An Irishman’s Diary on the perils of commuting by train

I went to see the doctor recently with a persistent cough. It had been niggling at me for a while, especially in the morning, and I needed the peace of mind that it wasn’t anything sinister. The doctor stuck a pipe up my nose that then went down the back of my throat and the camera at the end told him, and me, that nothing was very wrong. He told me I could be suffering from something called globus sensation, gave me a prescription and told me to avoid sugary foods and beer, particularly last thing at night. Working on that.

What he didn’t tell me was that an irritable man on the 8.24 Enterprise train from Drogheda to Dublin on a particular Tuesday morning would ask me to “stop coughing in that manner”.

I couldn’t believe it. A fellow passenger sitting opposite me was annoyed with the way I was clearing my throat, seemingly over and over again, and decided to “tackle” me in the most public way possible.

Spluttering

“Are you seriously taking issue with the way I’m coughing on

public transport?” I asked. “Absolutely”, he responded, “it gets wearing after a while”, before shutting his eyes and falling back asleep. Now, I hadn’t been spluttering in his face or anything close to that and it was clear that other passengers in the vicinity got the whiff of a serious row. I was furious and in my mind’s eye I was hurling serious personal insults at this man.

But I managed to keep my cool and rise above it. I woke him up to continue the conversation. “I’ve been to the doctor with this cough, you know”, I added, as fellow passengers glanced over but made sure not to get involved in an argument between two strangers on a morning commuter train. He wasn’t interested in apologising or re-engaging.

I went back to my Facebook and reading the newspaper on my phone, my cool having been kept. Just about, mind you. On leaving the train in Connolly Station, I couldn’t help getting the last word. “I hope the rest of your day goes better than the last half an hour”, I said. “No need to be nasty”, he replied.

I worked out recently that over the last 15 years of commuting between Drogheda, Co Louth, and Dublin city centre, I have spent the equivalent of almost an entire year of my life travelling on a train. Over 15 years, allowing for holidays, weekends, bank holidays and sick days (the odd cough, and the like), I have spent what is a staggering 7,000 hours sitting or standing on a train carriage simply to get to and from the office.

Commuting puts you in contact with all sorts of people, some of them a little strange.

A while back, a fellow passenger emailed my boss to take issue with the contents of a private email I had sent to a colleague from my iPad. She had read the email over my shoulder, taken a particular remark out of context and became so outraged with it she decided to contact The Irish Times.

In fairness, commuting can drive you half crazy at times and I’ve been crazy myself on occasion. Like the day I stood up and gave my seat up to a lady who I assumed was pregnant but turned out only to be overweight. “Why are you giving up your seat?” she inquired, as I realised she was not in fact with child. I was so embarrassed, I got off at the next stop and waited an hour for the next train.

Another time I refused to show a member of Irish Rail staff my ticket. It was the summer of 2001 and it is still etched in the mind of Ireland’s long-suffering train commuters. It was the year the NBRU hung up their leather satchels for days on end and we were left to fend for ourselves in order to get to and from the office. We squashed into carriages, got home late, walked to get buses, spent our own money on driving and generally suffered. On the first day back to normal service on leaving Tara Street train station I was asked for my ticket (there were no electronic barriers back then). “I’m on strike”, I said, knowing how crazy I sounded. “Sorry, I need to see your ticket”, he said. “No, I’m on strike. I’m not showing you” and I walked off. He didn’t pursue me. I wouldn’t have pursued me.

It hasn’t been all bad. I have been asked for a date on the train, made friends, had brilliant conversations, spent time writing (this article), reading, working, listening to the radio, listening to music and using the time to get some of my best thinking done.

If you are a commuter you will share the love/hate relationship with your mode of transport. Train users, particularly, are a breed apart. If you are one, you know that you like to sit on the same seat every day, to the point where you get annoyed if somebody is sitting in “your seat”. You know that “leaves on the line” are nobody’s fault, that it takes train drivers about three weeks after cold weather first hits to adjust the heating system, that it’s not okay to open the window without asking first.

You know that you don’t generally talk to fellow passengers even though you see them every day (in the same seat). The exception to this is when you pass them on a street and you nod in recognition of the fact that they are a fellow train passenger.

You probably spend more time in their company than you do with your own family.