The Ukrainian Train Girl

Nothing ever happened at the rail junction heading into Vinnytsia, but then again it did have a good Train Girl.

Nothing ever happened at the rail junction heading into Vinnytsia, but then again it did have a good Train Girl. Olena was younger than most as it was the kind of position that struggled to attract new employees or rid itself of the old. Olena figured that she was already old in a way and had no intention of getting younger. 

She didn’t mind living in the cramped railway house so long as the baby blue paint continued to match her eyes and the white accents on the clay tiles continued to remind her of a fairytale cottage. She didn’t mind waking up before the first train. She enjoyed listening to her coffee percolate like a bubbling spring in the small hours of the morning. She didn’t mind the trains’ whistles either. They never made her jump and they never interrupted her because her day began and ended with the trains.

She couldn’t leave much, but then again, she didn’t leave much back when she lived in town. She had her books, an easel, paint, and of course her thoughts. She also had a small patch of grass running along the east wall which her predecessor had cultivated into a beautiful garden. While Olena severely lacked a green thumb, she knew the rarity of her inheritance and tried her best to maintain it.

The monotony and the loneliness were hard to bear, that’s why she was one of the youngest. Building a railroad is a lot like building yourself into a Train Girl. The work is exhaustive and will break most who try, but once it is done it is done for good. And so the railroads, like the train girls, persist. That is why she was one of the youngest, not one of the only.

The monotony was the core of each day, so it was natural that this day began as any other.

Olena listened to the percolator pop as she checked her phone. She didn’t get cell service out there, but a Wi-Fi router gave her the access to the outside world that her radio couldn’t provide.

She exhaled when she saw the message from her sister. She had figured this conversation wasn’t worth carrying over into the morning, but that blinking notification meant Sofia felt differently. Sofia found the moniker “Train Girl” offensive and was shocked to find that Olena, who was a Train Girl, disagreed. The title of Train Girl was a Soviet invention. In fact, the sign outside her door still showed the distance to Moscow, not Kyiv. The USSR influenced everything back then, including what a woman was allowed to do. The Soviets left, a few men joined the ranks, and eventually the title would change. The people, however, did not change and continued to call the operators train girls. Sofia found this infantilizing, but Olena could not disagree more. Her job required precision and discipline. Every commuter, tourist, and vagrant knew that it was a Train Girl that kept them safe, and she liked it that way. Olena had already typed out her reply before she considered how low she was running on Merlot. As much as it pained her, she knew she was dependent on her sister to smuggle more to her and chose to press delete.

The coffee was done and Olena leaned against the counter and took her first sip, examining the photos that lined the wall. Olena and all those before her had framed portraits in the signal house. Each of the subjects shared the same pose, which resulted in each photo feeling more like frames from a film than a separate person. She studied the photos in thirds, beginning with the eyes. They may be droopy or steely or bright, but in many ways, they were all the same. She turned her attention to their mouths. She always felt this is where individuality truly lay and this morning was no exception. Even the most clinical headshot cannot obscure who is dour and who is kind. scowls and laugh lines can always cut through sanitation. Finally, she observed uniforms. She watched as imperial uniforms leaped into Soviet garb and then slowly melted into the same navy blazer and skirt she wore now. She absently ran her thumb across the pin affixed to her collar as she finished her inspection. The darkness at her back had given way to grayscale and now she truly got ready for the day. She ran a brush through her fair hair as she took inventory and began her routine. Each signal flag was accounted for, the radio check went smoothly, and the flaregun dutifully gathered dust.

Olena poured another cup, tied her hair into a bun, and checked her watch. Ten minutes to spare. 

The first train of the day appeared on the horizon at 6:38, which wasn’t too far behind schedule. Olena strode onto the porch, green flag in hand,  and lightly rested her fingertips on the guardrail. Her lips parted into a thin smile as the vibrations crept up her hand and into her arm. She waved the all-clear and headed back inside. This is how things went. Olena would read or paint while waiting for the next train and signal to them as they came. Green was all clear, yellow instructed the conductor to slow down, the red flag a full stop, and the flare in case of emergency. On an exciting day, she might use the radio to report a speeding motorist to the police.

