The darkest secret about commuting: some of us enjoy it

In the early days of Victorian railways, train journeys were (rightly) considered so dangerous that ticket offices sold life insurance as well as tickets. There were no onboard toilets until the 1890s, meaning that passengers either had to cross their legs or buy a ‘secret travelling lavatory’, consisting of a rubber tube and bag hidden inside the clothes. Some traditions, though, were already well-established. ‘The real disgrace of England,’ wrote Anthony Trollope in 1869, ‘is the railway sandwich.’

These three facts all come from the first chapter of Iain Gately’s exploration of commuting. They also serve as a neat summary both of what’s best and what’s most odd about Rush Hour as a whole. On the one hand, they’re the sort of fascinating snippets that you may well find yourself wanting to tell friends in the pub. On the other, they don’t actually have much to do with commuting, as opposed to rail travel more generally.