Behaviour on trains

[Ghoulestofmums]

Inspired by the boiled egg gate thread, I understand that eating smelly food on trains and putting on make up on trains are both no no’s for MNers. (I rarely use trains so have no strong opinions).

However, I have an annual lengthy train trip and wonder how to avoid annoying fellow passengers, I have to leave home by 5.00am to drive to the station. Catch train at 6.00am, arrive 9.30 am, straight to all day meeting, catch train home at 4.30,pm (usually arriving back at station with 10 minutes maximum to spare) and arrive home around 8.15. Lunch is a working lunch with a few titchy sandwiches laid on,

Now, pre 5.00am I can’t face breakfast, or putting on make up. So the only chance I have to put on make up is on the train (colleagues waiting for me at destination station). And the only chance of food is a Danish etc from the station.

On the way back, after hardly any lunch (and it’s a working lunch anyway) I don’t have time to eat at the station but can only buy a baguette etc to eat on the train. By the time I get home at 8.15pm ish, I’m far too tired to eat.

Basically, then, my only down time is the train. What should I do?

It doesn't bother me seeing people applying make up on the train but I can see why it bothers others. It's the concept of not doing anything to draw attention to yourself/make a spectacle of yourself. By doing something unusual and normally unseen in public, you're forcing people to look at you, no matter how hard they try not to because it's normally something done privately. It's a very personal activity. I've seen some bloody fantastic transformations though!

For me, the most annoying thing is noise. Why people can't hold a conversation in a hushed tone mystifies me. By shouting or talking loudly, you're forcing the rest of the carriage to take part and again, making a spectacle of yourself. Only last week, I sat next to a young woman of about twenty and from London to the Midlands, she spoke on the phone to someone about how her brother had tried to kill himself, how her mother had thrown him out of the house and how she'd disposed of the knife and how she's dealt with the wounds before he was taken to A&E. All very sad, granted but hardly a conversation for a packed commuter train during rush hour.

I just think people have no regard for others these days and I fully realise that that statement makes me sound about a hundred years old.

Put your make up on the train if you like - just don't jog anyone with your elbow, cover anyone with powder or spray them with anything.

Eating - where I live you are not allowed to eat hot food on the train. I've seen people thrown off for shovelling Chinese noodles down - but it's not the smell that bothered me but the slurping and noise that they make. If you eat: don't make a flipping noise. Same if you drink: coffee etc is fine, but don't flipping slurp it (especially not that "it's too hot but I'm going to drink it anyway" slurp. That is The Worst)

However: the "i'm getting up early already I'm not getting up any earlier" is one thing that makes me cross. Tough. It's once a year. Suck it up. (I used to commute weekly and had to get up at 4am for the Monday train, then work a full day - my team used to just about manage to stagger in before 9am and then moan when i told them to get up earlier if they were late "I already get up at 8.... waaahhhh". Tough tits. We're adults and do what we have to do

What?! How does putting make up on affect other passengers? If someone is offended by someone else applying make up on the train then they really need to calm down and stop being petty.

Totally agree about performance phone calls - I don't want to know but there's no way to opt out as my brain can't escape from your ongoing verbal diarrhoea long enough to concentrate on my book or just my own thoughts. It's a form of torture.

Sometimes it's posturing: once on a central London bus the whole lower deck were being treated to something like the above only for the culprit's phone to ring !! They were talking to themselves. FOR EFFECT. I shit you not. No one knew where to look.

Not bothered about food unless very stinky or chewing with mouth wide open right next to me but that would be the same anywhere.

Make-up is a non-issue, just not comparable. You don't have to watch (?) and I've never seen anyone sprinkle makeup on anyone else 🤷🏻‍♀️. In fact at certain hours of the morning I could probably do with a sprinkle.

Do what you want OP, who makes up the rules about good train behaviour. No one is queen of the railways.