Train Buffs Find Their Daily Fix in Glendale

When Gene Kramer saw her long, slender frame for the first time, it was love at first sight.

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

He tried to get her attention and waved, but it was no use. She didn’t even slow down. After all, this train had passengers to take somewhere, and she wasn’t going to stop for a little kid.

Since that day 50 years ago, when Kramer saw a locomotive for the first time, his love affair with trains has only grown. He’s one of about a dozen longtime enthusiasts who gather almost every morning at the Glendale train station to watch locomotives as they come through the depot.

They’re called “foamers,” railroad workers say, because they foam at the mouth when they see a train.

“Sometimes there’s more train fans than passengers,” Kramer said.

The group congregates at a bench tucked away on the station’s south side. They go for the company, some good conversation and, most of all, for the trains.

“There’s something mysterious about trains,” said Charlie Hawkins, 77, a retired baker. “But they don’t make ‘em like they used to.”

Indeed, the sleek, bullet-like trains that dart through the station are nothing like the lumbering, steam-powered locomotives these fans fell in love with years before. But they’ll settle for any train they can get these days--diesel-electric, steam-powered or toy.

Hawkins tries to go wherever the trains are, whether they’re at Glendale, Los Angeles’ Union Station or the Cajon Pass. And if there’s ever a day he doesn’t feel like going, his wife provides the proper motivation.

“If there’s a day that I’m thinking about not going, she’ll say, ‘Go down there and talk to them ol’ buzzards,’ ” Hawkins said. “Otherwise, I’d sit around the house and watch TV. This is better than going down to the beer joint.”

The group’s elder statesman, Charlie Frazier, 84, has been watching trains come and go at the Glendale station since 1924, when he took his 4-month-old on his first train ride.

“That station was only about 12 years old back then,” he said. “A lot of this stuff wasn’t even around.”

By 9 a.m., the group is near full strength. Some have scanners clipped on their belt to monitor radio conversations between trains and the station.

Meanwhile, others quietly sip their coffee. Another shows off his new train magazine.

Others, like Ernie Small, a 75-year-old retired telephone worker, like to discuss current events, especially politics and presidential candidate Bob Dole. (Some of the guys think he’s too old).

John Lang, 66, comes down to the station every morning, accompanied by his dog, Shanta.

One set of regulars--Lee and Millie Gottier--met at the station and eventually got married.

When the Coast Starlight to Seattle finally arrives at 9:30 a.m., the group’s attention turns to the tracks. Some quickly walk over to the edge of the station platform and wave as the train rolls by.

“I used to come out here to look at women,” Hawkins said, laughing. “Now I come to look at trains.”