Mind the doors
Sometimes it’s actually a mistake to get on the train; you’d be better off waiting for another. Alright, that doesn’t often arise with overground trains, though I have known cases where the seasoned commuter can tell that what seems to be a mysteriously overloaded four-carriage 18.32 is actually the severely delayed 18.04, and that there is a very good chance that once everyone has packed onto the present train a nearly-empty eight-carriage 18.32 will follow at 18.39, making it well worth waiting. When there’s some problem (a strike, a derailment, a cosmic train shortage) moreover, the correct principle is to take whatever means of transport is available now and moving, even if it’s not going exactly where you want to go.
On the Tube, though, deciding whether you really want to get on this one is an integral part of any rush hour. I remember the days when the indicators merely showed the destination of the next train, and assessing whether there might be another, less crowded one soon was something of a black art, a matter of rules of thumb and psychic divination. If you’d waited a long time, for example, there was a good chance that there would be two or even three trains in quick succession close behind – although if you deliberately missed one after waiting a long time and then found you had to wait a long time again because that one was the only train operating today, you would of course be reduced to a tooth-grinding state of gnashing frustration.
Now, though, it’s all scientific. The indicator gives timings in minutes for the next three trains (if three are within range). The minutes used here are a bit elastic, but you can tell fairly confidently that if the next train is one, or perhaps two minutes away, it could well be worth waiting: if it’s five or more, you’d better get on whatever is accessible, by any means available, even if you have to start pulling women and children who are already on the train back out. It can never be just a matter of arithmetic, of course. It also depends how urgently you want to get there, and how strongly you object to a really prolonged, close-up look at someone else’s unwashed impetigo.
I had a colleague once who took a principled stand: he would not get on his train unless there was a seat available. I picture him, a lonely figure on platform 13, arriving at 7.30 and waiting, waiting, until 10.05. “I keep telling him,” another colleague said, “You’re not hurting British Rail, mate. They’re not standing at the window saying ‘Ooh, he’s missed his train deliberately again; we’d really better put two more carriages on tomorrow.”
As always, people are influenced by the herd instinct: when one person gives up trying to get on and stands waiting by the open-but-packed doors, most other people turn away, even if they then shove on at a different door. Not always, of course. I became aware of politely suppressed snarling in my neck only the other day and turning slightly glimpsed a grey man with a briefcase, who pushed past with knitted brows. He was right to be annoyed, I realised: I had inadvertently become that most irritating traveller: the person who stands right in front of the doors and doesn’t get on.
Of course, there are always those whose personal pride seems to be invested in displaying how urgent their journey is (there can’t really be that many life-or-death decisions hanging on whether Boggs arrives at 9.02 0r 9.05, can there?). This morning I witnessed a classic case: the Jubilee line train was absolutely full, and in spite of repeated injunctions to use all doors, most people on the platform had decided to wait. A short man with spiky hair and a black pinstripe came marching along, with a look that clearly said we might all be shirkers, but we’d learn that if you wanted to get on in this life, you had to shove. Gently shouldering a startled young woman aside, he marched towards the doors, squaring up to pack in like a rugby forward; but he paused on the threshold to throw a look of triumph back over one shoulder. Then he threw himself smartly into the doors, which had begun closing just in the exact second when he wasn’t looking. When you’ve given the Tube doors a resounding butt with your forehead and trapped your foot briefly in the doors, it’s a bit hard to recapture your cool.
It cheered me up, though.
Traveller A: So have you heard about this collider thing?
OK, so we’re back. We flew back from Perpignan on Sunday (on a plane with propellors – wheee!). It was not very well planned on my part; after the drive back from Southampton we arrived home about nine o’clock, leaving just time to get a pizza before bedtime: and I was due in the office first thing on Monday.
