To find phone calls on the train really annoying

[Ninmpy]

Person sat next to me, taking loudly about the most boring and inane stuff. I've got a long way from London to Glasgow and only just started and I want to tell her to stfu.

I miss when mobiles were expensive to call!

TBH the most annoying thing about someone playing Peppa Pig on an iPad (or Candy Crush, or whatever) is that there is absolutely no need for the sounds to be on at all. Anyone who uses a device in public with those sounds turned on is a total Jeremy Hunt, and the person whose idea it was to put sounds on those games in the first place should be hung, drawn and quartered.

There is a bit of science behind this loud talking, its because in general the level of background noise is higher on a train so the person doing the talking will talk louder to compensate. Course the microphone in the phone is just as sensitive but it makes no difference they still talk louder.

And that apart from the iffiy mobile signals too, railway lines spending a lot of time in cuttings so partley underground.

However nothing can be done if the person is a grade A twat in the first instance ;(.

Normal carriage - fine, fair game.

Quiet carriage - you are a twat.

What's funny is they frequently announce that you do not use your phone in the quiet carriage which is a one sided conversation yet people TALK TALK TALK which is double the amount of annoying!

I have stood up before and shouted QUIET CARRIAGE! QUIET CARRIAGE! until some people shut up but in my defence I was quite tired and emotional

Just got home from the local pub garden! At the next table was a family whose voices were so ringing we could hear every word except when the youngest and loudest (student age) said she’d forgotten her purple suitcase with the .., in it” and dropped her voice so we didn’t hear what was in it! So frustrating! Was it coincidence or did it contain the stolen jewellery, dismembered limbs or packets of heroin and she didn’t want the world to,know.

So,if you recognise yourself - you’re off to a campsite in Brockenhurst - please please tell me what was in in the suitcase!

I wish there were individual isolation pods on trains so I could screen everyone else out. The tip tip tapping on laptops drives me nuts even before the inane phone calls start.

French trains have designated areas at the end of carriages for calls,and I was on a train in Germany recently and the ticket inspector told a passenger to go elsewhere with his phone. I like a bit of officialdom sometimes!

^I now always book the quiet carriage - it's a game changer! No phone calls, no chatting, no message beeps, just blissful silence for the whole journey.

What?!? Which route are you travelling on? I've never known quiet coach signs to make any difference at all: people still shout to each other and into their phones.

I actually get more annoyed when I’m in the quiet carriage because everybody just ignores the signs.

Inane calls don't bother me now after the time I was stuck on a train and a man was having a "dirty" phonecall with someone. It was extremely graphic! Luckily it was only a 15 minute journey so I managed to escape!

Fair enough - mine doesn't, for whatever reason. I wonder whether that might be age related, too - I'm in my mid-30s, so not that young, but mobile phone conversations have been something I've been used to in public for my whole adult life (I just looked it up and, horrifyingly, that Dom Joly big phone sketch is now 18 years old, so I was 16). I wonder whether you find it more grating if you see it as a new thing?

I'm 28 and it's definitely the case for me!

OP is not being unreasonable. The odd call to tell someone when you will arrive, or if late, OK. Definitely not giving out any personal information.

^ What?!? Which route are you travelling on? I've never known quiet coach signs to make any difference at all: people still shout to each other and into their phones.

GWR to Paddington. I use it 3-4 times a month and everyone really does behave 😀 There's an occasional knob who doesn't realise it's a quiet one but they soon get told.

I am the annoying person. But my commute is 2hrs each way every day so I use that time to keep in touch with family and friends. Or to chat to my boss in a different time zone.
I totally realize everyone else on the train hates me but I'm not in the UK and do not like the locals so I don't care ;)

It's long way to go for quiet train, but in Japan, no-one speaks on the phone, and everyone's on them. On the shinkansen you can go between carriages if you must. I saw no signs about the phones, so I'm guessing there's huge social pressure.

It doesn't bother me that much unless I'm in bad mood they're being really inane, except when I'm in the quiet carriage. Then I'm RAGING

At least one of the train companies I use say to keep all conversation to a minimum in quiet carriage. Can't remember if it's Cross Country or FGW.

GWR to Paddington. I use it 3-4 times a month and everyone really does behave 😀 There's an occasional knob who doesn't realise it's a quiet one but they soon get told

There're on the TV Monday nights Paddington station!, pity that this subject dose'nt come up. I do believe that some "quiet carriages" have a type of glass that can screen out mobile phone signals as well as heat . FWIW.

I don't travel by train very often so haven't really found it a problem.

I did have a 3 hour train journey to London this week though where the entertainment was a call received by a business woman in the seats across from me - it sounded like a colleague had had to phone her about a(nother) spectacular cock-up that Dave* had made. Jeez she was spitting feathers but trying to keep her cool. I reckon poor Dave is out of a job by now as she was about to email him to ask him to see her the next day.

I can imagine though that if you have to listen to that sort of shit every day it wouldn't be so entertaining.

*not his real name

I don’t think it’s that annoying. A train a place to sit down for a few hours (long distance travel) so it’s a reasonable place to quickly sort admin out or catch up on work, rather than put it off until you get off the train. It’s no different than multiple people on the train having conversations between themselves really.

The most annoying passengers on trains are A. Drunk men who start chanting etc and B. Parents who insist on allowing their children to shriek and squeal for fun (‘is that a yellow car?’ child screams, parents think it’s cute) or insist on games/videos on tablets playing at full volume. Those sorts of sounds can’t be tuned out, headphones or not, as it just cuts through.

@LoveInTokyo @crispysausagerolls

I think it's perfectly reasonable to be annoyed at overly loud conversations, either on the phone or in person. But not at phone calls in general.

While we're on this subject - people who get on treadmills next to (or even worse, either SIDE of me) and then conduct really loud conversations. I'm not saying you shouldn't chat at the gym, but I find it really intrudes on my headspace.

@Caribou58 Thank you! I am so glad it is not just me! Twice in the last few weeks I've had to move treadmills as someone has got on the machine next to me and started (and continued) a really loud conversation. I gave them Paddington bear hard stares but they were oblivious.

What makes me even more angry is there are loads of free treadmills yet they have to come and use the one next to me. Not the 7 other free ones between me and the next gym goer.