Things continued as they did for most of the day until something happened in the afternoon. The next train was due in fifteen minutes. Olena knew because she had just looked up from her book to check her watch. As she did, she began to hear the high-pitched whine of a small overrevved engine. Olena snapped to attention and snatched a notebook and pen from her breast pocket. A ‘94 BMW was hurtling towards the crossing. As it bared down upon her, she could see a few surviving flakes of white paint amidst the rust. It straddled the middle of the road, drawing closer until she could make out the license plate and began writing. She flipped the notepad closed and a bang rattled the signal house as Olena was knocked to the floor.

Her eyes flew open and she felt warmth streaming down the side of her face. She tested a few shaky breaths and tried to make sense of what happened. As she rose to her feet she saw the taillights of a second car speeding away through the hole in her home. She tried to wipe the blood from her eye as the dust settled.

Fresh blood had taken its place by the time she understood what had happened. The road at the crossing was barely wide enough for two cars. She was aware of the speeding BMW, but apparently, neither she nor the driver noticed the second car coming from the other way. The BMW driver panicked, tried to swerve out of the way, and crashed his car into her kitchen. The ringing in her ears was beginning to die down and she became aware of a few things. She was breathing much faster than she had realized, the car’s radio was still blasting some garbled techno, and underneath it all were the anguished moans of the driver.

Dropping her hand from her wound, Olena sprang into action. The hinge of the driver’s door had been popped open, but the crash had jammed the door into the B pillar of the frame, sealing it shut. Olena was able to find a handhold and began pulling as the driver noticed her. His moans became sobs and pleas for help. The mangled mass held firm, so she grabbed a leg from her ruined chair and wedged it in the gap, lowering her shoulders and pressing against her makeshift lever. The driver, Olena, and the metal frame all groaned in unison for a moment before the door popped open. Olena pulled the driver out of his wreckage and onto her floor, then collapsed down herself.

The driver was crying again. He had a broken leg but should be fine. Her eyes widened and she swore. The train was coming. Rubble from her house and the tail end of the BMW were blocking the track. She ran to her radio and jammed her thumb onto the receiver. Nothing. She punched the machine and tried again, still nothing. Olena looked out the hole in her wall and realized why. When the car hit her house it severed the powerline. The powerline that her radio was dependent on, that the Wi-Fi was dependent on. She was on her own and the train would now be here in ten minutes.

The 3:30 was a passenger train and with an obstruction on the track, it would likely derail. Olena felt her pulse in her fingertips as she grabbed the flare gun from its case. There was no telling how many people could die. “Stay here.” she barked and scrambled through the hole.

A train like the 3:30 would need at least two and a half kilometers of stopping distance and she was running out of time. Olena ran down the footpath next to the tracks in a dead sprint, the heels of her uniform sticking in the wet soil, blood streaming down her face and into her mouth. First one heel broke, then she kicked the other off behind her, stumbling only for a moment. Her mouth turned to copper. Rocks and broken glass were digging into her feet, each step leaving lacerations. She was thankful for them. She had been lightheaded since the crash and the exertion may have made her pass out if not for the pain. She lowered her shoulders again and kept running. She couldn’t use the markers to tell how much farther she needed to go because the bleeding now fully obscured her right eye. She would just have to go as far as she could. She ran for what felt like hours, maybe she caught a lucky break and the 3:30 was running late. She began to wheeze. Her feet howled in pain, but she refused to stop.

Finally, she could see the glint of the 3:30 on the horizon and dropped her hands to her knees. She raised the plastic gun to the sky, prayed they knew it was her, and fired.

Olena couldn’t help but cry when she heard the squealing of brakes. The 3:30 ultimately came to a stop with room to spare. She ran further than she realized, at a near-Olympic pace. The conductors used their satellite phone to call for police, and before long the driver was loaded into an ambulance and no longer crying. A few minutes later a tender-footed Olena was picked up tiptoeing her way back home to the signal house.

The local news led with a single-vehicle auto accident causing minor injuries. What else could the broadcasters do? Nothing ever happened in Vinnytsia. But then again it had a good Train Girl.