So last week I took the train and the tram. What I experienced and how it felt?
A personal report in COVID19 times.
The tram ride was actually very unspectacular.
I used one of those standing places with backrest. No special incidents. I will never get used to the squeaking noise in the curves the few times I ride along, worse than a damaged disc brake on my bike.
There is more to report about the train ride, however.
The outward journey.
Waiting at the platform. Some of the folks around demonstratively don’t wear a mask, and they don’t shy away from almost touching one. I put myself with my bike a little bit aside and try to practice nonchalance.
The now free fare train finally arrives and stops quite far behind. Crowds of people start moving in the direction of the wagons. Instinctively I think: “If I take the rear car, it will probably be the least crowded.”
Since I know you’re not allowed to ride a bike on the platform, I use my bike as a scooter and slide along. Immediately, a security guy gives me a warning. I walk a few steps and now I have a deserted platform in front of me. The temptation is too great: I push my scooter again and glide a few meters. Whistle sound behind me. I stop the scooter on the spot to not get into trouble.
Finally I reach the last car of the train, a bicycle compartment and get on. Less than half a minute later, another person gets on. An older woman with a walker. COVID19 risk group. Completely out of breath. She had the same idea as me. I can’t help but give her a half-hidden compliment for her remarkable sprint: “They’re really making you run here.” She nods, still gasping for breath. For the next five minutes.
I unpack my reading, the American “Wired”, and am busy. A report on the latest research in astronaut food and the pitfalls of eating in zero gravity.
Quiz question: what is worse than having to go to a station toilet? Exactly, using the train’s on-board toilet in the middle of a pandemic, and the door won’t close! This is what happened to the poor devil who went to the bike compartment and tried in vain to close the toilet door. I do not let my mixture of horror and regret for that guy show, and I continue to read. I feel I am already halfway to the international space station. To put it very crudely: shitting in space can’t be worse.
Arrival.
Two hours later, the return journey is due.
I enter the platform without any electronic displays. Nothing is displayed on the train either. We are, you guessed it, no longer in the capital. Without a mobile phone with me, I simply ask the train driver whose door is currently open if he is going in my desired direction. He is. I get into the empty compartment directly behind the locomotive, sit down and unpack my reading.
Less than five minutes later, a conductor comes. I’m a little surprised: what does he want from me now? Tickets are no longer required, public transport in Luxembourg has been free for passengers since March 2020 (but not without costs for the operators). He tells me that I’m sitting on a reserved seat. And he asks me to change the seat. Already standing, I ask him if I may take another seat in the same — empty — wagon, or if I have to change the wagon right away. He replies, mumbling behind his mask, that he had just explained it to me. A bit shocked about the handling of non-paying passengers, I go and sit down a few rows of seats away from him. In front of me is a group of four seats, empty like the rest of the car, except for the conductor.
A few stops further on, a young couple boards. They sit down in the group of four directly in front of my row. I don’t let myself be disturbed at first. She’s wearing a mask, so is he. When he bends over to her — only about one meter away from my face — I notice that he is not wearing the mask correctly: his nose is explicitly not covered. This feels indecent in several respects. Without mask duty they would have probably already fallen over each other kissing. Since I had no interest in social psychological field observations on the topic “The eroticizing potential of compulsory masks for pubescent young people”, and since I just want to keep the corona virus off my neck, I now have the choice: “Fight or flight?”
I’m not in the mood for any kind of discussion, so I get up and go sit down on a free seat a few meters away. To be equidistant to another passenger, I land on a seat directly opposite the train toilet. Déjà vu. Hopefully nobody uses it now, otherwise I’ll get coins thrown at me, I just think. I could of course offer to hold the door closed against a small fee, in case it doesn’t work like the one earlier on.
The train arrives at destination, everybody gets off the train.
Conclusion of this experiment: for the fact that the trains now feel almost deserted, I would have expected a little less territoriality. To err is human. Did I feel uncomfortable? Apart from the mask, which one forgets at some point, it’s actually okay. I never really felt like having a picnic on the floor of any train. In the meantime, it’s best to not even think about it. If I would take the train again: of course, but motivation to take it more often than before is limited.
