Erin

Erin is a daily rider. She catches the same train every day and sits with the same people. Occassionally though, on a Friday, she’ll have worked all her hours before 5 and leaves the office early. “That”, she tells me, “is when you meet the really interesting people.”

Like this one time when a 14 year old kid made a pass at her. And then got off the train at her stop. And followed her to her car. And then said the funniest thing he could possibly have said. “Pop your trunk, I’ll throw my bike in.”

This is now a secret phrase at my house. Yes, it means what you think it means.

Louis

Louis sits almost perfectly still while the train car rocks under him, his eyes fixed to the page. Occasionally he lifts his hand to turn the page, periodically flipping back to re-read a passage from his Mormon scriptures for reference.

I don’t know where Louis works or even what he does for a living. I only know he rides the train almost every day to save gas and miles on his car. And when he rides, he reads.

Brent Atkinson

Brent Atkinson is that easy-going guy that lives down the street. The one that’s always there when you have a load of topsoil that needs unloading or a palette of sod that needs laying. He’s the sort of guy you just know you could trust to do your taxes. Which is fortunate for him because that’s exactly what Brent does for a living. Taxes, not topsoil and sod.

"I run my iPhone on T-Mobile so I haven't upgraded to the new one yet", he confessed with a sly grin.

He tells me he has about 200 private tax clients right now. Probably all friends of friends, I’d bet. And everyone of them would probably trust him to babysit the kids or borrow their Lexus too. But every morning, he still rides his bike to the train and stands at the end of the car for the ride to work at one of the large downtown firms. Or, as he jovially refers to them, “the man.”

No Brent, YOU are the man.

Alex Barber

Alex Barber rides the train every morning, just as he has since he was a sophomore in high school. He rides from near his parents’ house in Sandy to where he catches a bus to Salt Lake Community College in West Valley.

“I like riding the train”, he told me, “It’s a free ride plus I never have to deal with traffic.”

When I met him, Alex was carrying a sketch pad that he told me he uses in class. He’s 18 now and a first-year architecture major.

Alanna

Some commuters are talkers. Others are watchers. Alanna is a reader.

Alanna didn’t want me to use her last name. In fact, she didn’t even want to give me her last name. But she did seem flattered to have her portrait taken… as long as she could be left alone to read the latest Twilight book without too much chit-chat.