h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I commute to work on the train.

Every morning I stand at about the same point on the platform ready to board the train. The train is not particularly busy and there are perhaps 2-3 dozen people spread along the platform waiting to board.

If other people are there before me, I allow them onto the train first.

I get quite irritated when someone moves from another part of the platform (or, worse, the waiting room) when the train is pulling in and walks past me to be nearer to the train door and then gets on the train before me.

Am I being unreasonable? It's not a queue exactly, but there is a quasi-queueing system in place, surely?

I'm also a train commuter. I've memorised the exact spot on the platform at which the front doors of car number 6 stop at, and I stand there. This is a carriage which for some reason unknown to me, a group of schoolchildren choose to congregate in. They all leave at my stop, so the carriage always has free seats.

Some other commuters have got wise to this too, but they haven't quite memorised the right spot to stand at. They know that I know, though, so they all follow me like the Pied Piper when I arrive on the platform.

Just because a queue isn't in a neat straight line, or coreled in, by a channel deliminated by rope barrier, doesn't mean that it isn't a queue. It is everyones duty, arriving, in such a non deliminated queue, to memorise their exact position, in the queue, and take their arrival to the front of the queue, in turn, as appropiate Anyone who doesn't is just asking for it

I always like those who don't understand how it works at all; those who try to get on when people are getting off... Especially if I'm the one getting off, as I don't make way for them, until they act appropiately and let me alight Ignorant s There is an excellent guide entry on queuing and on queue etikat, including a non liniar non-deliminated so-called 'disorganised', or 'irregular' queue.

My experience tends to be:
1.) Arrive at the station in plenty of time, usually 10-15 minutes early, grab a Metro and read it at Platform 3 where the doors are.
2.) When the train is 4 minutes late, anticipate the announcement about the change to Platform 2, and stroll over there.
3.) An announcement is made, and lots of panicking passengers push past.

One reason why I prefer to cycle, though I do miss reading the Metro on the platform and a book on the train.

<BB<

Like Icy, I've worked out the spots to stand at. If there's anyone within, say, a metre or two who was there when I arrived, I'd let them scoot in front. What annoys me far more is people who try to pile on before letting people off. Don't they realise they are slowing themselves down too, if they turn the process into a rugby scrum?

I thought this was going to be a question about that sort of scrum. Or about the quest to find an unbooked seat.

I stride down the platform when the train comes in (not at my home station, where I have a fixed spot, but if I'm changing at New Street to an unfamiliar train). However, I do this along the back of the platform, and I queue neatly when I get to a door I like the look of (or my carriage door if I've got a reservation). Standing on the platform is definitely queuing and people who wait in the waiting room should be last on the train (unless they're frail and elderly).

Down to Nodnol tomorrow. With London Midland. Wish me luck.

Mol

Oh GOD! Do NOT get me started on this topic.

Nope, too late...

I used to use the Moscow Metro, right? Extraordinarily packed tube. Something like the number of passengers on the Underground and the Subway combined.

But Russians form up either side of the doors when they open, leaving plenty of space for those getting off. And when you are o the train, everybody does this rearrangement so that the people getting off are next to the door.

Travelling by train/ tube during the rush hour in the UK drives me nuts! Move aWAY from the centre of the doors on the outside, and for goodness sake if you are not getting off, do not stand on the inside like a big lemon, forcing everybody who is to climb over you.

You mean Brits need lessons on how to queue? I guess they aren't as good at it as they insist they are.

Some of us still know how to queue and follow queue protocol
The frail and elderly, and the disabled, should join teh queue like everyone else.... Its equality... and I won't let someone let me on first, if they're clearly ahead, just cause I@m carrying me white stick (well, not unless its really cold, or wet, or raining, or my legs feel like they're about to walk off to a diiffernt universe because I@m sto hungover/drunk/high/wahtever or I'm just feeling lazy)

As I always, this site is wonderful for reassurance that I am not the only one! Thank you all!

