Quiet zones on trains: “Don’t take it so hard”

Hand on heart: Do you know how to behave in the quiet compartment? No? No offense intended, but: Then please don’t sit next to me. I retreat there every now and then. This is when I know that I have to concentrate and the music from my headphones would distract me too much. The problem is that some train drivers accidentally end up in the quiet area and don’t even know which rules (should) apply here. Like the Vorarlberg family who sat next to me some time ago – and whose children, of course, didn’t keep their mouths shut for six hours.

The writer Doris Knecht wrote some time ago in her column in the Wiener Stadtzeitung Falter called for simply abolishing these zones. They argue that it is far too complicated and too much for everyone. Because: Everyone understands peace differently.

Old butterfly, something was going on. The column’s readers were up in arms against this idea. Doris Knecht has now written an entire book about calm. There are clever ideas in there, and I find it difficult to contradict them: Knecht has never experienced a quiet zone where it was quiet. “There was always something pumping out of some headphones, someone talking on their cell phone, two people talking at a slightly subdued volume.” An “average, generally valid peace that is equally felt by everyone” simply does not exist. Instead, a quiet zone stresses everyone: “those for whom it doesn’t offer enough peace and those who are not sure whether they are quiet enough. How quiet is quiet?”

Quiet zones are a relatively new invention. Originally, the compartments on the trains were not designed for rest. Quite the opposite. The fact that we Europeans sat opposite each other in compartments on the trains was nothing other than the idea of ​​lifting a carriage onto the rails. Including the seating arrangement, which invites conversation. And in fact, people used to often gossip in these compartments.

Before the First World War, so-called silent compartments were introduced in France, but they were not a success and were abolished. People talked to each other on trains and sometimes even celebrated. Wolfgang Schivelbusch quotes in his History of railway travel the French author Alphonse Daudet, who wrote in 1866: “I will never forget my trip to Paris in a third class carriage. (…) There were drunken, bawling sailors, fat farmers who slept with their mouths open and looked like dead fish. (…) It feels like I’m still there.”

The party in the carriage is now over. The open-plan carriage (which, by the way, is modeled on the US Mississippi steamers) has replaced the compartment in recent decades – and the casual way of getting to know each other has disappeared.

In these carriages it is every man for himself. And we all create a little bit of privacy for ourselves. However, the train operators make us believe that we can influence how our fellow passengers behave by choosing the carriage. On the one hand there are the class differences and then there is the question: normal carriage, family area or quiet area?

And nothing messes us up more than this damn quiet zone.

As I said: I have a hard time contradicting Doris Knecht. And yet I want to keep the quiet zone, this stuffy place of railway Biedermeier, which was probably introduced as a result of the triumph of cell phones.

Of course the wagon is a public space. I have no right to expect others to behave the way I would like them to behave. That they follow my definition of calm.

On ÖBB trains, peace and quiet in the quiet zone is not just a non-binding suggestion. Anyone who violates this can be fined 40 euros. I’m wondering how it is determined what is too loud and what isn’t. Perhaps Doris Knecht could be called in as an expert in individual cases.

By the way, I just came up with a radical idea for more peace and quiet on the train: dismantling the already not great cell phone reception along the tracks. Imagine that! No more loud “can you still hear me” or “sorry, there was a tunnel”. Sounds almost heavenly to me. But I know that this proposal would get me into a lot of trouble and wouldn’t have a majority anyway. So I’d rather leave it be.

I made a deal with the Vorarlberg family. The train was full and it was virtually impossible to move. Between the children’s cries and the diaper being full, my father put a beer on the table for me. With the comment: “Don’t take it so hard.” It wasn’t the last beer. And we all got along brilliantly.

PS: What do you think about quiet areas on trains? Are you a fan or do you avoid the conflict about what rest means? Write it in the comments, I’ll be happy!