Train Etiquette 101:

Train Etiquette Tip #1- Hygiene

Prior to stepping on the train, make sure your hygiene is in check. No one wants to smell booze sweating out your pours or the peppers and onions you cooked for dinner last night. Take a shower, brush your teeth, do what ever is necessary to remove foul smells from your body.

Train Etiquette Tip #2- Hygiene (Continued)

Take care of your hygiene before you leave for your trip or morning commute. Shaving, clipping your nails or licking the bleeding cut on your knee are not acceptable on the train. I have to breathe in the air in which your shavings disperse into, walk on the floor your nail clippings fall on and the bleeding knee… please, no one wants to look at that. Ask for a tissue. I’m sure someone has one!

Train Etiquette Tip #3- Give Up Your Seat

I am not saying that men need to give up their seats for the ladies (although, that would be nice), I am saying nothing irritates me more than seeing a pregnant woman, elderly or a disabled person standing while many able bodied people are sitting. To really add fuel to the fire, sit in the designated seat for elderly and/or disabled people. Give up your seat people! It’s just mean to let an older woman on crutches stand on a moving train trying to keep her balance while an able bodied young 20-something sits in the disabled/elderly seat (I witnessed this last week).    

Train Etiquette Tip #4- Children

While children can be the absolute cutest thing, your child screaming is not. Please don’t sit there with your nose buried in the Harpers Bazaar ignoring your screaming kid. Just because you have figured out how to tune out your kid, doesn’t mean the rest of the train has. At least if you are making an effort to sooth your kid, it’s not so annoying.

Train Etiquette Tip #5- Boarding

When boarding a train, stand back and allow the passengers to get off the train first. Don’t try to push yourself through the crowd. This does not secure you a better spot it just makes you look like a jerk.

Train Etiquette Tip #6- Disembarking the Train

If, when disembarking the train you are one of those people that like to hop up as the train is coming to a stop and go running down the aisle you need to know this: If someone stands up and wishes to get out of their seat also, don’t plow them down. Stop and allow them into the aisle too.

Train Etiquette Tip #7- Sleeping

Do not sleep on the train if you are a:

·        Snorer

·        Sleep talker

·        Sleep walker

·        Sleep Snuggler

No one wants to hear you snoring or speaking sweet nothings to no one and by all means, we do not want you snuggling up to us!

Train Etiquette Tip #8- Music

We all love our musical devices. However, keep it at a level that only you can hear. I don’t need to hear “You look better with the lights off” or “Freak on a leash” at 7am.

Train Etiquette Tip #9- TMI (Too Much Info)

We do not need to hear all about your love affairs or how last night so and so hooked up with so and so on the dance floor. Sure the person on the other end of the phone needs to hear this vital information. However, no one on the train needs to hear this over sharing.

Train Etiquette Tip #10- PDA (Public Displays of Affection)

Do not… I repeat- DO NOT start making out on a sardine packed train (or any train for that matter). I do not need to feel like I am seconds away from an unwanted Menage A Trois!