Why do people feel impelled to wave at at a train(or boat)-load of complete strangers (and vice versa) but usually not people in cars and buses?
(Just idly musing on a tour by rail of the Scottish Highlands)
I would expect that they wave only at the special vehicles, which is why someone in a model T will wave and have people waving at them.
Normal trains don’t have people waving at them. Historical trains do. At least that’s how it normally works here in Switzerland.
Well, you don’t see the people driving the boats and trains waving. Little kids looking out the back windows of cars are notorious for that behavior, though.
When we were on a boat ride in Paris, people on the bridges would wave as we passed underneath. We agreed that if we were in America, people would spit.
If I am on a train and I see someone waving, I wave back.
Really? Because that sort of treacly cuteness is actually something I associate with Americans. It’s the Parisians I would expect to spit on me.
Maybe we were just lucky!
Or maybe the people waving at you were also American tourists.
I would probably wave at people on a passenger train or a passing ship. If they’re looking out the window, I would likely wave at them without even thinking about it, kind of reflexively, as a friendly gesture. I wouldn’t wave a passing Greyhound bus, however.
People on a boat or historical train (I agree, I don’t see people waving at commuter trains) are probably on a nice trip and relaxed and seem like someone you’d want to wave at. Someone in their car or on a bus might be having a great day or might be having the worse day of their life. Do you really want to manically wave at someone who just found out they were laid off while driving home from a funeral?
Among US recreational boaters it’s pretty much expected that they’ll wave at each other. It’s mostly just friendly bird of a feather having fun together spearately, but it also serves as a signal: “I’m paying direct attention to you right now, so if you need assistance, right now is your chance to signal me.”
Which is a bit more of a possibility if you’re passing a stopped boat than one zooming along nicely.
The world needs more “friendly”.
Mainly, boats and trains aren’t passing each other every 2.6 seconds.
I just went from Oakland to Chicago on the California Zephyr and will take the return trip in a couple of days. Folks waved to us the entire way, from their backyards, from the rivers they were swimming in, from street crossings. It feels good. Of course I wave back.
And who doesn’t feel just a little bit better when somebody waves back? 
In 1957, my father (who was, at that point, a college student) had a summer job as a fireman with the Chicago and North Western Railway. By that point, the CNW had “dieselized” their locomotive fleet: they had retired their steam locomotives, and the job of “fireman” – a crew member charged with maintaining the locomotive’s firebox – was unneeded. However, the union’s contract with the railroad still required every train to be staffed with a fireman.
My dad spent two months as a fireman, riding in locomotives, with no real work to do; he half-jokingly states that his primary job was to wave to kids as the train went by.
Agreed!
We are going to be on The Portland Spirit this afternoon for a little hour and a half happy hour tour, and you can bet there will be some happy waving involved.
Waved at a train today, in fact. We were larping down the hill from where their tourist steamtrain had stopped for whatever reason. Duelling anachronisms was as good a reason to wave as any.
What kind of larping, if I may ask?