Trivia: unwritten etiquette as a railway passenger

[TUC]

Agreed. There and Chislehurst are roses between the thorns of Petts Wood and Grove Park!

Given that the post you were replying to has been deleted, you win the Most Mysterious Post of the Month award

 

[43066]

Given that the post you were replying to has been deleted, you win the Most Mysterious Post of the Month award

Oops! There is a clue upthread.

 

[ComUtoR]

Given that the post you were replying to has been deleted, you win the Most Mysterious Post of the Month award

Oops! There is a clue upthread.

I failed to read the thread and didn't notice information that had already been posted. Totally my fault.

 

[Purple Train]

Aggressive manspreading combined with under breath muttering usually guarantees free seats either side in my experience .

Oh yes. Also, one or all of the following:
1) Wearing a thick winter coat on a very warm day in the middle of summer
2) Continuing to wear a rather large face mask despite COVID restrictions/high numbers being long past
3) Having an enormous rucksack yet resolutely refusing to stick it in the luggage rack
4) Clutching a rather tattered notebook with lots of colour-coded train numbers scrawled on it in appalling handwriting
5) Talking to total strangers (if in the south)/not talking to total strangers (in the north)
6) Reading a rather intellectual-looking book
7) Standing by the door waiting to get off several minutes before your train is even approaching the station you wish to get off at
generally marks you out as the sort of oddball that no one wants to sit (or stand) next to, definitely from personal experience anyway!

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

2) Continuing to wear a rather large face mask despite COVID restrictions/high numbers being long past

It's up to everyone whether they want to wear a mask. None of anyone else's business IMO. They might indeed have COVID but need to travel, as the relaxed "rules" allow. What then?
Number 5 - definitely.

 

[Purple Train]

It's up to everyone whether they want to wear a mask. None of anyone else's business IMO. They might indeed have COVID but need to travel, as the relaxed "rules" allow. What then?
Number 5 - definitely.

I agree. I was simply referencing the strange looks I get while travelling for that very reason.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

I agree. I was simply referencing the strange looks I get while travelling for that very reason.

Sorry, I went off on one a bit there! This wasn't directed at you, although it looked like it. I have COVID at the moment and I think the reason numbers are going down might be the inability to report a case. If you've bought a test kit, and how could you not have, you can't report it in the NHS app. There might be another way from the supplier, but for mine there isn't. But I've dragged us off-topic...

 

[Purple Train]

Sorry, I went off on one a bit there! This wasn't directed at you, although it looked like it. I have COVID at the moment and I think the reason numbers are going down might be the inability to report a case. If you've bought a test kit, and how could you not have, you can't report it in the NHS app. There might be another way from the supplier, but for mine there isn't. But I've dragged us off-topic...

I hope you recover soon

Anyway, back to the topic - if you're conducting a video call from a train that's at least a quarter full, turn the volume right down to as quiet as you can bear if you don't have earphones. Most people probably aren't that interested in all the particulars of whatever you're discussing. If the train's lightly loaded it's not quite as bad.

 

[ThisIsSurbiton]

Thanks, Purple Train.

It's interesting how much of the etiquette isn't in long-term memory. As the number of slam door trains dwindled, people had already started to forget always to close the door if the last one out (daily commuters seemed to have a different rule: always leave the door open behind you, and make sure half the train is out before it's come to a stop at Waterloo).

Now you have to reverse-engineer the train systems to be a perfect commuter. Can you keep the open button pressed as the train stops (455) or can it only be pressed once active (Desiro, Electrostar?). As already said, a shame it can't work the Swiss way. A tense moment on HS1 when you know you only have to press the button once but it will take a few seconds to open. IETs/Azumas the same perhaps. Worth it to have a little victory proving the people behind you wrong.

If anyone wants my thoughts on bus etiquette (dinging the bell at the last stop a particular favourite), I'll be in the other fourm.

 

[Purple Train]

A tense moment on HS1 when you know you only have to press the button once but it will take a few seconds to open.

745s take a while, as the retractable step needs to deploy before the door opens. It is definitely quite unnerving the first time!

 

[SargeNpton]

From my journey home last night...

Don't chew gum with your mouth open (etiquette for life in general but expecially annoying when you have to sit opposite someone doing that for 40 minutes).

