Given that the exact same question is the current top post but for driving instead of transit, I feel this question was needed.
My answer: I saw some guys hooking up a Raclette Grill to the outlet in an otherwise empty German intercity rail waggon. They had it unpacked in one of these 4 person seats with a small table. No idea if that could work or if draws too much power from the board net. I just headed on to the next waggon.
Clipping their fingernails
Nails flew all over the train
Someone today had a balaclava on with a bandanna tied around the forehead and sunglasses on. It is summer here.
My favourite was the guy who asked me if he could borrow my phone tomorrow to record his wedding to me. Ha.
In New York some man decided to hold the whole car hostage to some lengthy preaching and finally I told him he was boring and to shut up.
I was reading a book on the train. A guy had the nerve to come up to me and ask me about the book I was reading.
I have peeked at book covers as I’m always curious. One day someone was reading a book called The Arranged Marriage. The plot was hilarious when I googled it.
One thing I noticed when I first moved to Japan:
When you buy a new book (they don’t do this at used book stores), they wrap it in paper. Kind of like we did with our textbooks with paper bags back when I was a kid in school in the US. But they use nicer paper.
This means that when you take your book out, nobody can see what it is. Unless you remove the paper.
That’s interesting. I wonder why?
When you buy products that are deemed sensitive, such as condoms or tampons or hemorrhoid cream or whatever it may be, they also put that in a paper bag instead of the regular bag so that no one can see what it is.
Of course, I found this to be counterproductive because that means you know that person is carrying something “sensitive”.
Maybe with books, that’s why they wrap all of them?
Saw someone poop off the red line train in chicago. Impressive considering he did it in the brief time the doors were open.
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I remember that time when a girl I have never seen before in my life just randomly hugged me. It was fine, and she was nice, I was just so perplexed that I couldn’t speak for like 10 minutes, and by the time I realized what just happened, she was already gone. Sad. I miss her.
She was gone. And so was your wallet. And your phone.
actually I think she was just high on drugs.
And you know what? It was worth it.
Best I can do is three-fiddy.
Not my story but my dad’s. He was in London for work and was using the public transit. I don’t know if it’s like this anywhere else but uk buses throw you around a lot. So a group of American tourists got on, with their typical “having a conversation with a stranger” behaviour, something unacceptable in the uk (/hj). The bus starts and the Americans just go flying and the entire bus of brits are just laughing at them.
Probably meth or heroin. People peeing is fairly common.
Complaining about someone else smelling like a specific food associated with their skin color.
Dude on the train runs a successful business selling plain white socks. See him hustling nearly every day.
How much a pair?
I was taking the train to work and there was this homeless dude sitting there quietly scooping chocolate powder over his head.
Just using the little plastic scoop that comes in the can. Scoop, scoop, scoop.
He wasn’t hurting anyone, so I called it in to the transit authority when I got to my stop. On the one hand, I didn’t want anyone seeing a bunch of brown powder thinking we got anthraxed, at the same time, I didn’t want to be late for work. ;)
“Yeah, there’s a guy on the Westbound train quietly covering himself in chocolate powder.”
“What kind of chocolate powder?”
“. . . I dunno, Nestlé Quik? Does it matter?”
I love that they asked what kind.
The person might have thought chocolate was the color not the food.
Might have wondered if it was something that was going to melt.
Or they had a hankering for some Bosco.
I did not expect the sheer amount of posts from Americans about mentally ill people or drug users. I taught this would get more vibes, like people moving weird furniture in trams, or people in weird costumes, or stuff like that.
I’m not sure how it is in the larger cities, but a lot of the US is car centric. Since a lot of people with cars drive, it means that you see a higher percentage of people who can’t afford cars in public transportation. That leads to more sketchy stuff happening on public transports, which leads to more people who have the option avoiding it.
My father from the greater New York area still refuses to ride our local light rail here in Seattle because he doesn’t understand that it’s actually a really low key experience, with clean, safe, fairly quiet cars (for the most part), and relatively efficient service at low prices and all that. He thinks it’s all like the New York Subway or NJ Transit.
He’s going on that light rail next time he’s here.
I have been the doing thd Moving by bus. Not even by tram. With two changes. I won’t do it again.
high speed train. a scrawny dude in a tracksuit asks someone when the train will stop. next station in 40 minutes, someone tells him. (there are only five stops and all in large cities) this reassures him for a while.
30 minutes to the city. dude stands up and asks when will the train stop. the same someone tells him that in half an hour, but this time he doesn’t chill out. he wants to get out, RIGHT NOW. dude gets increasingly more agitated and hovers around train door. he found a hammer somewhere and tried to break open glass in that door, but it’s reinforced so it doesn’t fall apart. at that point someone alerted train staff. he wants to get out, right now, and won’t through that hole. train got stopped shortly after, everyone in that car was moved out to others. other than that dude, that is, now without hammer, repeating I WANNA GET OUT
some of staff tries to pacify him, but it doesn’t work. border guard and some other uniformed officer, both on leave, tackle him and hold until railway security arrive. it took six of them to take that tracksuit dude out to ambulance. (he got to leave train) motherfucker caused 4h of delay for this train and many delays downstream
40 minutes, someone tells him. (there are only five stops and all in large cities)
I want to live where the fast passenger train takes me to the next large city 150km away like it’s easy. I could totally get used to riding an hour to get to the hot springs; it’d be a great ‘down’ weekend.
there are some tradeoffs
that train used to have peak speed of about 150km/h on that route maybe it’s a bit faster by now. these five stops are in three cities, and there’s 250km-ish distance between them. (and all built for EU money) by that 30 minute mark it started slowing down and was something like 60km away from city
Take some big rips from a bong while driving.
People just pissing on the floor in NYC/Boston subways. Not really that unusual.
Never seen someone piss in a tram/subway in Stuttgart and we have an annual beer festival (the Stuttgarter Wasen) Here.
Not public transport, but a street parade on London. I saw a woman squat down, pull her thong to the side under her skirt, shit on the street, let go of the thong and continue walking all in about five seconds.
I once had a guy walk into the subway, sit down, loudly declare he’d sneak into a military base, steal a tank and kill us all, then rant for a while about specific ways to kill his fellow passengers, including some very specific grenade action.
Then he sat there in silence for a couple of minutes, quietly turned towards the too-horrified-to-change-seats nerdy guy to his left and politely ask him if he had a lighter for his cigarrette.
It was a morning train, most people just kept trying to nap.
