Look My Way

My journey into work takes me to Central for a change of trains. There's nothing new in that, or exciting - in fact, we stream from the train like mice discovered in a wheat silo, flowing down the stairs together to change platforms. A big hello to all those who join me in such a plague-like rush.

But, before we get off the train, there's a jockeying for position to be near the doors - just in case the last people to get off are accidentally left trapped inside when the train pulls out again. I've seen people getting out before the stop preceding Central. That's a little extreme. The majority, however, start to rise when they "feel" the station approaching, or they see enough other people moving, or they fear that the queue to get out the door will trap them in their seats - or when they finally wake up.

Who knows what triggers the rush?

On one day, I'd managed to be on the seat near the stairs, with no-one beside me, & I thought I'd instigate one such panic, so I got up & went down to the vestibule. I instantly turned my attention to the doors - the object of affection that everyone else seemed fascinated with. There were ten-plus people with nothing better to do than wish for those doors to open, staring longingly & slack-jawed at the metal. They weren't yet pressed against the doors, clawing to escape, but their focus was held to the dark crack down the centre; they were awaiting their deliverance.

I shuddered & turned away, looking out the other side - through the windows of the now-abandoned & unloved doors that people were moving away from. I travel that line every morning, & I suddenly realised that at some point in the recent past, they'd torn down a building that had been standing just to the side of the tracks for longer than I've been alive.

The world had changed as I passed by, & I had been focusing my attention on how to be the first down the stairs when the train stops. Take a moment. What are you missing when your daily routine is indifferentiable from a zombie state?

Personal Space

I know I haven't had the chance to talk about people who drive - the commuters who use their vessels of steel to protect themselves from the outside world & plough on with their lives in the sure knowledge that nothing can touch them (apart from a truck). That sort of discussion doesn't belong in the blog on public transport.

However, what I have noticed is that some people don't need their compensatory machinery to feel as if they're in their own little world. A smaller device - the mobile phone - seems to do the same job quite nicely.

I'm sure you've seen people oblivious to their surrounds walking down the street, sometimes staring at the screen as they text away, walking into people, poles, etc. You may have even heard the odd expletive as someone spends so much time on the phone that they forget where they intended to get off the train.

Worse than this is when people talk on the phone as if they were in their bedroom.

I'm not talking about the odd salacious snippet, or even something that you try hard to remember so that you can send it in to MX for other people to enjoy, but whole conversations that you either wish you hadn't heard, or else think should never be public.

My example came this morning when a young lady several seats in front of me (facing me due to the seat configuration) was explaining to someone - quite possibly her credit card company - how her newly acquired card had been stolen & the thief had left a trail of happy consuming through half of Sydney in a forty-eight hour spending spree. She detailed how she couldn't work out how the card escaped her purse without help, how the police had shown little interest, where the purchases were made, etc.

As sad as the story was, it got me thinking - the first thing that a credit card company usually does on such a phone call is to ask for all sorts of identification - card number, name, address, password, etc. Anyone sitting nearby could down take such details quite easily - for that matter, you could record the conversation if you were prepared enough. It boggles the mind what this technology - the mobile device that almost everyone carries - can do in addition to what those around you are using it for: making phone calls.

So, this young lady was telling her story, effectively, to the whole carriage as well as the person in the call centre. I know I can be trusted, but I'm not so sure that all of those present & feigning sleep or disinterest are the fine upstanding commuter citizens that one would normally give one's personal details to ... unless, of course, they were on the other end of the connection, & you couldn't see their face.

The Bleatings of Sheep

No day would be complete without the journey home's perusal of MX - the free newspaper for commuters. This recharges me with its puzzle page, amuses me with its reader contributions, & occasionally even informs me somewhere else - if only for the way that people think or need to be communicated at when there is no loyalty associated with the readership.

The "Vent Your Spleen" section is about third on my list of activities. We are talking about an audience of public transport sufferers, so a lot of the entries are around those who are a little anti-social. The rest of the entries are spiteful little wars of words that become humorous only after you realise how far they must have gone from the original topic.

As much as I love the Vents, it goes back to that old adage - "Everyone talks about the weather ..." - which I try to live by. Having said that, I try to do something about the things that annoy me on public transport.
Here is my list of fun things to do:

• hold back in the vestibule of the train as you approach your station, then slip through the little old ladies who had front position so that you can run down the stairs & away quickly - never get caught behind them, because their first instinct when getting off the train is to ask someone where they are
• when you're the only one getting off, make sure you position yourself so that you walk into anyone trying to board the train ahead of anyone else, preferably waiting to see which way they'll head & walking straight into them; then glare at them
• carry an umbrella with a pointy end on a rainy day, & fling its tip forward as you exit the train
• always excuse yourself loudly before clambering over someone sitting at the aisle
• likewise before kicking someone sitting on the stairs
• if someone is standing just inside the door but not getting off, take them with you
• if a school child leaves their bag on the floor in the vestibule, kick it, trip over it, drag it with you out the door
• offer to help any mother with a stroller by pushing through those who wouldn't help
• if a pregnant or elderly or limping person is standing, offer your seat quickest if you have the window
• wearing heavy boots & running down stairs two at a time gets people out of your way

If you see something that annoys you, always think of what it is that annoys you & how you would do something less annoying if you could - then do that. Soon, there's nothing left to be annoyed at, because that emotion comes from a sense of powerlessness, which is something a commuter should never feel.

