Tips for Making a Train Commute Better

First class ticket is a must if you can stomach the 30% extra. I'm on a very busy route into
London Bridge and always get a seat in 1st, but I need to deploy tactics to achieve this!

Edit:listen to R4 on my phone or play games. Friday evening i treat myself to a TV show!
 
Music and books, what else could you possibly want?!

It's also where I have done most my house hunting, eBay purchasing and general life admin that can be done off my phone.

Treat it as a couple of hours of me time and try not to let everyone else annoy you. I spend best part of 2 and a half hours on trains every day and get pretty grump when I can't have it.
 
Werewolf said:
You mean like the Bill Hicks conspiracy guy (it was the CIA wot dun it), or the lovely, polite, discrete woman about 3 rows back who by the time you've spent 15 minutes on the train with her know that she's got a fungal infection, she suspects her friend is cheating on her firends BF with another guy, and that she can't talk because her phone is running low on charge/credit (at which point I think half the carriage issued a sigh of relief/thanks to the gods, whilst the other half were disappointed they weren't going to get more from the 9:15 to Clapham soap).
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I was sitting in the lounge in Euston 2 days back and I had a bloke eating the smallest but fullest bag of crisps in the world it took him 15 minutes of sheer noise whilst 2 seats away some bloke was doing a Webex to customers...in the bloody lounge. He was discussing stuff that I would never discuss in public and not sure his customers on the other end had any idea he was in public, even if it was the 1st class lounge.

This morning I had this bloke, he always gets on the same train as me and I am worried he wants to bum me, who spends nearly the whole journey eating his 1 small bowl of breaky. There is nothing in the bowl yet he keeps using his spoon to put invisible mouthfuls into his mouth. He is a world class **** and this morning he also had Eggs Benedict and I swear spent 10 minutes assembling each mouthful onto his fork.

I got off amazed I hand gone postal and burnt him....burnt him good.
 
Housey said:
I was sitting in the lounge in Euston 2 days back and I had a bloke eating the smallest but fullest bag of crisps in the world it took him 15 minutes of sheer noise whilst 2 seats away some bloke was doing a Webex to customers...in the bloody lounge. He was discussing stuff that I would never discuss in public and not sure his customers on the other end had any idea he was in public, even if it was the 1st class lounge.

This morning I had this bloke, he always gets on the same train as me and I am worried he wants to bum me, who spends nearly the whole journey eating his 1 small bowl of breaky. There is nothing in the bowl yet he keeps using his spoon to put invisible mouthfuls into his mouth. He is a world class **** and this morning he also had Eggs Benedict and I swear spent 10 minutes assembling each mouthful onto his fork.

I got off amazed I hand gone postal and burnt him....burnt him good.
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I think we've all been there on those sorts of commutes.

I remember someone getting rather distressed we'd stopped just outside his station due to no platforms. After about 5 minutes of quite possibly the most body popping twitching I had ever witnessed, he started licking all over his hands and arms. After about a minute, and some passengers trying to comfort him, we started moving, and as if a switch had been flicked, he immediately stopped.

The poor chap was clearly suffering, and it clearly was a horrible experience for him, but when its that bad, I do wonder if something as unpredictable as public transport is a suitable method of travel.
 
One thing I would ask is whilst we nearly all like to retreat into our own little worlds on public transport does anybody else have people they talk to who they only see during their commute.

I've commuted via various combinations of trains in several different parts of the country over the last 20 years or so and several times I've ended up with people who you see every morning or evening whilst waiting for / catching the same train who you end up talking too.

For example with my current commute I don't see anyone in the morning but in the evening I normally do the train leg of my commute with another guy from my company (works in a completely different department so I never come across him in work) and another from a completely different company elsewhere on the business park. This is the only time I see them. On a previous commute I'd always have a chat with someone I'd see every morning on the train from Basingstoke to Reading and with a different couple of people on the way back in the afternoon.
 
memyselfandi said:
One thing I would ask is whilst we nearly all like to retreat into our own little worlds on public transport does anybody else have people they talk to who they only see during their commute.

I've commuted via various combinations of trains in several different parts of the country over the last 20 years or so and several times I've ended up with people who you see every morning or evening whilst waiting for / catching the same train who you end up talking too.

For example with my current commute I don't see anyone in the morning but in the evening I normally do the train leg of my commute with another guy from my company (works in a completely different department so I never come across him in work) and another from a completely different company elsewhere on the business park. This is the only time I see them. On a previous commute I'd always have a chat with someone I'd see every morning on the train from Basingstoke to Reading and with a different couple of people on the way back in the afternoon.
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I did when I had a job in a small village and we all finished at the same time.

Now, in London, nobody I work with even lives in the same place as me - let alone getting the same train at the same time.
 
memyselfandi said:
One thing I would ask is whilst we nearly all like to retreat into our own little worlds on public transport does anybody else have people they talk to who they only see during their commute.

I've commuted via various combinations of trains in several different parts of the country over the last 20 years or so and several times I've ended up with people who you see every morning or evening whilst waiting for / catching the same train who you end up talking too.

For example with my current commute I don't see anyone in the morning but in the evening I normally do the train leg of my commute with another guy from my company (works in a completely different department so I never come across him in work) and another from a completely different company elsewhere on the business park. This is the only time I see them. On a previous commute I'd always have a chat with someone I'd see every morning on the train from Basingstoke to Reading and with a different couple of people on the way back in the afternoon.
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Sure, if I'm on holiday is chat to my passengers, but at 7am on a winter's morning and I only had 5 hours sleep?

Leave me be and I'll get some shut eye.
 
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