Swiss railway station users: an ideal way to break the monotony of travelling on the station escalators is to stand two-abreast thus ensuring fellow station users who want to get to their about-to-depart train fail to do so.

Score additional points if you make indignant grunts when the person in a rush asks politely if you can let him or her through.

An interesting variation can be played at London Underground stations. The skill in this case is to avoid being throttled when you refuse to stand aside.

Cheers,
Nick

You could also take empty luggage to work everyday, stopping people even asking if they can pass you

Don't forget to stand at the bottom in order to take a moment to deeply contemplate your life, ignoring the escalator full of people behind you who are being conveyored down toward the blockage you are creating.


Gav

Top Tip #2: Arrive early to your rush hour train, which is always full and is standing room only. Take off your shoes and place your feet across the seat next to you. Next, take out a book and ensure that you appear enthralled by its contents. No one will be brave enough to ask if the seat next to you is free.

Top Tip #3:
When the train is not full, ensure that you ignore the empty seats.
Instead:

• Crash someone's elses set of 4 seats
• Sit directly across so your knees touch
• Stare as if the original occupant has 2 heads

If you have luggage, arrange it in such a way to barricade the original occupant in

Don't forget to sit in the isle seat, place your bag at the window seat next to you and pretend like you bought a ticket for the bag too!

My other half loves these people and he seems to be a lot more bold than I am. Because when he sees one of them, he will walk up and loudly ask whether he can sit down, if he is being ignored after asking politely a second time, he will then just sit down (whether it is on their feet or on the bag), they quickly will move their stuff!!! Seems to have worked for him everytime.

And if you have a laptop:

1. Quietly and calmly open up your laptop case.

2. Remove your laptop.

3. Turn it on.

4. Make sure the person next to you can see the screen.

6. Close your eyes and tilt your head up to the sky say a little prayer.

7. Then hit this link: http://www.thecleverest.com/countdown.swf

Well this occurred yesterday. I was flabbergasted that someone would even have the nerve to do this. As we were also early I couldn't just stand up and go over and ask if I could sit there when I was already sitting. After the train left she proceeded to shake her bottle of water repeatedly, I mean at least 7 times for 30 seconds, open the top less than a millimeter, and let the gas out. My wife and the two people in the same four-seat section were clearly annoyed as well. Five minutes later, as she continued to do this, I asked her extremely loudly in German with about 15 people suddenly staring at me "Haben Sie Durst?" (Are you thirsty?) She laughed weakly at me, gave me a strange look as if I had 5 heads, but finally stopped shaking the bottle and took a sip from it -- then returned to her reading.

I must admit that I now put my bag next to me, but I sit in the window seat. However, once the train is more than 75 percent full I take it down. I adopted this habit because everybody else does it. If you can't beat them, join them. When in Rome, do as the Romans. It is something else entirely if you take your shoes off and put your feet up at 5:30 in the evening on the busiest train of the day (they add extra cars for this one and it is still always overflowing). The train conductor didn't even say anything!

I was wondering whether this is a "trick" from SBB to get more people to buy 1st class tickets. At least this is what my other half did now. It seems to be especially bad if you are travelling from or to Zürich HB.
Other people at work have done the same and bought 1st class tickets now, as they want to sit down instead of standing.

I don't know. They seem to have actually cut some of their capacity from the Zürich-Baden route. One rarely ever sees the double-decker trains anymore, despite the fact that they're often needed.

Works for me too. But then I am 6'4" and an 18 stone ex-rugby player. They generally move their feet quite quickly to avoid broken bones.

Yeah, I can see that work

Top Tip #4:
Create a hurdle-race.

This is done by one company/organisation (several employees) handing out pamphlets to people, making it impossible to run from one platform to the other to catch your train as your other train was late, without being stopped several times. If you try to ignore them and try to walk around them, they just step in our way and not just once, but they even find it funny.

I mean in a sense I feel sorry for them, as they only do their job and probably they are being ignored most of the time etc. But at the same time, when one has to run to catch a connecting train, then it really is not what one is looking for to have a hurdle-race.

be careful with the escalators; the drunky tramps use them as a toilet.

I've been on the up escalator to get a 3/14 tram in Zurich to be greeted by a yellow waterfall - from a woman!!