route. It is a quiet freight night. Then, suddenly, something different! The signals show a green on 3 and yellow on 2, a freight train is coming, will probably get a red after the yellow, and the green is for the Amtrak, southbound. Suddenly the signals drop. What has happened Dave wants to know. According to the BNSF guy with his orange vest in his truck next to us as we sit in the parking lot later, an Amtrak noticed a freight train’s wheels sparking on the rails. The freight pulls in on 3 and sits. It sits long enough so that I’m curious, but not curious enough to get up and go over the bridge. He is parked almost where Bobby pulls his train. It’s just my luck that if I do get up and go to the bridge he’ll get the signal and I’ll miss my chance. Meanwhile in the passenger department, the northbound Amtrak arrives as usual on track 1, followed by the southbound to San Diego on track 1. Something is definitely going on here. Curiouser and curiouser! The trains leave, Dave says goodbye, walking down to get the numbers on the locomotives. This is BNSF train 5218, the scanner announces later, its conductor with a distinctly out of state accent. I decide since Dave is going to get the numbers to follow him and make my way over the bridge. If the train is going to sit there with its rumbling 4 locomotives I’m going to see if I can find out what’s going on., It’s harder to get freight crews attention but the freight is right on the track and if I know which direction the train is headed I can find the engine, or at least the lead one. Easy enough. I just don’t’ know if I’ll get the engineer’s attention. A train this size stretches for a mile at least, the crew could be anywhere. I make my way to the engine, passing the benches, someone’s bike blocks my path. Just as I go over, Wally shows up with Mike, Mike with two scanners. Now we’re in luck! He has a scanner we’ll know what’s going on! But it would be more fun to get it from the crew!

The weather is warm tonight, comfortable, all cues blocked out by the four rumbling locomotives. I make my way back toward the bridge, maybe I’ll find the crew or they’ll spot me. Now I can play the help card. If they ask if I need help I’ll just say I came to find out what was going on because everyone wants to know and the Fullerton Engineer girl is the one to try and discover it, now that I know where I’m going and what I’m doing. I’m nervous as a cat, though, of course, I don’t think that will ever change. I am however, in an extroverted mood, coming here tonight because I didn’t want to go home from work after eating. That would be boring! I wanted to go where there would be people or action or both. Tonight I got it.

Making my way down the south side of paradise, the brick pathway delineating the tracks from the rest of the path, I make my way passed the benches.

“The break pads are melted to the wheels,” I hear Mike say. He’s standing here wit the scanner, his words swallowed by the rumble of the engines only feet from us. The engineer, is it later discovered by recognizing vocals on the scanner, comes by but doesn’t stop because he says he can’t hear Mike talking. Mike is a little bit troubled and he doesn’t yell over the engines, so he doesn’t learn and the engineer ignores me. He’s on a mission to get car numbers, so that someone will know, says Wally later, who isn’t getting their product on time. Somehow we both end up across the bridge listening to the scanner, and this time curt is involved and Wally is here. The big news, what happened to the freight train! The hiss and groan of that train, the warm wind, the social butterflies of the station wanting to know what’s going on, we listen. A mechanic tries to locate the conductor and engineer. They’re near the swimming pool complex. Where is that? That’s Independence Park says Wally and Curt. “YMCA,” someone sings on the scanner. No, that’s in the opposite direction but worth a good laugh from me. Silly! You’ll not find your train that way! It was entertaining!

Should we go chase the train? I have to make a trip to a restroom, after that, I’m game, let’s go chase the train, watch them work on it. I’ in a quandary though, I’m short on money, I’m going to miss a bus, and I don’t want to pay a cab fair. Tomorrow is pay day from my second job so I’ll be okay tomorrow, but tonight, all my money is going toward rent. I wont’ starve, the lights are on, but I’ll have to leave early. Well, no, not now. Wally says he’ll drive me home. Okay, I don’t’ have to get up in the morning, let’s go train chasing!

The restaurant where I find the restroom is buzzing with people, wall to wall, cramming the patios, streaming down the stairs, up the stairs, in the bathroom. The line isn’t too long but I tell them I’ve got two guys waiting for me and we need to go find a train so I get to go first. I leave, discover Wally’s in the rest room, he comes out, and we’re off. Three police cars show up, their lights on, people walk down the parking lot, a guy asks us if we’re leaving, he wants our parking spot, the train hisses, you can hear it from the other side of the station, it’s a noisy glorious thing, steel shining, broken, lovely, ready to move. Updates on the scanner come as we make our way to the old car Wally uses. Wally probably has the oldest car I’ve seen in while, can’t remember the model, but it’s old. He knows where to get the best deals in town when it comes to food. He buys things he doesn’t need because they’re on sale. He has stacks of hot chocolate and Catsup in his pantry, records under his bed, DVDS on the couch, is there any place to sit? Now he’s chasing a freight train with me and his son. The conductor with the accent says they’re at Highland Avenue. We go down the street, pull into the parking lot at the DMV, can’t find anyone working on the train, then pull onto Valencia, go by the Hunts Branch library, down to Brook Hurst, no mechanic. BNSF 5218 says the dispatch, he has a gravelly voice, I know it well, just don’t know his name, says they’re going to take a car off, take it to san Bernardino, but move the whole consist to La Mirada. That means the train will move east. Back to the station we go, sitting in the parking lot, watching, waiting. This is where we meet the BNSF guy talking to someone else. The windows are down and this is where we get the rest of the story. Twelve cars had breaks that were melted to the wheels, problems with the hydraulics someone says, so now the train will leave the station at twenty miles an hour.

