I Am a Commuter

IT is with considerable misgiving that I write upon commuting. My consecutive record as a commuter runs over a period of only ten years, and any commuter will tell you that no one can write authoritatively on the subject who boasts a record of less than thirty years. Therefore what I have to say about it must be regarded as immature and lacking in ripe judgment.

My only defense is that I come of a long line of commuters on both sides of the family and that from my earliest days I have commuted spasmodically.

Many of the sagas of my family dealt with the accommodation as it was in the eighties. There was the story of Jim Sutter, the town drunkard, who met a sad end when he went to sleep on the track shortly before the accommodation came along. Most people thought it a good riddance, but somebody suggested to Jim’s brother, Harry, that he had a good claim for damages against the railroad. So Harry put on his Sunday clothes, took a chew of tobacco to quiet his nerves, and set out for the city to visit Mr. Thompson, the general superintendent, whom he knew and who, it so happened, knew both the deceased and his brother Harry. When Harry entered the office the general superintendent greeted him and inquired his business.

‘Mr. Thompson,’ he said timidly, ‘I come to settle about my brother Jim.’

‘That’s all right, Harry,’ replied Mr. Thompson, cordially. ‘There won’t be any charge for that.’

What impresses me most about commuting is the very intimate and personal relationship that exists at all times between the president of the road and the humblest commuter. For example, a short time ago I read in the newspaper that the president of the road I patronize had undergone an operation for gallstones. This was no surprise to me, though he lives in a distant city and I have never seen him. It was no surprise, for I knew he had gallstones. I knew it because nobody but a man with gallstones could have been so vindictive about upsetting my household twice a year by changing the schedule. How does he discover that we have a laundress who comes to us on Thursday and remains to cook dinner, so that if he moves the 7.45 p. M. up to 7.15 p. M. he can force us either to wash our own dishes or to have our dinner at 6 p. M.? Why is it that when you or the members of your family become dependent upon a train he immediately orders it taken off? I tell you these vindictive railroad presidents have spies planted who are familiar with the most intimate details of your life and shift the schedule accordingly. There is no other way of accounting for the inconvenience they give you and their gift for hitting you in your most vulnerable spot.

The commuter soon learns to appreciate the famous dictum that ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’ He also realizes that ‘in union there is strength.’ The natural outcome of this is the Commuters’ Association. You have to face it sooner or later. The purpose of the Commuters’ Association is to detect the railroad in the nefarious act of taking a train off the schedule and then to get up a respectable delegation to go before the Public Service Commission and howl.

Then there is the matter of a choice of commutation tickets. The trips and prices are so nicely regulated that it is virtually impossible to determine which will be the cheapest in the long run. Don’t try to tell a commuter that the railroad company has not worked out the rates with malice aforethought.

The picture I have painted thus far has, no doubt, been depressing. Yet it must be said in justice that a commuter’s lot is not an altogether unhappy one. In contrast to the bus or street-car rider, he is always sure of finding a seat, and after fifteen or twenty years he virtually has one reserved for him. We regular commuters would not dare occupy a seat that we have associated with the same man over a long period of years, and we should be shocked if any other regular commuter were to usurp ours. There is a very fine tradition behind the reserved seat. The principle is sustained by unwritten law and by that greatest of guarantees — a gentleman’s agreement. The only danger lies in some newcomer, some mere freshman in the ranks, taking a seat through ignorance of the custom. Once a commuter is associated with a seat he may enjoy it to his heart’s content, smoking and reading his newspaper in as great comfort as he could find in an exclusive club.

A second privilege that belongs to a commuter is his right to leave anything behind him in the car — from a one-dollar pipe to his wife — with certain assurance of getting it back. In fact, on our line some raincoats and umbrellas have been left behind so frequently that they become known to the train crews like old familiar friends.

In the course of years of practice, commuters develop a very fine technique in the business of commuting. A most important feature of this is catching the train. Great distinction goes to the man who can time himself so that he reaches the platform just as the train is ready to receive him. He must do so without running or even lengthening his stride. If he crosses the track immediately in front of the oncoming train, he becomes as distinguished as a champion matador in Spain. But once let him run behind the train and swing on to the last platform as she pulls out and he immediately loses caste. I have long harbored a secret ambition to be the first passenger on a train as it stands in the terminal. To accomplish that end I have reached the station as much as half an hour in advance of its departure. I have even mounted the steps as the train was backing in. But I have never yet been better than second or third.

I have spoken of the natural antagonism that exists between the railroad and the commuter. Nothing, in my opinion, could better illustrate the intensity of the recent depression than the change that was made apparent in this respect. As the lion and the lamb, facing a common terror, have been said to lie down together, so the commuter and the railroad, facing a common economic crisis, for the time being buried their differences. Our Commuters’ Association virtually ceased to function; we permitted trains to be removed without protest — even trains that in former times we insisted upon being retained on the bare prospect that they might be useful once or twice a year.

Not many days ago I heard a fellow commuter in no uncertain terms damning the raiload for a rotten board on the platform. It put me in a distinctly reminiscent mood. It was so like old times. It gave me hope that before long somebody would again be asking me to pay my dues to the Commuters’ Association and sending me a notice to attend a meeting and handing me a petition to sign and calling upon me to join a delegation to go before the Public Service Commission to demand more frequent trains on our line. When that time comes, I, as a commuter of ten years’ experience, shall need no further proof that the country is back to normal.