🚀 go-pugleaf

"James Robinson" <wascana@212.com> wrote in message 
news:4196C2C8.9F603DB5@212.com...
> Jack May wrote:
>> The train was coming from the Mexican border going to downtown through 
>> what
>> I think is a poor part of the city.   Poverty may explain part of the 
>> highly
>> depressing mood on the train.
>
> So you base your opinion about all train travel by that one single
> experience? I have commuted by train in four different cities in North
> America, plus short periods while on assignment in other countries, and
> my experiences are totally different from yours.  There are often groups
> of commuters who get together to play cards, discuss politics, or plain
> socialize.  That is the reality, not your somber view of the world.

Ditto; I've ridden various rail systems in ten different cities on three 
continents and have seen roughly the same behavior on all of them: people 
travelling alone usually either read, listen to radios/CDs, or zone out 
entirely, and people travelling in groups socialize just like they would in 
a car.  Singles who are more extroverted may join into nearby groups' 
discussions, but by and large people exhibit the same behavior as if they 
were travelling in POVs.

My personal experience is that the assertion in the subject line is false, 
but I'm not exactly an extroverted person so I figure it's an issue of 
sample size (i.e. one).  I usually read on the train to/from work and just 
zone out other times, though if needed I do help others figure out how to 
get where they're going or where to get off.

I occasionally find someone interesting to talk to on the train, but never 
anyone with enough in common to bother exchanging contact info.  As Tyler 
Durden says in _Fight Club_, they're "single-serving friends".

S

-- 
Stephen Sprunk         "God does not play dice."  --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723         "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS        dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking