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 😮

Always a book. Always a cigarette. Even in the tube standing over people with ash dangling. Even before the smoking carriage came in , when smoking was common in every carriage. Good god unimaginable now. Spent ages on train journeys just looking out of the window daydreaming/thinking. Did a lot of work on trains (paper based) but as they’ve become far more packed I can’t do that (even on tablets) due to confidentiality issues.

Look out the window
Read
Listen to a walkman!

I did get to know several people on my daily commute too and say with them for many years.

Oh yes, Walkmans! And paperbacks. The good old days.

I remember one random journey when I was visiting a friend at uni, I could only find a seat in the smoking carriage (remember them?!). By the end of the two hour journey I’d had several beers off two lads I’d been chatting to who were new to the army and were on leave for the first time! They gave me the rest of their beer too as they declared they’d had enough (they’d been on the train for hours!). So I met my friend a bit tipsy saying I got free beer!

I remember watching the patterns made by the rain drops as they slipped down the windows.

But before mobiles, people made arrangements to meet and kept to them. They made timely decisions.

And like a previous poster, I got all my recommendations for books by seeing what other people were reading.

Ooh, and a Walkman with cassettes.

You still see a lot of people reading books on the tube.

kalidasa I was in New York recently and was surprised how many people were reading actual books there too, I expected it to be kindles and phones but no, proper books!

I used to read a book. If I forgot it, or was too tired to read, I'd look down at other commuters' shoes and try to guess what their face looked like from their shoes. Shoes can tell you a lot quite often.

This

I remember when the middle-to-late Harry Potters came out, there would be loads of people on the train all reading it the next week. So many adults reading a children's book - it really was unheard of at the time. And when the first LoTR film came out, lots were reading the book.

And Snake. Far too much bloody Snake and Pairs played on those Nokias everyone had - 3210s?

I have MS and can no longer hold a paper book for excessive periods of time. I also get motion sickness.
Kindles and pressure bands have revolutionised train travel for me.
Or I stare out the window!

I still get a paper for the morning and evening commute and do the puzzles. My daily commute in the morning also has a regulars 'club'. We actually talk to each other! I also sometimes have a snooze. Don't tend to use my mobile device much on the train.

Who remembers smoking on the tube/train?

I used to do college work on the train. Or read books / newspaper

Pomball - a few of us in thread have remembered. I remember really clearly standing in the tube smoking (never sitting, as if that was not right) and stubbing butt out on floor right by people’s feet etc. The wooden slatted floor ! Just unimaginable !

CD player and headphones
Book
And for long journeys home from university, a copy of Bizarre magazine out on the table to keep noisy unwelcome kids away from me - parents would see it and keep their families moving down the carriage away from me!

Read (still do), listen to music, sleep. Talk to who you were with.

I remember there was a smoking carriage!!

When I wasn't reading, or doing Puzzler Magazine, I would look out of the window, but then be distracted by how the bad lighting/window itself made my skin look ultra horrible in the reflection. Especially if it was getting dark.

I still read a book or the Metro, just like I did back in the '90s! I don't have the internet on my phone (I know!) and love that time I get to just read, not that I travel much by Tube or train anymore.

People did use to talk to others they were travelling with, even if they didn't talk to strangers. Nowadays, people are so engrossed in their phones they ignore the people they're with. It's so sad!!!!