On a side note, I find that some of the worst offenders are the schoolchildren who catch my train. However, new timetable means they are all getting the earlier train - ha! Also has the benefit that I avoid overhearing their conversations. Particularly the younger pupils at the boys school are always so desperate to speak that they talk over each other really loudly.

Ha well, been in road rage in car queues, bus queues, train queues yada yada.

Everbody needs to slow down and relax more, much less stressful. I'm glad I cycle now though since I'm completely hopeless at following my own advice there

I'm going to disagree. I dont think that people waiting for a train on the platform is a queue, or that there should be an order for boarding the train. Sometimes I arrive in plenty of time to get a tea, maybe I'll stay in the tea room if it's particuarly cold, and sometimes I skid onto the train with seconds to spare.

I usually, but not always, get a seat, though this morning I did have to wave under the nose of a woman who had headphones in and seemed oblivious to the fact that people were standing while she had her bag on an empty seat.

Sometimes I know which carriage I'm after (the front one), sometimes I'll just stand near the middle of the platform. I don't know that I've ever tried to work out exactly where the doors will be, though.

I hope nobody minds me joining this thead although it is labeled as UK centric.

I would never have dreamed of seeing waiting people at a train station as a queue. Once a train stops you sart running to the doors because who is first at the door is first to get in, unless people sneak in from the side - yes, I do that, too. And usually everyone trys to get through the same doors anyhow so running to one end of the platform usually means that you get a seat before most people found out that there won't be a seat if they board the train at the same place as 30 other people.

Where I live trains never stop at the same place, so knowing where the doors will be is impossible, they also use all kinds of different wagons which I think also have different lengths.

There is a regular train trip I do, back to my Dad's, and I have to be relaly really really careful, not to end up on the St Trinians train; yes, that is what the staff at the station call it... Severl schools in that town, both for younger and older kids, sort of but not quite private, and they've a fairly big catchment area, and a lot* of them comutte into school on teh train... and comute home too, and if I calculate the times wrong I can end up on the St Trinians run
My MP3 player and headphones arn't quite loud enough to drown out their noise Mind, I'm sure 'we' were just as bad and as loud and as abnoxious to 'adults*1' when 'we' were kids...

*1, I use teh term 'adult' in respect of myself, in the broadest, possibly incorrect, sense..

>Where I live trains never stop at the same place,<

Yes I was wondering about this precision of train stopping. Depends on the station I suppose but I once got on a stopping train in the New Forest and one particular station stood out as such a bod forsaken station that even the driver forgot it existed for a while and had to stop, then reverse the train back into it! No precision stopping mechanism there

Was it Beaulieu Road by any chance?

<BB<

No, not that route.

Sway maybe or New Milton or Hinton Admiral I think...long time ago. But on the route between Weymouth and Southampton as that's what I would have been doing.

Sounds like Southampton Central to me

I commute five days a week and I find the manners of some other train passengers appalling.

Yes, I was here before you. No, coming at the door on a path that basically hugs the side of the train will not make me let you on first. No, not even if you have heavy luggage and for everyone's sake why not try waiting for everyone else to get on first because you'll only annoy people as you lug your hyper-dense object onto the train and then try to re-write the laws of physics to get it on the rack with the three other hyper-dense objects which are already there.

Getting off the train is sometimes no better. One time I opened the door and stepped onto the platform and found myself hemmed in by people who I had to ASK to move so I could get through, yet I was the one being tutted at for holding people up.

Station etiquette is severely lacking too, I find. Keep to the LEFT on the bloody stairs and don't attempt to cut me up at the top because I will just keep going and if you end up falling down them that's you're own fault. And if you've just heavy luggage or a pushchair the lifts are over THERE. And most of all make sure you've got your bloody ticket out BEFORE you get to the barrier instead of fumbling for it while holding everyone else up and if I'm queuing patiently at the barrier and you push in I WILL make my displeasure known and glaring at me won't make you any less wrong.

*your