Given that the exact same question is the current top post but for driving instead of transit, I feel this question was needed.
My answer: I saw some guys hooking up a Raclette Grill to the outlet in an otherwise empty German intercity rail waggon. They had it unpacked in one of these 4 person seats with a small table. No idea if that could work or if draws too much power from the board net. I just headed on to the next waggon.
Once I was working at a train station on a nice, sunny afternoon, and there was a fella on the platform with a sharpened bit of PVC just waving it about, threatening people. I did as I was supposed to, stayed in the booking office, told security and the train guards, etc, but I was telling people not to go down to the platform because there was a fella waving a sharpened bit of PVC about, and they were saying “oh don’t be daft”, “oh I can’t miss this train”, and so on. I for one would let someone off if they were late because a fella was waving a sharpened bit of PVC about at the train station, but everyone who lived around the station was an hard knock or something.
Once I was working at a different station a bit further out in the sticks, and I was watching the CCTV as the train on the down platform was letting out. I saw someone walk into the car park, duck down between two cars, and walk away in different clothes. Bit odd, I thought, but fine, they’re not causing trouble. Then a man came to the window and he was apoplectic: “some fella’s just got off there and now he’s got a dress on!” So I said yeah mate, I’ve just seen that on the CCTV. This man stayed there for at least a few minutes repeatedly complaining to me that this other fella had got off the train and changed into a dress. I found it weirder that he was so upset about it, honestly.
Once I was on the way home from work on Orangeman’s Day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelfth) and of course the train was rammed. I was sort of looking around, surveying the scene, and this bloke at the arse-end of the carriage suddenly piped up: “fuck the pope! Wahehey!” which I found a bit bemusing, but it’d of course been a dogshite day at work so I didn’t engage any further.
I’ve probably got hundreds of these anecdotes if I could jog my memory a bit. I had a bit of a talent for straddling the line of acceptability when writing the reports to security, which got sent to every booking office, so I ended up with a reputation and the nickname Mad Bob.
Since its beginning, the Twelfth has been accompanied by violence between Ulster Protestants and Catholics, especially during times of political tension.
A beautiful celebration of heritage.
My dude, I haven’t had this much fun in an accent since Ideal was on BBC.
Oh, and Johnny Vegas is from the neighbouring borough in the county I’m from, so quite apt.
I was reading a book on the train. A guy had the nerve to come up to me and ask me about the book I was reading.
I have peeked at book covers as I’m always curious. One day someone was reading a book called The Arranged Marriage. The plot was hilarious when I googled it.
One thing I noticed when I first moved to Japan:
When you buy a new book (they don’t do this at used book stores), they wrap it in paper. Kind of like we did with our textbooks with paper bags back when I was a kid in school in the US. But they use nicer paper.
This means that when you take your book out, nobody can see what it is. Unless you remove the paper.
That’s interesting. I wonder why?
When you buy products that are deemed sensitive, such as condoms or tampons or hemorrhoid cream or whatever it may be, they also put that in a paper bag instead of the regular bag so that no one can see what it is.
Of course, I found this to be counterproductive because that means you know that person is carrying something “sensitive”.
Maybe with books, that’s why they wrap all of them?
People smoking crack in the back of the light rail in Denver.
People just pissing on the floor in NYC/Boston subways. Not really that unusual.
Not public transport, but a street parade on London. I saw a woman squat down, pull her thong to the side under her skirt, shit on the street, let go of the thong and continue walking all in about five seconds.
Never seen someone piss in a tram/subway in Stuttgart and we have an annual beer festival (the Stuttgarter Wasen) Here.
I once had a guy walk into the subway, sit down, loudly declare he’d sneak into a military base, steal a tank and kill us all, then rant for a while about specific ways to kill his fellow passengers, including some very specific grenade action.
Then he sat there in silence for a couple of minutes, quietly turned towards the too-horrified-to-change-seats nerdy guy to his left and politely ask him if he had a lighter for his cigarrette.
It was a morning train, most people just kept trying to nap.
In the late 80s I ended up on a bus from North Minneapolis to South Minneapolis at around 9pm after a school play.
With me were my sister and several of our friends.
I’ll never know if this was in any way an out of the ordinary ride for the time and place. For context, we are all 13-15 years old, all white kids.
- A middle-aged black man holding a very small suitcase gets on and walks to the very back of the bus, sitting next to one of my sisters friends. Out of his jacket he pulls a few red roses and hands them to her.
