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 😮

Read a book.

I never leave the house without an actual book in my bag.

Papers, books, magazines or puzzle books.

Mags. Books, looked out window and imagined who lived in houses we passed

On long journeys we would either take a picnic or more usually, go to the restaurant car. The meals were wonderful, full English breakfasts, three course lunch or dinner, afternoon tea on some routes like the Brighton Belle.

Private Eye for shorter journeys. Books for long distance. When regularly commuting, I'd have a separate bus/train book on the go.

We all used to flex our broadsheets, fold down to the crossword and sit gnawing a pen for an hour at the tough clues. Those were the days

I can just imagine that crisp, but somehow smooth, crackle as a broadsheet is sort of whipped and flipped into a manageable size. Nobody does it on my trains these days. Ahhhh... it took such flair! Now I still force myself to leave phone/social media alone on trains and stick to papers and books. In my mind, trains are sacred reading places, having always had no other option for so long. I know, also, that while I can snatch a moment to flick through Instagram or balk at AIBU, at various points in the day, I need a little while to sink back into my book, so a train is sometimes my only chance that day or week.

Im sure there were far more sleeping through their stops in those days

Saw this just yesterday

I always had a book in my bag.
Oh and smoke.

I was pretty good at broadsheet origami - not sure I could do it now!

We used to go to and from school on the train. We did homework and played our musical instruments. Only as an adult can I get anywhere near to understanding how annoying we must have been!

I got all my book recommendations by seeing what other people were reading on my commute and I’d read loads.
You can’t see what books everyone’s reading on their e-readers so I don’t know what’s hot and what’s not anymore.

Read books, magazines, newspapers- I must’ve spent a fair chunk of my pay on papers and magazines. Hardly ever buy them now. I also knitted. I made a pair of socks over a 3 week period commuting on the district line whilst listening to my walkman.
I remember the queues at the Waterloo payphones when there were delays.

I had a mercury card and those phone were always free.

Dreamed stared at the country side looked in people's gardens.

I was a student in the 90's and used trains all the time. I daydreamed, looked out the window, did my work and sometimes got chatting to other passengers.

Short journeys, looked outside. Longer journeys, read books, magazines and looked outside. Actually, still do these. My dm knitted (and still does).

The guardian cryptic crossword kept me busy for hours! Just reading too. Same now as I can never get good service

I saw a guy waiting at a bus stop the other day reading a book. Crazy how long it's been

I used to read the newspaper or a book. Do the same now on my phone

Read, listen to music, knit. Nothing much has changed, except now I use audiobooks instead of reading them. I have a waterproof, wipeable bag specially for knitting on long journeys.

I still mainly read an actual book, or snooze if its a long journey

I used to treat myself to a glossy magazine, read whichever book I had on the go, look out of the window and listen to my cassette Walkman. Used to travel the length of the country with large case and grip. The cases didn't have wheels on back in the olden days! (1980s )

I used to commute into London in the 1990s. Mostly I used to read - always had a book on the go, usually picked because I'd seen a fellow commuter reading it. I used to get into the same carriage on the same train and got chatting to a girl who waited on the same spot. Turned out our boyfriends worked together - she and I are great friends 25 years on, the boyfriends both long gone.