The Commuter covers a varied zone. His station may be less than a mile from the terminal and his home still within the crowded confines of the town, or he may be the last passenger of the train as it reaches the far end of its suburban run. The average commutation district runs about 30 miles out, with by far the heavier part of the traffic in the first 15 miles of this. Most of the railroads that cluster in at New York, however, issue commutation tickets out over a 70 or 80-mile radius. One man for many years held the record as a long-distance Commuter. He preferred to sleep nights within the quiet confines of Philadelphia and his 90-mile trip to New York, with a 90-mile return at the end of every day became a mere incident in his life. His record was beaten this year. A man arrives and departs from the Grand Central Station five days out of the week, who travels 320 miles on every one of them. He catches a fast train from his home town at seven o’clock in the morning, breakfasts on the train, and is at his New York office at 11:30 o’clock. He leaves his desk at 3:30 o’clock, dines on the returning express, and is home by eight. His daily trip, with all incidental expenses, aggregates more than $12.00; so he deserves to rank as the Champion Commuter.
If few Commuters can approach the mileage record of this man there are many who do not hesitate at extra expenditures for their comfort. About all of the best suburban expresses that come into New York carry some sort of club or private-parlor cars. The club car is one of the most elaborate developments of the entire Commuter idea. It is a comfortable coach, which is rented to a group of responsible men coming either from a single point or a chain of contiguous points. The railroad charges from $250 to $300 a month for the use of this car in addition to the commutation fares, and the “club” arranges dues to cover this cost and the cost of such attendants and supplies as it may elect to place on its roving house. It must guarantee a certain number of riders to the railroad every trip, so the membership of the “club” is kept high enough to allow for a reasonable percentage failing to use the car daily. Some railroads go at the thing in another way. They supply the car and its attendants and make a monthly extra charge, in addition to commutation. The car is entirely filled with regular riders, so it is in a sense a club car.
Such a car has been running for some years on one of the suburban trains of the Harlem road. It is unique in some ways, and in these an outgrowth of early customs. The first of these began years ago, when the Oldest Commuter began his habit of riding to and from town in the baggage-car. There is something about a baggage-car that fascinates the ordinary man traveller. Perhaps it is the solemn rule of the railroad that attempts to prevent him from riding in this form of conveyance. At any rate in this particular case the Oldest Commuter gradually picks up an acquaintance with the baggageman; and, presuming upon that acquaintance gradually appropriates the baggageman’s old chair for his own use. The baggageman was good-natured, for the Oldest Commuter was a generous fellow and never forgot Christmas-times and the like. He got another old chair from somewhere, and all was well until the Next Oldest Commuter absorbed the baggageman’s chair, and the baggageman had to bring a third into his car. The Next to the Next Oldest Commuter swallowed that up, and after a time there was a row of comfy old-fashioned chairs all around the edge of the dingy baggage-car, and an atmosphere of smoke and good stories that warmed the cockles of the baggageman’s heart. You could have raised $100,000,000 for an enterprise from the crowd of men who rode regularly in that little car, but the baggageman neither knew nor cared about that. He simply knew that there was a good crowd of Commuters who rode with him daily.
After another little time the railroad took cognizance of that particular baggage-car. The general passenger agent, who was a fellow both wise and solemn, talked with the general manager, and one day that little club of Commuters had a surprise. Instead of their baggage-car, the down train hauled a bright new car all fitted with fancy things—curtains and carpets and big stuffed chairs, and the baggageman was rigged out in a fine new uniform as an attendant. The general passenger agent fondly imagined that he had made the one really happy stroke of his existence.
He had not. His was a colossal mistake. The “club” called for its baggage-car back again. Its members were men who were surfeited with mahoganies and impressive stuffed chairs and thick carpets. They demanded their old dingy car, with its four little windows, its rough board floor and the wooden armchairs. They got it back. The big, new, showy car was sent off upon another route; and the baggage-car—itself a club to which many a soul enviously craves for admission—makes its run six times a week on one of the fastest expresses on the line.
Groups of men have staterooms regularly reserved for them in the parlor cars of the finest suburban expresses, and there is never a word said of what goes on behind those closed doors. There come whispers of “antes” that are as high as a church steeple, but the railroad does not concern itself with the morals of its passengers to the point of breaking in upon closed doors. The porters may know, but the porters are traditionally wise and more than traditionally close-mouthed. One big New York editor hired a stateroom for his daily ride in and out to his suburban home. His secretary and his stenographer are closeted in it with him, and on the 50-minute ride twice each day he dictates the daily editorial utterances that delight a great congregation of his readers.
Special trains for Commuters are no particular novelty. Almost every big system has some daily suburban trains that are on its working time-tables and not upon the schedules that are given out to the public. A group of aristocratic Commuters living north of Boston in the district around Manchester have their private special into the North Station every summer morning. It is an all-parlor-car train, the most luxurious suburban on the line, yet not one Commuter in a thousand knows a thing about it. A similar train arrives and departs daily at the South Station. Others are in service out of New York. You can buy both exclusiveness and elegance from the railroad.
The Commuter is not more concerned about that 5:37 than is the railroad. It makes train and Commuter both its concern, because that is the way it seeks to build up its profitable suburban traffic.
“We are getting more of the city out into the country each year,” says a big suburban passenger agent; “and with the wide increase in the use of electricity as a motive power for the standard railroads this business is bound for increases that we can hardly foresee to-day. I think that I am quite safe in predicting that another decade will see the belt of from 30 to 50 miles outside of New York terminals as thickly settled as the belt from 10 to 30 miles is to-day settled. The railroaders have done their part by expensive increase in terminal and track facilities; they have helped the real-estate men in their broad advertising of the possibilities of suburban life: the harvest is all that now remains to be reaped.”