Red Rattlers

Very few of my readers - which is a small percentage of nothing, I fear - would know what a "red rattler" was.

When I were a lad ... seriously, I'm talking about my teenage years ... there were trains that my father (who never caught trains) would refer to as "red rattlers". These were the trains left over from his youth. They had windows that, if they opened at all, slid down from the top (like school rooms of the day), had seats that were unlikely to be reversible - if the seat back was still attached, & doors that didn't close. I kid you not. I can even remember a friend of mine, as we pulled out of the station, jumping off such a train with the cry "I don't want this train!". He'd forgotten that he was meant to meet his mother to get a haircut after school. He got a broken ankle & cuts & grazes up & down his body instead. The police rang me that afternoon to ascertain that he hadn't been pushed.

One more thing - these trains were red. They also rattled terribly.

I was thinking of these trains fondly when I turned up at the station to discover that my train had windows that open. There aren't many left, but there are still a few suburban trains that not only precede the time of air conditioning, but are so old that nobody bothered to retrofit them & then glue the windows closed. These trains were almost definitely around in the 1980s or '90s. I would have thought of them as "new". Their trendy one-piece seats would have seemed almost space-age in their construction (but not vandal proof, alas).

I sat in this train, listening to my guard stumbling through the list of stops (without his electronic helper), & wondered how I might look upon those trains that we currently see as the latest technology, in another twenty years.

I mean, a train is a train - they're still two stories with vestibules (red rattlers were single level), three seats on one side, two on the other. That's a Sydney train blue-print from way back. A cryogenically-frozen blind person from the 90s could find their way onto & through a modern carriage. Actually, I think that's where the drivers come from ...

We are creatures of habit. Our rail service is a creature of habit. For all the changes of department name or bureaucracy, government, financial situation, network expansion, or technology, a train is still a tin tube of commuters rattling along two tracks; & that's the way we like it.

Opals before Swine

I know I've tried to be positive in this blog, relating the little stories that happen on my train journeys, but I got so annoyed & felt so ripped off that this usually up-beat little black duck had to vent.

I'd been discussing the new Opal card on the Sydney transport system, which now covers (as we speak) ferries, trains within & to some places out of Sydney, & soon all buses. The chap I was talking to was an early adopter who not only knew more than the brochure, but also gave me some tips on how to beat the system & make the weekly cost less.

It was while I was still prevaricating over buying the card & sacrificing the advantages of my current scheme of weekly tickets that Easter came around, butting against Anzac Day. This meant a four-day weekend followed by a three-day one, or, if you like, a four-day week followed by a three-day one (beautifully symmetric).

I vaguely recalled seeing a sign saying something like "weekly tickets purchased between ... will get an extra day!!!!!" (probably not that much punctuation in the original), & it never occurred to me to read the fine print. It wasn't until I checked my ticket (which had been bought on a Monday) on the holiday Monday of Easter, that I realised that my extra day was a holiday - that is, there was only one day being given away (that I couldn't use), but there were two days that could have been given - & there was still no mention of Anzac Day.

Now I couldn't recall getting an extra day for a public holiday in quite some time. But that always used to be the case, & at some point they stopped doing it. I can remember my weekly tickets slowly rotating through the week as holidays pushed them another day along. No longer, it appears.
When did commuters start being treated like morons?

Going back to reading the fine print of the Opal card, there was nothing there to convince me to switch from my current system:

• "take eight journeys, get the rest of the week free" - just like a weekly ticket
• "travel off peak & save" - just like a return ticket
• "travel for very little cost on Sunday" - just like anyone else
• "quick stop-overs in the journey are free" - that is, they don't count in your eight trips
• "the default trip cost if you don't tap is assumed to be at the maximum rate" - WTF!

So, what do I get out of the card, after all that? I don't have to play with the ticket machine every week ... but I won't loan it out to my teenager on the weekend, in fear of losing it (whereas a weekly is already 'spent' by then, as far as I'm concerned).
It's thicker than a piece of cardboard - easier to find, harder to carry - & more-or-less needs to be carried all of the time.

Worse, I know why transport systems the world over love the card - tracking the usage more cleanly than tickets can (actual commuters/tax-payers, rather than numbers of journeys), & less litter. This does nothing for me. I have also seen no projected savings leading to lower prices - unlikely in the short term, because of the all-out cost of introducing the system in the first place.

After all that, I am now headed over to the website to sign up. At the very least, it means progress, & I'd never want to stand in the way of progress in a transport system - they move slowly enough already.