Train Etiquette

I've learned a thing or two about train etiquette since I've been taking the train about six times a month for the past six months. I'm a commuter on the VIA passenger service, so my perspective is a little more sophisticated perhaps, than someone who is just an occasional traveller.

I was mightily annoyer nearly the entire ride home yesterday morning with a passenger who was sitting behind me. She decided to share far too much information with the women sitting across from her. For example, I know that she's on her third degree (you'd think someone was giving her the third degree), and she's in teacher's college right now; she once took a class in which she had to learn all of the states and their capitals, as well as countries and capitals (or maybe she knows someone who was teaching that class); her boyfriend's name is Tom and he's a swell guy; they've had quite a lot of long distance in their relationship due to travel and school, but they talk all the time (like that morning and the night before); she was quite ill this fall and had to be hospitalized for a while; when she got out, Tom re-arranged his schedule so he could be in Ottawa with her and he had to follow her around for two weeks because she had some balance problem which could have caused her to topple over at any moment; she has a brother who is two years younger than her, who was put into a private school as a teenager because their parents were worried about his behaviour; said brother went through three post-sec programs in two years and couldn't decide on one until finally Dad refused to pay anymore; now Brother is working for Dad and he's turned himself around - all of the customer's love him because he's a real charmer and no one has a bad word to say about him; she struggled with the decision whether to pay for a cab to the train station in the morning, but she decided to in the end and she tipped the cabbie (who spent the entire time on the phone) because he was really friendly; she lives somewhere within a $12 cab ride of the train station in a first floor apartment with a few steps walk-up; I also know her opinions on the Children's Aid Society, manners and a general parental failure to teach them these days (as if, we get blamed for everything), friendliness, cleanliness and godliness. Okay, I don't know if she talked about godliness - I slept half the time. But the rest of it is true.

It's not that I care if she shares all sorts of personal and pointless information with strangers. It's really more that she did it in a carrying voice for all to hear. Talking in the train requires something akin to a stage whisper. Loud talking on the train is probably the biggest breach of etiquette. Forget the safety cards in the seats - print the rules of etiquette.