Public Transport and Why I love It.

I have a fascination for public transport. I am enthralled by the microcosms of society that populate our transport systems.

I am not a lover of crowds, so I don’t enjoy the hustle and bustle. However, I enjoy the sitting and watching. The watching and waiting.

Watching all of these people, with different stories, different lives, different missions, different objectives, different reasons, for making their way to or from somewhere.

Meeting new people. Leaving old people. Making friends. Parting with relatives. Travelling for work, for pleasure, for relaxation, or for a purpose.

It is most fascinating.

And it doesn’t matter if this is at the railway station, at the bus stop, at the airport or on the Underground. If you stop to think of the myriads of thoughts and deeds, wishes and aspirations, that these people are thinking and doing, it is intriguing, captivating and riveting. Each story different to the next, but interlinked and entwined, brought together by the need to move from one place to another.

Let me give you a for instance;

Sit on the platform at most railway stations and watch the opposite platform. It is like watching a play. The scene is set, our passengers merely players in this production. The sweeping form of a Virgin Trains Pendolino service, draws to halt, this is the curtain closing at the end of act one. What scenes await us as the Euston to Birmingham service pulls out on time? Gently, almost silently drawing away from the platform to reveal our stage. The scene is set. The platform is the same, but yet the story is different. Our players have changed. We have a new cast.

We see young mothers wrestling with buggy and child.

Tourists, with laden luggage trying to decipher signs.

Business men and women striding forth, intent on making their next connection, or getting to the office on time. They have made this journey countless times; they know which carriage to sit in, which exit to take, the quickest route, to meet their transport objective.

People with bicycles. Giggling schoolgirls huddling together. Young behooded passengers, with iPods in. More technically minded passengers with iPads out.

It is a constantly changing scene. A scene that changes with every passing train. With every different passenger, playing out their part, in their own little play.

All you need to do is just watch.

The play is very different on the London Underground. You don’t get much chance to sit and watch. With the Underground you need to join in. It is an experimental play, with audience participation. You are carried along with the action, in this improvised, balletic, operatic, fast paced performance.

However, it is still that ever changing diorama of people and places. Each with a different story to tell. Sometime the same story as yesterday. For some, the same story for years on end. Those world weary work passengers trudging their way to and from the city.

It is fascinating to journey around the Tube, I could wax lyrical for hours about the history of the London Underground, it is a totally different world, all of its own down there. Since its inception with the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in 1863, right up to the present day.

It is a massive, ever involving, ever improving transport system, loved by many, loathed by more. Regardless of which, it manages to shuffle millions of passengers around nearly 300 miles of track and 270 stations. (Interesting point, about 55% of the Underground, is actually above ground).

Onto another form of transport now, one much closer to me, but not necessarily my heart; the bus.

I have to take the bus fairly regularly to get to and from work. I like the bus, but, I refer you to a point I made earlier, I do not like crowds. And there is nothing worse than a crowded bus. That is why I like to take an early bus and escape that torturous adventure that is travelling with students and the hoi-polloi. (Excuse the snobbery, it is not intended).

School children and students are the worst! Noisy, excitable, ignorant, rude and God forbid, they put their feet up on the seats!

I try to avoid journeys at school times.

Instead, I prefer to share my journey quietly, with a little music provided by an mp3 player and be joined by those work weary early travellers, heading off to their place of work, silently, enjoying the calm before the storm. The nurse, with uniform awkwardly worn under her coat. The factory worker, a copy of the Metro under his arm, tatty rucksack slung over his shoulder and a roll up ready, perched precariously behind his ear. These are the people I like to share my journey with, quiet individuals, intent on staying awake whilst travelling the few miles of their journey. Obeying that unwritten rule of public transportation; of not making eye contact, unless of course, God forbid, you need to sit next to each other!

If that’s the case then the bus is getting too busy! And the panic sets in. Will I be able to reach the bell before my stop? Will there be easy, unimpeded access to the exit, to alight safely? Will I have to say “excuse me” to get off? See? I don’t like crowds!

For all my small misgivings of sharing transport with others, I much prefer it to driving in my car. For one, at the end of the journey you don’t have to find somewhere safe to leave your vehicle, the driver will do that. There is no worry about parking. Is there any? Do I have any change? No, just hop on that bus, train or tube and let the public transport system do the rest for you.

Enjoy our public transport systems, use them, don’t abuse them. If more people used public transport and it became more integrated, it would be a marvellous spectacle to behold.

An interesting, ever changing, romantic, busy, constantly fluctuating landscape that is on your doorstep, should you care to use it.