He then begins to flirt with her, angering other passengers and causing the bus driver to scream at him and kick him off.
-
A fight breaks out in the front of the bus. Everyone, including the driver and the couple fighting, are laughing. Then one stumbles into the driver and they get kicked off.
-
A drunk man comes and sits next to me and my friend Nick. Nick and I are chatting about a game; probably Warhammer Fantasy
The man asks Nick for a favor.
“What?”
“Teach me your language.”
“What??”
“Teach me Russian.”
“I don’t know Russian!”
“Teach me anyway.”
That’s it. Of all of those I’m now sure the drunk guy was just deliberately fucking with us. But we also all made it home safely. Just a little window into 80s Minneapolis night life.
Ah yes, the ‘80s were a time of adolescence for big cities. New York especially. Fucking graffiti EVERYWHERE. It’s SO much better now, it’s ridiculous. Public transport is also quite a lot cleaner in general. From the late ‘90s until around 2010 I rode subways all the time for work during various times of day, and it was really not bad at all.
I remember on our bus ride to school we passed an old store that had, spray painted on the side, “Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.”
Months went by and I’d ponder that a bit when we passed it, until someone updated the old quote.
“Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they doo-doo.”
I remember that time when a girl I have never seen before in my life just randomly hugged me. It was fine, and she was nice, I was just so perplexed that I couldn’t speak for like 10 minutes, and by the time I realized what just happened, she was already gone. Sad. I miss her.
She was gone. And so was your wallet. And your phone.
actually I think she was just high on drugs.
And you know what? It was worth it.
Best I can do is three-fiddy.
Complaining about someone else smelling like a specific food associated with their skin color.
Lol your raclette experience reminded me when we once hooked up an electric cettle on a swiss alpine train to make an alcoholic drink called „fröschli“. It worked great but it also uses a lot less power. :D
Pretty mild but some guy with a box wine was harassing me the whole time he was on a coach bus. During a rest stop the driver saw me and asked if he was bothering me and I said yes. He said I could’ve reported him sooner and he’ll deal with it. Never saw box wine guy ever again.
Also, on a separate trip, dude got on and immediately took his shoes off and stunk up the whole bus. Legit forgot what regular air smells like.
Saw someone poop off the red line train in chicago. Impressive considering he did it in the brief time the doors were open.
As shocking as it was to see, it’s far less detrimental to my mental health than the existence of a highway and the omnipresence of cars.
There are night busses in my city, and there are loads of wild stories but maybe my favorite is this wholesome one:
So friends were returning from pub with guitars (some jam night) and didn’t want to stop. Get to the bus and started playing again, few stops another guy with guitar gets on, joins them… So the trip went like all the people singing, players hops on and of on their stops and everyone have a good time returning from pubs.
When we did something like that on few hour long train ride some German girls really liked it, they didn’t understand a word but they clapped after each song.
That sounds like other people would probably find it either delightful or obnoxious with little in between.
Wholesome one this time.
I played a club sport in college. Nothing fancy and I was a fine but not top-of-the-roster player. Several of us rode the city bus to practice every day.
There was often a woman on the same bus as us. She obviously had some mental and physical challenges. She would chat with other passengers at times, and eventually figured out many of us were teammates. She started getting into it, asking us who was the best player and if we were going to win “the big game”. (There was no “big game” ever upcoming, it was just a question she associated with sports and asked frequently). One time she brought her autograph book and asked us all to sign it.
When we did finally play in a “big game”, it got posted on YT. So I showed her a bit the next time we were on the bus together. She was pretty excited and asked for another round of autographs now that we were TV famous.
She never came to a game, I think a disruption like that to her routine might have been really hard on her, but it was fun having such a non-judgemental, joyous fan.
That’s so sweet. What a lovely lady. And good on you for indulging her!
Shown us the big game! If its still on YouTube…
All the awful behavior in this thread, and then here’s you and your buddies just genuinely being good people for this woman. I love it.
The saxophone battle that unfurled on the New York City subway ten years ago comes to mind.
I’d never seen that, so great. Thanks
Some guy wearing a large hoodie got on the piss-soaked train right before the doors closed. As he was walking down the aisle he stopped right in front of me, pulled out a Taser, and lit it up right by my face. Right after he opened up his hoodie like the RE 4 merchant and showed a collection of batteries, tasers, Bluetooth speakers and all sorts of other junk. He was the world’s shittiest salesman.
+1 for excellent storytelling
