This column first ran in the April 2007 issue of The
American Spectator. Click here
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YOU CAN LEARN A LOT about people on trains. I spend a significant
portion of my waking hours on them, either going into Manhattan on
commuter rail (the MTA’s Metro North) or to Boston via Amtrak.
On the commuter trains, I’ve been impressed by how quiet and
considerate most passengers are. In the mornings, they read
newspapers, work on laptops, or sleep. Surprisingly, the evening
trains are almost as quiet. A cell phone offender occasionally
interrupts the tranquility, but the disruptions are brief.
On the long-distance Amtrak trains, things are more complex.
Traveling over much longer distances, passengers converse more
audibly and often. Fortunately, the Amtrak business-class train,
the Acela, has a designated quiet car in which passengers are
required to maintain a “library-type atmosphere,” refraining from
loud conversation or cell phone use. For introverts with a passion
for silence, it has to be the greatest commuting invention since
literacy. I choose the quiet car whenever I ride the Acela, but
things don’t always work out as planned.
A good portion of my quiet car journeys are marred by the
presence of interlopers — passengers who plan to talk their way
home, and should have seated themselves in one of the other cars.
They do this even though they are told when entering: “You are in
the Quiet Car. There are no cell phones or loud conversations in
the Quiet Car.” Their flouting of such a clear mandate indicates, I
think, what they must be like to work with.
I’m always struck by the anger their behavior instills in me.
One secret to whatever serenity I have been able to achieve is that
I have taught myself to expect a baseline level of chaos and
brutishness from my daily interactions with the world. This allows
me to maintain an even demeanor while also allowing for happy
surprises. But in the quiet car, it is as if an earlier self is
awakened, and I’m back to having expectations of people.
Often another passenger makes a citizen’s arrest and reminds the
offender that he is in the quiet car. After initial hesitation, I
have joined this informal militia. Sometimes the conductor
disciplines the offender before we need to, but usually the masses
must rise up before the sovereign will take action.
Whenever I see people boarding the quiet car in pairs or groups,
I know trouble is ahead. Two or more people rarely travel together
without conversing. At this point in my Acela experience, I am
almost ready to intercept them on the platform before they board
and invade one of the few sanctuaries left for Americans who
treasure silence.
But even passion for silence can go too far. On a recent trip,
one without a single offender, a rumpled and exhausted-looking man
became irritated with the woman across from him working on a
laptop. He was trying to sleep, he said, and urged her to “type
more quietly.” Sounds of “loud” typing are not proscribed on the
quiet car, needless to say, especially as most typing now, done on
the soft keypads of laptops, is white noise at worst. The poor
woman was probably wondering why she was being harassed for doing
exactly what the quiet car requests-shutting her mouth and minding
her business. Apparently this man’s baseline expectations of the
world ruled out not only chaos and brutishness, but also the
slightest tapping. On the quiet car, to borrow from one of Gilda
Radner’s characters, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another.
All of which makes me wonder why the commuter train, with no
mandates, seems to achieve relative silence with minimal effort,
while the quiet car, with a very specific mandate, is a kingdom in
constant threat of a coup. No doubt the libertarians would have
explanations.
But probably the best explanation is that for as long as there
are humans, and there are signs that say “Quiet Car,” quiet will be
the most difficult thing to attain.
The passenger who wanted the woman to type more quietly was
eventually successful; she was so wearied by his objections that
she switched to working in longhand. Her adversary wasted no time
falling asleep — and began to snore.
