I'm on the spectrum, and airports, subways, ferrys and train stations have always been fun for me.
Part of it is that there are some clear, actionable goals and direction when you use them (get to platform/ terminal X by 3pm, then get on, then transfer at X). It's a nice break from the open-endedness of everyday stuff. There's no way to make anything happen faster or slower, and there is very little decision-making except what to do while sitting, or what food to grab.
The machines themselves and the logistics of the overall transit systems also seem very impressive and elegant.
I'm on the spectrum and live in a large city in Canada. I very much dislike taking the train. For me, it's due to the crowding of people, although I admit it's very nice when there are only a few people on board and I can stare at the city behind a window at night as it rolls by. Otherwise it's a very stressful experience for me that I've never been able to attenuate. I simply do not cope well with sitting and standing so close to other people, and the noises and smells are intolerable. I take the train to university. After the ride I usually need an hour or more to calm the fuck down before getting to work/going to class.
Mind you, I'm female and there have been proposed some significant differences between males and females on the spectrum, never mind the differences between any two people.
I'm on the spectrum, and I love taking the bus/tram/metro/train as long as it isn't crowded. I want to travel without getting distracting, nervous, nauseous, hot/humid, seeing people eat things I find disgusting or smelling certain things such as perfume. I want to sit alone, in white noise or silence, so I can read a book instead of having to hear to music to negate the noise and zone out. The common denominator in that one is the place being crowded, and it turns out these places are crowded on workdays from 6-9 and 16-19. Driving instead is even worse on these times. Amsterdam traffic is crowded everywhere around these times. If there are too little people around (such as at night) that also doesn't feel safe though. However if I don't have anything with me I'm good on that one.
Get a good pair of in-ear headphones to drown out the noise. Depending on mood and situation you can listen to music for calming down or podcasts for distraction.
Books can also be a good distraction, but depending on how crowded the bus/trains are, sometimes not of much use.
I was, at first, assuming you may have liked those places because of the size, busyness, and grandeur of it all but then I realized you actually enjoy the release from "normal" daily tasks. You enjoy the freedom someone else setting the schedule brings. You enjoy not being able to control the speed at which any given thing takes place at. You revel in the lack of control -- which I'm not taken aback by but I'll admit it did catch me slightly by surprise -- but everyone is different so I won't go as far as saying I was floored at the prospect of someone feeling the way you do.
Now, the real reason I'm here to comment: Do you enjoy being inside casinos? They can be very daunting in terms of the amount of sounds and light indicators flashing everywhere around you at all times. I'm sure the sheer amount of people and the realization that there are more cameras there than many other significant places on the world combined doesn't exactly endear somebody to casinos, either.
That said, I was curious how somebody on the spectrum sees, thinks, and feels about such spaces since they are very unique and you can't exactly find them everywhere around the world, either.
I've recently been to a city with loud subways doing long trips. It's quite soothing that nobody can even bothers to try to communicate over the noise. (I guess I'm not autistic, I just have to deliberately phase out of the action for a few minutes every now and than)
Subway trains might not always be on time, but they operate on a set of simple and well-known rules governing boarding, payment, transfer, etc. You know exactly where you're going (as long as you pay attention), how you're going to get there, and how much you're going to pay for the trip. It's all algorithmic, mechanical, and quintessentially modernist. Moreover, once you get used to a route, you can memorize every turn, anticipate every loud squeak, know exactly when you will cross a bridge, enter a tunnel, or go past a certain building. No wonder autistic minds love trains.
I'm on the spectrum, and the city where I grew up in (Seoul) was in the middle of a major expansion of its subway system while I was a teenager. I'm sure I tried every new line, every possible combination of routes. I knew the entire system by heart; I could tell you in a heartbeat the most efficient way to get from any station to any other station.
20 years later, I'm still fascinated by maps and other geographical databases. I built the only FOSS postal code search engine in the country, currently used by over a thousand online stores to validate shipping information. IMHO my program is way better than commercial alternatives because developers who work for $large_corporation simply aren't as familiar as I am with how the various administrative divisions of my country were conceived and have evolved over time.
I've always enjoyed watching trains, riding trains, building model railroads. I can see the orderliness of it all being appealing. As far as traveling goes, it's very comforting to be un-able to attend to anything else until I reach my destination -- and when I get there is out of my hands, once I'm on the train I don't have to worry about anything until I get to my stop.
This worked great for me until I lived in NYC, where the 4/5 express might become the 2/3 express en route to manhattan. Really have to stay on your toes as often as they cancel whole routes.
