Without Warning

by Darrell Maloney

  Then the couple made a mistake all too common among high school kids.

  They started having sex.

  Oh, they were discrete. If they’d been more careful chances are her parents never would have known about it.

  But high school kids aren’t exactly known for being careful.

  A few months earlier Cyndee had gotten pregnant.

  At first her world was in turmoil.

  Then she miscarried.

  She fell into a dark depression.

  When she recovered her parents told her that her baby wasn’t meant to be. God determined she wasn’t ready, wasn’t quite capable, of being a mom.

  “When God thinks the time is right, He’ll bless you with another child.”

  The entire event was quite trying on everyone.

  Cyndee’s parents went from accepting Jared as their future son-in-law to despising him. Like most parents of teenaged girls, they absolved her of all blame and put all the guilt solely on his shoulders.

  They thought she would see for herself that Jared was no good for her. They assumed that, given time, she would break up with him herself.

  That never happened.

  Now their graduation was looming.

  Her parents knew that once she was officially a high school graduate they’d have less sway over her.

  Oh, sure, they could use the old “As long as you live in our house you’ll do as we say.” mantra.

  But they weren’t sure that would work.

  Instead they tried something even more questionable.

  Ten days before Cyndee was to walk the stage and get her diploma they went to her.

  “We waited for you to see for yourself that Jared was bad for you,” they said. “But that didn’t happen. So now we must tell you directly. You need to break up with him. Now. Before you graduate.”

  They tried to soften the blow by reminding her she’d be getting the new car she wanted as a graduation present.

  And that she’d been offered enough scholarships to pay for her first two years at Buena Park College.

  “Someday you’ll realize that this was the best thing for both of you, honey,” they said.

  But Cyndee didn’t think so.

  Cyndee hadn’t left her bedroom in two days, except to eat and go to the bathroom.

  She hadn’t talked to anyone in those two days except for Jared, the guy her parents now hated.

  Now it was Sunday night. The last Sunday before graduation.

  And she’d made up her mind about what she was going to do.

  Actually they had, together, she and Jared. In the same manner so many married couples make key decisions. The wife will make a decision which seems rash or irrational. The husband will try to explain to her why her decision isn’t the most sound or reasonable. And the wife will tell the husband to shut up and do what he’s told.

  Such decisions are typically finished when the husband offers his final argument.

  “Yes, dear.”

  Cyndee decided to no-show her graduation.

  She’d tell her parents she was riding with friends, and would see them after the ceremony.

  They’d see Jared in line with all the other graduates. But they wouldn’t see her.

  They’d frantically look for her, and after the last person had walked the stage, after the tassels had been turned and the mortarboards had all been thrown skyward, her parents would find Jared, and would ask him where she was.

  Jared would, of course, lie to them and say he didn’t know. That she’d broken up with him just that afternoon, on their orders.

  The two would meet up again later, when he’d pick her up in front of Disneyland.

  Disneyland was key to the plan, for it was one of their favorite places to be.

  And, she told him, because when he picked her up there she’d feel just like a fairy tale princess.

  “You’ll be my prince, picking me up and carrying me off to my castle, so we can finally say goodbye to this place and begin our lives together.”

  “But where will we go?” he asked her during the early stages of their planning.

  “We’ll hop a freight train heading out of town, and just get off wherever it suits us.”

  -38-

  Railroads have different processes for lodging their long distance crews.

  Some railroads switch out their crews at the end of each day so they have a fresh crew each morning. They’ll have their train come to a full stop somewhere near a designated town where they have the new crew waiting for it to arrive.

  Other railroads have accommodation cars in the train itself which have bunks and kitchens and provisions. The crew can shower and get something good to eat, then a good night’s sleep before heading on their way the next morning.

  PanAmerican Railways had its freighters stop at designated points along its route, and had a railway service team meet them there.

  The service team brought security personnel which would secure the train and guard it overnight. It would then take the crew to a nearby hotel, where they had rooms reserved for the night. The crew would get twelve hours to eat, relax and sleep, and would report back to the train exactly twelve hours later.

  Jordan and his team pulled their 103 car train onto a siding a few miles outside of Delta, Utah.

  Delta was a bit south of Salt Lake City and their preferred place to stop for the night.

  Yes, they could have stopped at the Salt Lake City train yard, but it could be a bit crowded and a nightmare to get out of in the morning, when crews of other trains were jockeying for position to get rolling again.

  Delta was a bit sleepier, a bit quieter, a bit friendlier.

  Once they were full stop Jordan used Sadie, the crew’s nickname for its satellite radio, and called PacNorthwest Control, the center which tracks all train traffic in the Pacific Northwest (which, paradoxically, includes Utah. Go figure…)

  “PacNorthwest Control, this is PanAm 211, shutting down for the night at Delta siding.”

  “Ten-four, PanAm 211. Good night. Get some rest.”