“Hope you have a better trip,” says the dispatcher. “We’ll take that car off at San Bernardino and get you moving east.”

The whole affair takes five hours, Curt leaves us to find out what goes on with the police cars. A car accident, he says the next day. The police are out in force tonight. The drink Till You Puke bar, a name given to all the clubs in the area by the railfans, Is full. Now I know where the steak house is. I know where another restroom is, I know where to catch a freight train if I ever want to. The secret extrovert has succeeded tonight. We’ve watched a crew walk around the train for five hours, maybe make phone calls, read a book, talk to dispatch, I don’t’ know. They didn’t come talk to us but we, as Wally put it, enjoyed cheap entertainment.

Wally drives me home and doubtless goes somewhere else to watch something else. I make my way to bed and get up on Friday, work around the house and then make my way back to the station. I’m afraid I’ll be late but as it turns out I make it there in time for Cary’s train. He says have a good weekend. I complain about his MPI. They keep disappointing me with those things. I can’t decide what to eat and finally decide on the biggest splurge I’ve indulged in there. It is all worth It. I cant’ wait, I want to tell Dave what the scoop was on the freight train. Even if I didn’t get it from the engineers I got it. An the important thing is I tried to get it from the crew. So maybe I’m not so nervous after all! I just have to get the engineer to pay attention to me. Well so far I’ve done that; so I guess I’ll just keep trying.

Ed is there, he makes bad jokes, I make him get my diet Pepsis from Wendy who forgot to bring them with dinner. Barbara is there, his sister, counting cars, 50 containers and 48 trailers. I discover Kathy’s chair and table combination with a little bag slung to the back, something that will come in handy here, your own table, a director’s chair only a little more substantial says Dave. I’m on a mission for one. Steinmart or Coles, here I come! I’m still in my extrovert mood I guess so I end up on the south side, talking-to bobby.

“Busy day!”

“I know huh,” says Bobby. On track 2 sits a freight, on track 1 sits number 4 on track 3 is 608, his train, and on track 4 are two trains one coming south and one going north, their lay over spot for the next two or three hours. Glenn pointed track 4 out to me a year and a half ago. It came into being a little late, but it’s here now and so it fulfilled someone’s sweet trained ream. The trains are secluded, in a spot beside a wall, it is a tight squeeze on any day of the week. I’m sure there are memories to be made there. Before those memnries are made, tonight is A busy, busy train night.

“Are you back on Monday?”

The schedules change on Monday. Yes, he says he’s back, but he’ll take Friday off for a father daughter dance with his eight year-old. The older one is a tom boy he says. I think that’s nice that he’s taking off work to be with his daughter. The radio crackles, he gets the high ball, and rings that bell.

“We’re out of here,” he says. He always says that lately. And so he is.

I wave him off into the sunset with my right hand.

Tonight is my last hurrah till next Friday. I may go back to the station a few days. I work six days in a row starting on Saturday so I must take advantage of every free moment. I make my way to an old haunt, the Spaghetti Factory, use their facilities and then get a free diet soda. It was a little weak but he said he’s already closed out his register so no worries. Now the late night crowd is here, Panzer Curt as some call him watching fireworks from Disneyland, Curt, Scooter Boy, talking to Hank or someone, me walking the platform. There is an Australian couple going into Los Angeles, taking the starlight on Saturday to Seattle. They spent the day at Disneyland today. A freight train pulls up and I make my way back to the regular hang out spot. Scott is there from the foamers group. Ken, a fireman for 35 years is there. He is waiting for his girlfriend on the last Los Angeles bound train. He tells stories of her missing the train trying to drive to each station to catch it. He explains more of the train dance the foamers engage in, the bowing, the swimming motions, the calls for each car that passes on a freight train. I tell him about my online journal. National Train day is tomorrow, Dave and Kathy will go and so will many of the train groupies. I will be working that day, a five hour shift. It will be a busy day, but no trains for me.

“Broken down freight last night. O T on Saturday yea,” I text Glenn. No trains for me on national train day. But tonight I stay till midnight, call a cab and go home. It has been quite an eventful week, almost too much to write in one entry. It has been a perfect week at the Fullerton train station for Shelley and all her engineers, especially, on the south side of paradise.

The south side of paradise, the place where I met Glenn, where I was proposed to so many years ago by a railfan never knowing I would fall headlong for trains; the south side of paradise where someone’s sweet train dream came true, a dream to open a new track connecting to the main line, this is the place where the magic is this week. This is the side of the station that perhaps gets the least attention unless you’re going to San Diego. Railfans don’t usually sit here to watch freights. This is the side I rarely make before Cary’s train pulls in. I used to sit here and wait for 708 when I could make it because Glenn was on that train. But usually it’s the north side that gets a great deal of attention, where most of the rail fan action happens. It is the south side, however, where the action happens for me, where the interaction with engineers occurs on a daily or weekly basis. This week it is the place of exploration and train chasing. Late nights, a five hour visit by a distressed freight, a conductor with a distinctly out of state accent, a scanner, trying to talk over four very loud EMDS, BNSF train 5218 heading who knows where. Probably heading for Barstow on Thursday May 5, but instead, making an unplanned five hour stop in Fullerton. This week, between engineers, it is the south side of paradise that lures, beckons.

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