CityRail’s green tick for COVID social distancing hits the spot
If there are any benefits to be had from COVID, they are in the changes to train travel.
If there’s any benefit to be had from COVID, it’s travelling by train. I know that sounds glib but it’s true. I mostly work from home and make the 75-minute rail commute to the office about once a week, and outside peak times, which is a blessing, although colleagues tell me even the so-called rush hour is totally bearable.
And it’s all because of those spaced-out seats with the official green tick of approval and the comforting knowledge that no one is permitted to sit next to you.
I have become a little germ-phobic (who hasn’t?) and never could bear a chatty commuter beside me or one who ignored the “silent carriage” status. COVID has not quarantined us from the latter offenders, but they seem to be rare, or perhaps their chats about what’s for dinner have been muffled by their masks.
My Tokyo friend Yoshi laughs when I tell him that regulations here seem to change daily but there have been periods this year and last when we had to be masked on public transport. He reminds me that when we caught the subway together ages ago to university in Ikebukuro, we wore surgical masks in flu season, which is the local norm.
Then he says the Japanese government is handling COVID in “a crazy way” and no one is permitted to talk on public transport, even though the bigger problem is that buses and trains are overcrowded “like nightclubs” and there’s no air circulating. I tell him about our “space age” seating arrangements and he says he wants to cry.
A week ago, my commute home took three hours. There was a fire somewhere ahead, although passengers found this out by consulting their devices rather than being told by rail staff. Eventually we chugged off and a surprisingly cheery chap came over the PA system and said we were under way, which was blindingly obvious but reassuring. Then we stopped again 30 minutes later. Collective groans went up, and rules about silent carriages flew out the window.
Our chap came back on air. “Ladies and gentlemen. We have an intruder on the tracks. Our guard will investigate.”
We passengers debated whether said intruder could have been masked and dangerous? Crackle, crackle on the intercom. “Our guard is in the process of inviting the intruder on board as our guest.”
There was such a polite air to all this, as if said interloper would be offered tea and scones and free passage on a green-tick seat. A few of us chatted about his possible identity. A State Rail protester holding up trains, we decided, with no proof whatsoever. I was quite sorry when we reached my stop and two constables were waiting on the platform, their faces not at all welcoming.