  “Roger that.”

  Jordan would indeed get some rest. He was beat.

  This was their last stop before the LA train yard, where they’d roll into late the next afternoon.

  They’d enjoy a day off in LA, where they would rest or to do some sightseeing.

  Jordan planned to use most of the day taking Amy to Disneyland. He’d been surprised to find out she’d never been, despite having visited the Los Angeles area several times before. He decided it was time she went, and more or less ordered her to do so.

  It would indeed be a day to celebrate.

  Jordan stepped to the ground and walked. The company stressed the importance of what it called “walking off the rails” any time the train stopped for the night.

  The previous year one of its conductors was stricken with something called “deep vein thrombosis” when a blood clot formed in his leg after sitting on his stool for several hours.

  The clot broke loose and went to his brain, causing a severe stroke which left him paralyzed on one half of his body and unable to speak.

  Few people in the company knew what “deep vein thrombosis” was before that incident.

  Since then they’d been working hard to prevent a similar incident from happening again.

  “Get off your butt frequently,” they were stressing to their crews. “Even in the operator’s cab, as cramped as it is, there’s room to stretch. There’s room to pace. There’s room to save your own life.

  “Go out on the gangway. Feel the wind in your hair. Or walk up and down the corridor to the engine room.

  “When you park the train, walk its length. Do a line check. Never can have too many of those. Count the wheels. Count the cars. Count the graffiti. Count anything you want. Just do the walk.”

  Jordan wasn’t up to doing the line walk tonight. And he didn’t need to count the cars. He knew how many he had. Ninety nine, plus four locomotives. That was a
hundred and three.

  No, he didn’t feel like doing the whole line check. He had others to take care of that.

  Jordan just wanted to get to the hotel, get a hot shower, and call Katie so he could video chat with the kids before their bedtime.

  He would have done it on the train, but PanAm Railways outlawed cell phone use in their operator cabs several years before, after an engineer texting on his phone missed a switch signal.

  Luckily nobody got hurt, but it could have cost some lives.

  The engineer was fired, but won a grievance and a large bundle of money for the firing because the company didn’t have a regulation in place that specifically prohibited texting while driving.

  The engineer retired on his payout and moved to Mexico.

  PanAm Railways created a regulation that not only prohibited texting in the operator’s cab, but went a step further and banned cell phone use as well.

  In the event of an emergency, a message could be passed to the operator through the control center. But most operators just checked in at home any time they came to a full stop for whatever reason.

  Now that he was out of the cab and on firm ground again, his engine shut-down checklist completed, he was free to call his family.

  But the support people were on their way to pick the crew up, and could arrive at any time.

  He didn’t want to be interrupted when his twelve year old son Toby told him all about his big soccer game, as it was his grand debut as goalie.

  Jordan knew he’d be able to tell whether his son’s team won or lost by the level of excitement in the very first words Toby spoke.

  In a perfect world Toby’s team would win the game by at least three goals.

  And Toby would have been credited with at least five saves.

  He hoped that all the stars were aligned in the sky over Minnesota in just the right way. And that Toby, for tonight, anyway, lived in a perfect world.

  -39-

  The crew gathered next to loco 50211 and watched for the vehicles.

  The support team always arrived in convoy, as required by PanAm policy. It was part of the whole “stick together, be a team” concept.

  In that way they weren’t unlike a flock of geese, flying south for the winter.

  If one was sick or injured and couldn’t keep up, the entire flock landed to let him rest.

  If he was too far gone to continue, the rest of the flock took flight. But two or three birds stayed behind with the sick goose until the bitter end.

  PanAm’s policy was the same.

  Its crew and maintenance vehicles traveled in convoy. If one vehicle broke down, all of them stopped to assess the situation.

  If one of its vehicles was disabled and had to be towed, a “buddy vehicle” would stay with him until the tow truck showed up, then would give the driver of the stricken vehicle a ride to catch up with the rest.

  It had been the policy of PanAm Railways since 1951, and seemed to work fine. There was no sense in messing with it.

  There they came, around a corner a quarter mile away. Two passenger vans and two pickups, all painted in the PanAm colors.

  All the railway’s vehicles were painted just like their locomotives. Canary yellow with a navy blue nose.

  Some employees thought the colors exceedingly cool.

  Others thought they looked dumb.

  Kids were almost always impressed.

  “Wow!” they almost invariably proclaimed. “They look just like the trains.”

  When somebody asked Jordan what he thought he always said, “Well, personally I think it’s a bit too much. But I’ll admit this: it’s a safe bet that nobody in his right mind would ever steal one. And they’re incredibly easy to find in a parking lot.”

  The convoy pulled up to the crew and the drivers all got out to welcome them to Delta.

  They all knew one another.

  Jordan and crew stopped in Delta pretty frequently, preferring it over the more crowded Salt Lake City yard.

