Adventures of a Railfan Part 4- Nicole

Hello everyone! This is the 4th and final part of my Adventures of a Railfan series! This part is about Nicole, the girl I am currently with. As always, I changed everyone’s name to protect the innocent. I don’t need any trouble from my past girlfriends!

Ann left me in the worst way possible, for her best friends ex! That was the worst feeling in the world, What could he possible have that I didn’t! I made sure Ann was really happy. Oh well, her loss. Someone else will now have the chance to be with me and enjoy the attention I give them.

Shortly after Ann left me, I once again went back to the internet dating scene. This time I broadened my choices by also signing up for OKCupid. It was on OK cupid that I met a nice, petite little girl named Jennifer. She lived an hour away from me and we had talked for hours on end, and even had phone sex a few times. I really though it would work out well and that I would Finally be happy. However, I was premature in thinking that, and 3 weeks later, she told me her parents didn’t approve of me because of my job and she dumped me, and I never heard from her again. What Bullshit! Oh well, it is what it is, you know?

For the first time in 10 years, I celebrated my Birthday without a girlfriend. It was depressing, I had spent 8 birthdays with Danielle, bless her departed soul, and 1 birthday each with Michelle and Ann, the two girls who I dated that had disastrous results. By this time, I didn’t know if I could handle anymore rejection. It may seem odd for a guy to say that, but loosing one girlfriend to the grim reaper, one to extreme jealousy and one to her best friends ex, it was beginning to look like that I would never be married, as I was only 4 years away from being 30 years old.

A few days after my birthday, I logged into Plenty of Fish again. I had a couple of messages from some girls who decided I was actually worth their time to messaging me. That was a surprise as this had never happened before. After talking to both of them for a while, I determined that we are so different that I didn’t think it would work. I was being more and more selective about who I wanted to date. I then noticed a profile from a girl I had not seen before. I clicked the photo to bring up her profile. It stated that she lived in Belleville, IL, was 24, and had just completed training to be a Certified Nursing Assistant. Finally, here is a girl who actually knew what she wanted to do in life! I sent her a message, not knowing if she would reply or not.

An hour later, I checked my messages again, and there was a reply from her. In the message, she said that she would be online and I could send her an IM. I shot off a quick IM and she quickly replied. I introduced myself as William and she said her name was Nicole. We talked for a few minutes before she had to go. She gave me her phone number before I could even ask and she told me I could call her if I wanted to keep talking.

After I signed off of PoF, I called the number she gave me. After about the 4th ring, she picked up.

“Hello?” She said. She had a lovely voice, the voice of an angel.

“Hi, is this Nicole?” I asked

“Yes, is this William?” She replied

“Yeah, it is, how did you guess?” I chuckled

“I kinda figured because I just gave my number to someone in Missouri” She said

“I guess you are not a mind reader after all!”

She laughed at the comment. We spent the next 20 minutes talking before she had to go. Before she hung up, we agreed to meet, again, at my favorite hangout, the Amtrak Station in Kirkwood, Missouri

I went through Friday looking forward to meeting Nicole. I stayed in the St. Louis area all day, and did a grand total of 6 loads during the entire day. I picked up my paycheck and saw that I had made about $3,500 the previous week. Then again, I only did two runs that week, one to Detroit, MI and then from Ft. Wayne, IN back to St. Louis. That was the only time my mind drifted away from Nicole. During the day, she texted me a picture of herself, and I made it my phones background. Unlike Ann, I was not going to rush into this relationship, and I wanted to meet her before I made a decision. The only reason why I made it my phones background was because of how Beautiful she was. Needles to say, my previous girlfriends were cute, but Nicole was actually Beautiful, and I couldn’t stop looking at her pretty face.

The next day, Saturday, was the day I was supposed to meet Nicole, We agreed that we would meet at the Amtrak station and that we would then go to my place where I would cook her dinner. Me being the railroad buff I am, I took my camera with me and left about 7 AM. I wanted to catch some trains before we actually met. The day was going to be a nice one, Sunny and Clear with a high of around 76. Perfect fall weather.

I got to the station 45 minutes later, turned on my scanner to listen for any approaching trains an lit a cigarette. About 30 minutes later, I heard my first train and got my camera ready. At this time, I had upgraded from a Canon T1i to a Nikon D3100, and I really enjoyed it. I was looking forward to what was approaching from the east, and I grew excited when the train came into view, rounding the sweeping curve leading up to the station. Right there on the point of the train was one of Union Pacific’s Heritage Units, the UP 1983, painted up in a retro Western Pacific color scheme. The unit was painted this way to honer the Western Pacific railroad, that was merged into the Union Pacific in 1982.

I snapped about a dozen photos of the train, and all of them turned out very nice. The New Nikon was a great choice and was definitely an improvement over the old Canon I had.

About 1 clock rolled around and I got a call for Nicole, stating that she was on her way, but was caught up in construction traffic on the Illinois side on I-64/US 40. I told her that was fine and that I was enjoying taking photos of trains. She laughed and said that she felt bad for running late. I told her not to worry and that I will be here when she arrives.

I ended up photographing a Westbound double stack container train between the time we talked on the phone and the time she got to the station.

As she pulled up, I noticed she was driving a beat up old Dodge Dakota pick up truck.