 

[CaptainHaddock]

If you're a young mother with a pram don't put it in the cycle space! Fold up the pram, stick it in the luggage rack and sit your child on your lap!

 

[LowLevel]

If you're a young mother with a pram don't put it in the cycle space! Fold up the pram, stick it in the luggage rack and sit your child on your lap!

Who holds the baby while they fold up the pram? (Thinking back to the good old days as a young dispatcher where our lifts were broken and I was helping people on the stairs - for whatever reason the pram couldn't be carried unfolded and I had a small baby unceremoniously thrust at me whilst said mother declared "hold this will you!" as she removed all her shopping

 

[BingMan]

7) Standing by the door waiting to get off several minutes before your train is even approaching the station you wish to get off at

Which might be because they announce that "We will shortly be arriving at Whatsitcalled" when the train is several minutes away from Whatsitcalled station

 

[43096]

From my journey home last night...

Don't chew gum

Simplified for you. Horrible stuff that ought to be banned.

 

[Skiddaw]

Oh yes. Also, one or all of the following:
1) Wearing a thick winter coat on a very warm day in the middle of summer
2) Continuing to wear a rather large face mask despite COVID restrictions/high numbers being long past
3) Having an enormous rucksack yet resolutely refusing to stick it in the luggage rack
4) Clutching a rather tattered notebook with lots of colour-coded train numbers scrawled on it in appalling handwriting
5) Talking to total strangers (if in the south)/not talking to total strangers (in the north)
6) Reading a rather intellectual-looking book
7) Standing by the door waiting to get off several minutes before your train is even approaching the station you wish to get off at
generally marks you out as the sort of oddball that no one wants to sit (or stand) next to, definitely from personal experience anyway!

Guilty as charged on Item 7. It's a bit OCD but I'm always worried that somehow I won't be able to get off the train. If I'm already poised by the door it relieves my anxiety. And when I'm on the way back to Penrith from Down Sahhhhffff there's a lovely moment when the train passes through our village (and I can wave to our house).

 

[Purple Train]

Which might be because they announce that "We will shortly be arriving at Whatsitcalled" when the train is several minutes away from Whatsitcalled station

I'm usually at the door several minutes before that!

Guilty as charged on Item 7. It's a bit OCD but I'm always worried that somehow I won't be able to get off the train. If I'm already poised by the door it relieves my anxiety. And when I'm on the way back to Penrith from Down Sahhhhffff there's a lovely moment when the train passes through our village (and I can wave to our house).

It's worse for me on commuter services with a 30-second booked dwell time, as I always worry that, if I don't get off immediately, the door operator will assume no-one wants to get off and close the doors - even at very busy stations. I also do it for termini, though why I have no idea

 

[kristiang85]

Guilty as charged on Item 7. It's a bit OCD but I'm always worried that somehow I won't be able to get off the train. If I'm already poised by the door it relieves my anxiety. And when I'm on the way back to Penrith from Down Sahhhhffff there's a lovely moment when the train passes through our village (and I can wave to our house).

I do it, mainly because people tend to dawdle at doors and I'm a fast walker, so I'd rather get off first and not feel slowed down and/or make people feel they are being hassled.

 

[Skiddaw]

I do it, mainly because people tend to dawdle at doors and I'm a fast walker, so I'd rather get off first and not feel slowed down and/or make people feel they are being hassled.

That's another reason why I do it actually.

 

[blue87]

Don't sit on the stairs leading to the platform and don't get grumpy when someone using the stairs asks you to move so they can continue using the handrail.
Also if signs say keep to one side use that side only .

 

[WizCastro197]

Don't sit on the stairs leading to the platform and don't get grumpy when someone using the stairs asks you to move so they can continue using the handrail.
Also if signs say keep to one side use that side only .

I have never seen someone sit on the stairs. ever.
what a disgusting place to sit goodness knows how many people have walked over it!

 

[ASharpe]

7) Standing by the door waiting to get off several minutes before your train is even approaching the station you wish to get off at

Particularly bad form if it's a droplight window with the handle outside and you wait until the train stops to look for a button.

 

[zwk500]

Also if signs say keep to one side use that side only .

