Don’t you realize that people don’t socialize much in the train anymore? Most people have their own personal entertainment means: they watch movies on their laptop, listen to their ipod, read books… But in the same time, many of them have a profile on myspace or any other social networking website in order to meet new people. Isn’t that a paradox?

In France, I’ve found two initiatives that extend the idea of social networking to train journeys. Idtgv&co is proposed by SNCF (the French railroad company), and Train d’Union is a free and independant alternative. In both of them, passengers are expected to create a personal and/or a professional profile, register the references of the trains they will be travelling on and meet other people sharing the same journeys online before they can eventually meet on the train.

While some people may think that it’s ridiculous to use a website for meeting people whereas you can talk sponteanously with the person next to you, I think the idea is great because you can make new interresting contacts instead of doing stuff on your own during long journeys.

Now, the next step is to be able to browse people’s profiles and exchange messages on line, during the train journey, like you would do on myspace, in order to meet them right away and make your journey much enjoyable. :-)