Commuting Part 1 - The Train

This installment of 'tales from the train' is about commuting by train. For those that don't know, I commute by train daily from Hamilton Station in central New Jersey to Penn Station in New York City. The actual train time is between 50 and 90 minutes depending whether I get the super express or am forced to take a local. Mostly I try to time things so I can catch an express.

One of the positive things I can say is they have a good schedule between Princeton Junction and Newark Penn Station to deal with the horde of commuters. Normally there are 3-4 expresses running per hour to NYC in the morning and at least 2 per hour when I return in the evening.

OK, fairly boring stuff so far, hardly blog-worthy, hey, is that a term that has been used? I have to believe it has. With 30 million blogs out there I can imagine that not much is original. The thing that caused me to start putting thumbs to buttons on my Treo is that very horde of people on the 6:03 from Penn Station today. Standing room only for a normal train day. Not as bad as it has been when people are standing in the aisles up and down the train but certainly a day when all seats are taken including the ones at the front that face one another. Those are the ones I normally use as they are less claustrophobic than the rows.

Fortunately people get off at Newark and so the train thins out a bit by the long haul between Newark and Princeton Junction. If you are standing after Newark it is a long ride.
I don't seem to encounter that many rude people but there are certainly not many overtly friendly ones either. Mostly neutral is what you can expect. There are interesting stories about the extremes so I will have to chronicle some of those.

One commuting horror story I can recall is when there was a delay on the coldest day this winter. I had my normal face-to-face seat when the twice the normal horde got on at Petticoat Junction (as I call it). A woman insisted on squeezing into the little space next to me and a bout of claustrophobia ensued. I got up and offered my seat to a young woman who was standing and I took a position standing near the door. When we got to Newark I had the bright idea to ride the rest of the way in the vestibule which although enclosed is open to the frigid air. This normal 15-minute leg took about 30 that day as the train crawled along, seeming to laugh at my predicament. I arrived at New York almost frozen and rethinking the whole claustrophobia issue.

And then there was the occasion of sitting next to a show model working the NYC Toy Show. But that, of course, is another story... End of Part 1