This! The number of times I've seen people get off the train and think they're getting one over on people by dashing up the 'wrong' side only to go headfirst into somebody at the top of the stair's who's dashing for the train they've just alighted from.

 

[Llandudno]

Is that station

Which might be because they announce that "We will shortly be arriving at Whatsitcalled" when the train is several minutes away from Whatsitcalled station

Isn’t Whatsitcalled between Ambergate and Cromford…?

 

[Taunton]

From my journey home last night...

Don't chew gum

Further, don't sit at a table seat, chew gum, slyly remove it and stick it under the table, ready to surprise the trousers of the Best Suit of the next passenger who sits there ...

If you're a young mother with a pram don't put it in the cycle space! Fold up the pram, stick it in the luggage rack and sit your child on your lap!

Presumably never had children ...

 

[stuu]

If you're a young mother with a pram don't put it in the cycle space! Fold up the pram, stick it in the luggage rack and sit your child on your lap!

Folding it perhaps, but in the luggage rack???

When my son was a baby we didn't have a monstrously sized pushchair which some are, but there is still no way on earth it could have been put on a luggage rack safely.

Why pick on young mothers specifically?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I have never seen someone sit on the stairs. ever.
what a disgusting place to sit goodness knows how many people have walked over it!

A few weeks ago, the "Friends Of" one of my local stations was running an activity/volunteer recruitment day: something I myself would have been interested in attending if they didn't advertise these things on Faceache and literally nowhere else...

I happened to be catching a train while this event was going on, and despite having a whole room inside the station building at their disposal, the leaders/organisers of the event decided that the best place to give instructions and presentations was on the stairs into the subway. Not only that, but they allowed their audience of volunteers to cover the whole width of the staircase, blocking all access.

 

[nlogax]

Guilty as charged on Item 7. It's a bit OCD but I'm always worried that somehow I won't be able to get off the train. If I'm already poised by the door it relieves my anxiety. And when I'm on the way back to Penrith from Down Sahhhhffff there's a lovely moment when the train passes through our village (and I can wave to our house).

Same, especially on busy suburban routes. More than once I've been unable to get to the doors when pulling into the station because of a combination of bikes / prams / or, shall we say those lacking any degree of spatial awareness. The only way to guarantee getting off at the desired stop is to get to the doors early.

 

[AM9]

Oh yes. Also, one or all of the following:
1) Wearing a thick winter coat on a very warm day in the middle of summer
2) Continuing to wear a rather large face mask despite COVID restrictions/high numbers being long past
3) Having an enormous rucksack yet resolutely refusing to stick it in the luggage rack
4) Clutching a rather tattered notebook with lots of colour-coded train numbers scrawled on it in appalling handwriting
5) Talking to total strangers (if in the south)/not talking to total strangers (in the north)
6) Reading a rather intellectual-looking book
7) Standing by the door waiting to get off several minutes before your train is even approaching the station you wish to get off at
generally marks you out as the sort of oddball that no one wants to sit (or stand) next to, definitely from personal experience anyway!

1) not sure what the problem is hereby it isn't anybody else's business.
2) definitely nobodyy else's business
3) applies to anything carried on provided there's room in the luggage rack
4) why is that bad etiquette, - I'd be too embarrassed to do that
5) it's neither rude to speak or not to speak except to harass somebody or interrupt. Content of speech is though.
6) sounds like an inferiority complex is working here
7) presumably said by somebody who is familiar with the route. How is somebody expected to know exactly when to go to the door on to heir first trip on the route?

If these are really seen as worthy of a 'poor etiquette' label then clearly you have never experienced travelling with any real problem passengers.

 

[SargeNpton]

1) not sure what the problem is hereby it isn't anybody else's business.
2) definitely nobodyy else's business
3) applies to anything carried on provided there's room in the luggage rack
4) why is that bad etiquette, - I'd be too embarrassed to do that
5) it's neither rude to speak or not to speak except to harass somebody or interrupt. Content of speech is though.
6) sounds like an inferiority complex is working here
7) presumably said by somebody who is familiar with the route. How is somebody expected to know exactly when to go to the door on to heir first trip on the route?

If these are really seen as worthy of a 'poor etiquette' label then clearly you have never experienced travelling with any real problem passengers.

I think that you missed the sarcasm in the original post.