After commuting on the train a good amount of last month, I must say... I kinda like it.
An hour is a great amount of time to have to yourself each day... Before I would commute by subway or bus, 30-60 minutes, but I had to switch lines, or avoid other passengers getting on and off at each stop, I took my laptop out maybe once or twice on the subway... The second I started getting into a book, I'd be at the station where I had to switch lines or some other distraction... and I rarely ever sat down, unless the train was nearly empty... Although I would still take the subway over driving anyday...
The scenery of the commuter rail isn't bad at all, passing over many bridges through water and salt marshes, boats are moored along the way at several of the north shore marina's... and the train passes right through the middle of them. You even catch a brief bit of the ocean while passing through Manchester/Beverly... and some great sunset's off to the west... My mornings usually consist of drinking my coffee, listening to tunes... and thinking about the day ahead as a nice slow wake-up call, my evenings consist of a brief rest after staring at the computer all day, perhaps with some tunes and taking out a book, article or laptop...
The conductors are pretty nice guys, say good morning and good evening to you on your trip...
The toughest part for me is the schedule, with subway life you can pretty much get to work at whenever and leave whenever and not be on a set schedule... This morning I woke up at 7:16 and had a choice of catching the 7:33 train or the 9:15am train.. So I had about 12 minutes to get ready, which may have been an all time record for me...
and tonight I have a few chances of getting home, but as the night gets later my options become more sparse...