  Less crowds typically meant faster in, faster out, and a bit more free time at the next stop.

  The crew loaded themselves and their gear on the two vans and headed to their hotel a few short miles away.

  They knew most of the hotel staff too. They’d be greeted as old friends.

  In the shadow of the hotel was a Cracker Barrel restaurant where they could enjoy great home-style cooking. Next door was a locally-owned sports bar.

  Where they met up after getting settled and changed usually depended on whether there was a good ball game on that night.

  On this particular night there wasn’t.

  In all likelihood they’d gather at Cracker Barrel for a good meal, then head to the sports bar for two beers before calling it a night.

  The two beers wasn’t a suggestion.

  It was a mandatory limit, written into a company regulation. No more than two drinks, to include beer or wine, for any crew member who expected to climb upon a train the next day. No exceptions, no excuses, no second chances.

  That one was even older than the convoy requirement.

  The two drink limit was a dusty old rule that went back to the year the railway was founded.

  It wasn’t a problem.

  Jordan, as the trainmaster, was responsible for making sure his crew complied.

  But he never worried.

  They were all mature adults, right down to the last man (or woman). They knew the rule, they knew the logic behind it, and they policed themselves.

  As the vans drove away, the two security trucks took their positions, driving to opposite ends of the train along the track right-of-way.

  Each security vehicle contained one man.

  It was his responsibility to park his truck at the end of the train and to walk its entire length, checking to make sure all locks and seals were still in place.

  The man at the head of the train would walk back along the train’s left side.

  The man at the tail of the train would walk up to its head, along the train’s right side.

  Depending on the length of the train, that might take anywhere from half an hour to two hours.

  Then he would hop in the other security man’s truck and sit for most of his shift, watching for anything suspicious.

  At three hours before shift change, or eight hours after they arrived, they’d repeat the process again.

  Then they’d wait for the crew to come in and relieve them.

  The third pickup contained a two-man team of mechanics who spent their night working their way from one end to the other.

  They inspected each car for several safety items.

  The number and items were specific to each car based on its type or cargo.

  First they used a portable scanner to scan the car’s bar code, which would bring up a checklist on their tablet.

  After that it was merely a matter of looking at each item, one at a time. If the item was good, a checkmark was made.

  If the item was broken, missing or defective, an annotation was made instead.

  Noted items were discussed with the engineer and trainmaster when the crew arrived in the morning and a determination was made whether to hold the train there until repairs were made or to press on without the repairs.

  -40-

  Jordan walked up to the hotel desk and saw a face he’d seen a hundred times before.

  But not the face he’d expected to see.

  “Hello, Jordan. How was the trip?”

  “Not bad, Alicia. No problems at all. But since when do you work the night shift?”

  “Since Hallie went into labor.”

  “Oh, no,” Jordan said. “But she’s not due for another month, right?”

  “First babies are sometimes obstinent, Jordan. Sometimes they decide they want to break out of their little prison and see the world a bit sooner than everybody wants them to. Hallie was grocery shopping this afternoon and her water broke.

  “All over Aisle 3, as I understand it.”

>   “Uh, oh. I hope she’s all right.”

  “I heard she was more embarrassed than anything else. Luckily her husband was there to rush her right to the hospital.

  “And she’s doing okay?”

  “Last update I got she was doing well, still in labor.”

  “I don’t have a clue where the nearest florist is, but if we pass the hat can you send her some flowers from the crew of train 211?”

  “Certainly.”

  She handed him his room key and he in turn handed her a ten dollar bill.

  He turned to his crew members, standing in line behind him.

  “Y’all don’t be cheap. Hallie’s always been a sweetheart to all of us.”

  He didn’t have to waste his words. Everyone on the crew appreciated Hallie for everything she did for them. Even when they were running three hours behind schedule and had the day from hell she always greeted them with a friendly smile and warm cookies.

  “Thank you, Alicia,” Jordan said as he headed for the elevator.

  “You’re welcome, Jordan. Enjoy your stay.”

  They’d already made plans to meet at the restaurant next door in an hour.

  That would give Jordan a chance to take a hot shower, get out of his sweaty work clothes and into something clean, and place a video call to his family.

  But not necessarily in that order.

  A good father always puts his family before his personal comfort.

  He lay upon his bed and placed the call, and the first face to pop into view was twelve-year old Toby, the soccer player.

  With a big black eye.

  “Holy moley, son! What happened?”

  “One of the opposing players came into my box and tried to kick a goal, but kicked me in the face instead.”

  “Really? Are you okay?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t get upset. He said it was an accident, he just got excited ‘cause he thought he was gonna finally score his first goal. He really felt bad and I believed him. They were gonna red card him but I asked them not to.”

  “Well, that’s very mature and very sportsmanlike of you, son. Were you able to stay in?”

  “Coach took me out for five minutes. Joey’s dad is a doctor and he was in the stands and he came down and took a look at me.