Do people really consider it unreasonable to eat on the train?

[MyNewBearTotoro]

Reading another thread in which a poster mentioned eating on the train and I was really surprised by the responses calling her unreasonable/ antisocial for bringing food onto the train and the vitriol she was facing for this alone.

Do people really consider it unreasonable to eat on the train or is this just one of those 'only on Mumsnet' things?

I know it's not pleasant to be stuck next to someone eating smelly food, but equally lots of things are unpleasant on trains - being crammed in close to a stranger, oversized luggage, crying babies, other people's conversations, air-conditioning to high/low etc - but just because some people may find it unpleasant does that automatically make it unreasonable or anti-social?

In an ideal world people would not bring smelly food onto the train, but in an ideal world neither would people bring on crying babies/ noisy children etc but we are human and we need to eat, especially as many people will be making journeys over several hours long. Choices of food are usually limited by either what is available on board the train or what is available from the shops on/ around the station and sometimes hot or fast food is the only option available.

Obviously hot food is permitted on trains, my local train company has buffet carriages which sell hot food (including bacon rolls) and sandwiches (including tuna fish or egg mayo) for people to buy. So I'm not questioning whether it's allowed but I guess I'm curious as to whether people genuinely think it shouldn't be. And, considering it is allowed, are people who do eat on trains genuinely considered anti-social or unreasonable by some?

If I'm on my train on the way home I expect it to smell of sweat, unwashed children, cigarettes, bad breath, dirty heating and train smog! Not McDonald's!

Whilst I don't find the smell of McDonalds particularly appealing surely it is preferable to all of the above?

I think people with bad breath/ BO etc are far more antisocial than those who eat hot food - at least the food smell is only around for as long as it takes to eat the offending article.

I think that maybe uptight control freaks should avoid trains.

I just ate two pork pies on the bus. There was no discernable smell. I could have waited, but I was ravenous, and they were there.

OP - should I have added a to the end of that??

I don't think it's unreasonable in the slightest. It pisses me off if someone pulls out some cheese and onion crisps and starts muching them next to me but thats my own issue and it's not like they're clipping their nails and dropping them all over the seats/floor (I've seen this on a train once and feel it was unreasonable)

I am an expat (now in London) from NYC, where it is quite common for people to eat on the subway/trains/walking down the street. The feeling there is that everyone is so rushed and over-scheduled that eating is often not a priority, but rather a necessity that must be fit in between one destination or meeting and another. I never sensed any judgment of this behaviour, it was so much the norm. Not perfectly civilised, perhaps, but the norm.

Oh, sorry Queenbean!

After so many posters protesting over the smell of the dreaded McDonalds (officially the worst smelling food available it seems) you were just too convincing!

Eau de McDonalds is far preferable to Eau de sweaty feet/ snot

(In fact McDonalds smells could even be considered an air freshener in a train carriage. Maybe Febreze will bring out a variant).

Why do they sell tea, coffee, choc, crisps, food in buffet cars if we're not meant to eat it? Perhaps they should be getting off at the next station to eat the train food, then waiting for another train. I find this thread bizarre, all this revulsion at people just eating. Or even putting make up on. Or painting nails. Everyone's got very angsty about everything, I'm surprised reading newspapers, clearing your throat, even breathing doesn't warrant a thread complaining. I've never known so many people in one place having all these problems with what has happened since trains were invented! Luckily I don't know anyone like this in my everyday life!

Obviously anything smelly is inconsiderate but getting worked about other foods is uptight, it doesn't bother me at all.

Why do they sell tea, coffee, choc, crisps, food in buffet cars if we're not meant to eat it?

They sell condoms in Tesco.

But if you are on a long train journey and you buy a coffee and a cake or a bag of crisps in the buffet car, where are you meant to eat it but at your seat?

Rousette. My point exactly - the stalls that sell these items are on station platforms/buffet cars or inbetween. So you have a choice of eating at station or on the train.

BadLad as well as at Tescos they do sell condoms at stations I think .... Presumably in the gents/women's toilets in those vending machines. Will have to take a peek inside the platform level WH Smith at Clapham Junction to double check if they have condoms and surely some 'got lucky' young lad or woman would purchase condoms as well as a pasty/hot drink to protect pregnancy/STD. You don't have to use the product on the train you know or eat it there....

Rousette I have occasionally shoved a muffin or cake bought at a station into my bag whereby it gets eaten at home/work or messed up inside the bag...

Probably because some miserable gits glare at me if I were to eat it....

ArcheryAnnie you do realise that by eating those pork pies on the train you most likely offended some Muslims or Jewish people!

Ps JOKE in case anyone here has a sense of humour bypass.

Probably not, SuperFly. as I wasn't offering them around!

Thought I might have offended someone by not offering them one...

(My diet: going SO WELL.)

I ate McDonalds on the train today tbf I knew it was only going to be about 20% full I wouldn't have done it on a peak train with people sitting right next to me

It shouldn't be legal to eat a corned beef sandwich on a tube next to a pregnant woman. Bleeuggghhh

Well, lol, seems like I might be offending some people. When we go up to London as a family, it's almost become a tradition that we have a McDonald's treat on the way home, on the train. We would arrive home too late to have dinner, we've already had sandwiches picnic, and it helps to keep them occupied for a fair bit of the journey. We've also had fish and chips on the train returning from Hastings.
I've smelled far worse odors on the train, including sick, poo, and sweat. Coffee reeks too.

This is why I have a chauffeur

Oh god late trains out of London always have tons of tipsy people slobbering over some nasty hot food which stinks

Thank god I'm too old to be out late in London these days !

'Oh god late trains out of London always have tons of tipsy people slobbering over some nasty hot food which stinks

Thank god I'm too old to be out late in London these days !'

And seats that require strangers to touch you. And rude people who try to get in your seat before you are even out of it so they push you onto stranger's laps. Far more offensive than some food.