taking the commuter lane
life on the train
A note that there won’t be a Sunday substack next week because I’ll be in Lisbon for a few days. Scheduled programming to resume the following week.
Commuting is... actually somewhat underrated. For many, it’s the monotonous activity of travelling to work and back over and over again. And most of the time it’s unpleasant; like being constantly stuck in traffic or squished next to guy who hasn’t familiarised himself with the concept of deodorant. But, sometimes, it can be a break - a moment to ourselves - an empty pocket of time where we can’t do anything but sit and read, or listen, or stare out the window for hours.
For the past two weeks I’ve lived life in the commuter lane for work. I've travelled back and forth, twice a day, for an hour an half each way across London. From south to east to west via the City Thameslink and then the District line - running from one side of London Blackfriars station and basically falling down the cascade of stairs that lead to the tube. For a city that has been practically built around the tube line, if you take one step too far south, tube lines are swapped for main trains that seem to have more breakdown days than working ones.
Londoners will notoriously ask about your commute, how it was and where you live. After two weeks, I can now tell them that I'm (only just) starting to get the hang of it.
I know now that there are twice as many trains that run to Wimbledon and the Circle line than there are trains to Ealing Broadway or Richmond. I know that every 15 minutes, from Blackfriars, there is a train that will go towards Streatham and it will take me 23 minutes to get there. After a few days of trial and error, I’ve now navigated through many confusing platform changes, and finally figured out which end of the platform to wait on to be closer to the exit when I disembark - a very satisfying feeling to those in the know.
The train journey offers a far different experience to driving. It’s a chore, but there’s this unique rhythm and flow of a busy trek that you don’t get sitting alone in a car, hitting head on traffic with angry drivers shaking fists at you or pedestrians glaring at you because you drove onto the cross walk (I blame the traffic lights).
On the train, you see the very brief life and personalities of others living in London - backpackers curled up catching extra sleep on their way to Gatwick or Heathrow; dishevelled school boys coming back from a football game; the birth of new fashion trends with zebra leather pants, fur coats, and giant tote bags with the words “hope world” written in large, cursive font. On one occasion, I spied an old man dressed head to toe in beige. On another day, there was an eccentric American with an orange mullet (yes, an actual mullet) and a double-layered faux coat checking himself out in the train window for the entire 20 minute train journey, completely oblivious to the passengers around him.
These weeks of commuting have been somewhat of respite from my usual everyday life. You see, if you take the train at the right moment after rush hour, you find yourself with your pick of seats and a full view out of the windows to see the city skyscrapers, people’s busy gardens and rooftop patios. With spring just around the corner, I’ve watched golden sunsets as the sun dipped below the horizon, the sky washed in an primary colours.
Trains are a vortex of the weird and ugly but, sometimes, even the beautiful. You see people being people, living their lives the way they do - and that's something you would never see anywhere else. We operate within our own circles, our own communities, with our heads down, eyes closed, and brains numb from a hard day's work. Those boundaries cease to exist on the tube and, in a way, it’s kind of cool; no place is better to see London's peculiar character on full display.
Great writing - I loved this insight into something that could seem quite mundane (the commute!) :)