All aboard!

More reliable than Greater Anglia or South Western Railway, there's a cast of commuters bound for the capital that you can’t miss, says Madeleine Silver

- Madeleine Silver

The army officer-turnedmanagement consultant

Six months ago, Joffy was deploying a battalion of infantrymen to eastern Europe; now, he's bent over a laptop bound for Waterloo amending the fonts on a PowerPoint presentation. Yet old habits die hard and, on the eve of a commute, he polishes his shoes (he's the only management consultant not in trainers) and preloads his cufflinks into his shirt, ready to do battle on the 06:24.

In the depths of January, he puts his half-alive station runner through the wringer along the icy Dorset lanes-this is the SAS of commuting, more than two hours each way on the stopping service-but, by late April, he's rewarded by stepping off the train into a Thomas Hardy nirvana.

Lunchtime is spent romping along the Embankment at tabbing pace and, on the train home, when he spots a flash of his regimental socks on a fellow commuter, they give each other a knowing smile, nodding to their new lives on civvy street.

The long launcher

Quintin refuses to have emails on his mobile phone (a Nokia 3310, which he switches on exclusively for outbound calls); any suggestion of a Zoom catch up is as criminal as committing financial fraud; and he's on the train five days a week ("WFH is a farce'), his broadsheet at risk of suffocating his cowering neighbour.