Weeknight games at the new Pacific Bell Park will dovetail nicely with the evening commute, and conductors and passengers are grousing that the relatively tranquil mood that once pervaded rush-hour trains is going, going, gone. On most weeknights, commute trains are filled with dazed, post-work passengers or neurotic overachievers hellbent on getting more work done on the laptop as they head up the Peninsula and into San Francisco. At times, the atmosphere approaches a college library.
Some people even whisper when they talk.
Of course, there are occasional loud talkers and cell-phone jockeys, but in general, it's pretty subdued. Some uninhibited souls even sleep. But commuters and conductors got a taste of things to come last week when season ticket holders packed trains to attend a series of evening preview parties hosted by the Giants at the ballpark. There was standing room only, and some cars got so packed, would-be passengers were told to wait for the next train. Shell-shocked techie commuters couldn't even hear their cell phones ring.