To ask what people did on trains before mobile devices?!

[doris9034]

I'm returning home from London o the train and literally everyone around me is either watching a film, reading an ebook, gaming, texting, listening to music or on social media which obviously I am as well So want did people do before all this was invented ..... surely they didn't actually talk to each other 😮

I used to sit looking out the window or read a book.

Christ no - commuters never talk to each other! Read an actual book or sleep

I used to read a book, talk to another passenger or just day dream.

No; I don't think they did talk...

Look out of the windows, read a book or think, I think. And sleep.

Books, mags, newspapers, cassette walkman / CD walkman / minidisk player 😁

Got bored!
Thank goodness for mobiles!

I commuted to work by train in the 90s. Newspapers were very popular, books next, walkmans slightly less so, quite a lot of dozing and staring out of the window.

Oh yes - the CD walkman!!! With the over the head foam earphones 😁

newspaper and a cd player for me about 15 years ago

Smoke!

Seriously; read a book or paper, talk or look out of the window

Definitely newspapers.

I read actual books or knit on the train.

The crossword in the Evening Standard

Fish/eel
Meadow/lea
Hat/ beret

Reassuringly the same every night.

Books, magazines, newspapers, puzzle / crossword books and a CD player.

I used to commute into London by train in the early 1990s. I used to read a newspaper in the morning, and have a beer and a smoke in the bar on the way back. I am now more ignorant of current affairs, but much healthier.

So would anyone swap then for now? Would you prefer to do a crossword than play candy crush?!

Never left home without a book.

Studiously avoid eye contact whilst dying of boredom

I still do the crossword. Metro cryptic but if its too hard like today I look at mumsnet

Read a folded up newspaper. I could never work out how people did it! Some sort of amazing origami...

Newspapers. The crossword. A book.

Used to be a pain folding a broadsheet into a shape you could read on a packed train.

My mothr knitted me a willow pattern sweater on her commute to Charing Cross in the early 80s.

Definitely newspapers for me, with a book tucked away in case we were delayed and I finished the paper. Even now if I go anywhere by train I get the e-reader out & ignore social media.

My DSis did an "A" level on the train while commuting (all the studying for it I mean, not the actual exam!), and used to knit really nice clothes as well.

Always books, magazines, people travelling together sometimes played card games.

Strangers did sometimes chat - it could be lovely but was also horrific when you got trapped by somebody boring. I used to do a lot of long train journeys in the 90s and pretty often I’d claim we’d reached my stop so I could escape, then just run into another carriage.

Also spent a lot of time staring out the window.

I think it was a more peaceful time in a lot of ways, I would like it if everybody (me included) used their phones less.

One guy on this train is quite extreme - he has a kind of holder thing that attaches to the seat in front and he has his tablet in it to watch films. Guessing he must make a lot of long boring train journeys.....

And knitting! Oh my word. I used to put on some music then knit whole blankets while rattling up and down the country.