Well, it was in a train car, after all. There wasn't much else I could do...

I did have a great conversation with the bike's owner. The conductor usually keeps the rear car of that train empty but when the bike count get high enough asks me to put my bike there, and then says I can sit back there if I want. (It's nice to be on recognition terms with the conductor.) Anyway, the owner of the mtb wandered back from the people'd cars up front so I struck up a conversation to alleviate the boredom for both of us. He didn't know much about road bikes, and was curious how someone would go about learning maintenance for older bikes of different nationalities. I told him having almost 40 years experience riding helped, but there were some great books like Sutherlands, and great help online like BF. He told me about some of the trails he rode. He lived in Providence but was going up to Boston to meet some friends and ride some trails they knew about up near Andover. He said he was planning to do a half-Ironman this summer, hoped his conditioning would help him overcome any technique deficit from doing all his riding on a mtb. Then the train started up again and my stop was announced, so we bid each other farewell.