I just read this and enjoyed it so I thought some here on ADRhub.com, especially those familiar with the "quiet cars", will too.

Enjoy!

Jeff

A Conflict Resolution Scholar Explains How to Resolve Conflicts in the Quiet Car

Yesterday Ta-Nehisi Coates discussed some trouble he was having on Amtrak's Quiet Car:*

As I write this someone's digital device is going off. The woman apparently can't figure out how to shut it off. She does not want to repair to another car to figure this out. She wants to do it here in the quiet car. She is not alone.

Coates isn't alone either. Writing in the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks back, William Power and Brian Hershberg chronicled the rise of quiet cars on local commuter lines across the country, and the rise of passenger conflicts that have come as a result. While conductors occasionally police the cars, more often that job is left to quiet car "vigilantes." (Power and Hershberg nickname quiet cars the "Tension Train.")

Some systems, such as New Jersey Transit, discourage passengers from policing quiet cars themselves, but frequently travelers who care about the code of silence have no other choice. On Amtrak, for instance, the car isn't marked as "quiet" on the outside, with only a few easily missed signs hanging on the car ceiling. Some conductors remind passengers they're in a "library setting" when taking their tickets, but others don't, especially after the train's point of origin.