Saturday, September 13, 2014
Hidemi’s Rambling No.525
The nearest train station from my home that I usually use has no station
attendants on site. All it has are a ticket vending machine and an
emergency phone. There’s no ticket gate either. A passenger gets a
ticket from the machine and goes directly onto the platform. Upon
arrival, they put the used tickets into a box on the wall. There are
several no-attendant stations like that along this local line. That
means it’s possible to ride free if you get on and off the train both at
those stations. It’s kind of an honorable system that whether you pay
for the ticket or not all depends on your conscience. Of course riding a
train without a ticket is a crime. To crack down on it, a conductor
sometimes makes spot checks on the train. He or she checks all
passengers’ tickets and stamps on them. If someone has a ticket for the
minimum fare, the conductor asks the destination and collects the full
fare. Since many passengers make the payments on the train, I suspect
the honorable system doesn’t work so well. I’ve once seen a passenger
without a ticket caught by the conductor. She received the conductor’s
severe rebuke and paid a lot of money. Some passengers try so badly not
to be caught when a conductor begins the spot check. Their common ways
are simply running away from the conductor by moving back and forth
between the cars. A conductor sometimes gets off the train and steps
onto the platform at a no-attendant station to check the tickets of the
passengers who get off there. In those cases, a passenger who cheats on
the fare walks toward the far end of the platform opposite to the
conductor. The train eventually has to leave on schedule and the
conductor doesn’t have enough time to go up to the passenger for the
ticket. The passenger waits there for the train to leave with the
conductor back on while pretending to rummage through his or her bag for
the ticket that doesn’t exist. The most impressive passenger I’ve seen
was a young woman who pretended to sleep in her seat when the conductor
asked her to show a ticket. No matter how loudly the conductor asked
repeatedly, she wouldn’t wake up. Although he almost shouted in her ear
in the end of the persistent demands for the ticket, she was still
asleep. I thought if she wasn’t acting, she was dead. After he went
back, her acting finished and she woke up. Unfortunately for her, the
conductor was as determined as she was, and came back to her again. She
was caught this time, but pretended to look for her ticket and declared
she had lost it somewhere. A woman with an iron heart! She told her
departure and destination stations which credibility was questionable,
and paid the fare to the conductor after all. A stingy person like me
buys a ticket each time. Even so, I feel nervous and have shifty eyes
every time a conductor walks through the train cars. That’s because I
may or may not devise some ways to save money for the ticket, but I
leave it to your conjecture…