(3 of 11)
This kind of instinctive reaction stirs the ire of railroad officials. "The commuter is a son of a pup," says William R. Main, assistant vice president of the New York Central Railroad. "He is an irrational animal. Unless he gets smart pretty soon, he will be out on the end of a limb. He looks upon the service as a commodity, doesn't give it the thought it deserves, takes the service for granted, but explodes when his train is late, and seems to harbor a latent dislike for railroads."
The commuter, for his part, is sure that the railroads harbor a blatant dislike for him. The Boston and Albany is pushing a petition to drop all of its 39 commuter trains in Massachusetts. The New York, Susquehanna & Western wants to do away with all passenger service—as more than a dozen other U.S. railroads have done since 1950. The New Haven has dropped its Old Colony road to Boston's South Shore and Cape Cod, the Central its Putnam division in Westchester County and West Shore line in New Jersey and New York. Boston and Maine's President Patrick B. McGinnis, who was washed out as boss of the New Haven in 1956 in a torrent of commuter complaint, has not improved his reputation by selling off 69 commuter stations, chopping off 37 trains.
Creature of Habit. The problems that the commuter poses to the nation's cities are great and prickly—but they are not unique. In the 2nd century, the satirist Juvenal graphically described the swarming streets of ancient Rome. They were thick with litter bearers, chariot jams, and furious drivers who knocked people down and ran over them in their haste to get home to dinner. Many a Roman mumbled in his toga: "Quid hercle faciamus de obstructione?"* But it was not until late 19th century London that the commuter appeared as a distinct type. London's rapid growth called for so much space for businesses that citizens were forced out of the center of the metropolis, had to commute to work by horse bus and rail. It was only in the U.S., with its spreading cities and changing population patterns, that the commuter came into his own as a widespread social phenomenon. He got a big boost from the introduction of the cut-fare commutation ticket for those who ride the rails daily.
Just what sort of creature is the modern-day commuter? If he travels by rail, he is a man (few women are commuters) of almost inflexible habits. A slave to the timetable, he is often up before the farmers, and into bed before his teen-age sons.