Another thing that makes rail travel in NY less enjoying is the decibel level. Standing on a subway platform as a train passes through can be so loud I cover my ears. I'm sure New Yorkers are being done permanent hearing damage through repeated exposure to subway noise.
And for another anecdote: Boston. The stops at Central and Kendall on the Red Line can be positively deafening at times. Almost as if my whole mind is shaking to its core and I'm about to be thrown into another reality.
However, I've always been sensitive to loud noise, so others may not skip a beat.
The new trains are sooo much better. I've been getting them once a week or so on the Richmond line and they are way quieter. They've also started running them transbay, so stay tuned!
> They've also started running them transbay, so stay tuned!
I appreciate the pun! Unfortunately, I don't live in the area anymore, but I have heard about the new trains and it's great that they seem to have found a reasonably efficient solution.
I couldn’t help but chuckle at this part of the article: “One explanation is that trains’ systemized nature — that they run on regular schedules along fixed routes...” I mean, we’re talking about the MTA here.
I've never considered myself on the spectrum - well, maybe just a little bit. I find the subway to be soothing. The thing I hate most about buses, which run perfectly on schedule as well here, is that sometimes their route changes. The fact of realizing a route may change just blows my gaskets.
Janky indeed! I was watching a show about the NY Subway and its antiquated system that operates the entire thing, much of it manually operated. The documentary was about a British program manager who travels the world fixing public transportation. He's bring NYC subway from the early 20th century into the 21st century.
It's the equivalent of a modern city's telephone system still using switchboard operators instead touch tone phones, fiber optics and a digital switching system.
Ha, I watched that with my Mom. Seems like a nice fellow, I wish him the best of luck.
I know the old system's antiquated but until we focus serious cash on the security of our infrastructure as a nation, I'm not looking forward to hackable trains.
My son is on the spectrum (thankfully quite mildly, so is doing very well at a mainstream school with minimal support) and this resonates very strongly with me. At times in his life when he's been suffering from a crisis, trains have always soothed him.
One, that [obsessively] lining things up is supposed to be an early indicator for autism @ c.2yo.
Two, Thomas The Tank Engine (children's books, cartoon featuring living trains with their faces on their boilers) is supposedly beloved of those [boys] on the autistic spectrum.
The latter is weird to me as it's pretty orthogonal to anything to do with trains AFAICT. The trains might be coincidence and the structure of the stories with the strict roles and narrow characters might be the appealling part?
To the second point, maybe, but I would think it's similar to nerds/geeks and a lot of scifi or fantasy books/movies/tv. A lot of any given story might work just as well in Victorian or Edwardian England, but throw a spaceship or a wizard in there and we'll watch it.
Or the anthropomorphising of the trains helps them empathize - the faces themselves are very singular and simple without subtlety that they might not pick up with human faces.
I wonder if the affinity for "Thomas" has decreased then as they moved from static scenes with fixed expressions done with stop motion models (IIRC) to animated characters.
I would be interested in whether it has anything to do with faces on trains or just the fact they were trains. Also, compared to other train programs like Ivor the Engine (from the UK), the trains were real models, not cartoonised.
I think the bright solid colours helped too, there is perhaps something soothing about simplicity and trains offer excitement with less of the unknown than road transport.
Not sure why this got downvoted; I was going to say something similar.
A lot of autistic kids like trains. We tend to like trucks, construction equipment, and machines in general, anything that's orderly and has a lot of information available about it; trains are a quintessential nerd interest (see: model train hobbyists, trainspotters), so there's a whole community out there to tap into.
I would guess that Thomas the Tank Engine intersects trains and children's TV in a particular way that resonates with a lot of kids who began with an interest in either.
Ivor the Engine is very similar to Thomas IMO, but I saw them both in books first.
Solid colours, may be a factor, train livery often is quite bold too.
But I don't think kids need to have experienced train travel to have the effect, and real trains aren't so simple; road travel is far more commonplace for most and so is not unknown?
Isn't the same/similar phenomenon as coffee shop background noise, sometimes deliberately used for making focus?
In any case, surprised that those boys are not affected by crowds of people (a lot of random, unexpected touch). At least in my case, it is an easy way go get a sensory overloading.
Part of it is that there are some clear, actionable goals and direction when you use them (get to platform/ terminal X by 3pm, then get on, then transfer at X). It's a nice break from the open-endedness of everyday stuff. There's no way to make anything happen faster or slower, and there is very little decision-making except what to do while sitting, or what food to grab.
The machines themselves and the logistics of the overall transit systems also seem very impressive and elegant.