THE CHAPPAQUA THREE.(The Talk of the Town)

The adult American suburban male, Northeastern division, marks the onset of maturity with the display of certain physical attributes (bathrobe, hard shoes, London Fog outerwear) and behaviors (mowing grass, drinking on commuter trains). This last rite has been immortalized by everyone from the Web site Barcar.com to Robert Penn Warren, who wrote, "Caleb Winthrop, Harvard '53, crew, Porcellian /Sits in the bar car of the 5:02, Grand Central, and / Shuts his eyes, and / Shudders." It came under threat last month when Mitchell Pally, a board member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, proposed a measure to ban the purchase and consumption of alcohol on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North. The M.T.A. has convened a task force to study the issue. A band of passengers has convened Commuters Allied for Responsible Enjoyment, or CARE, which will oppose the measure with "acts of peaceful remonstrance mostly." As one of its founders, Richard Shea, wrote on the group's Web site, which will launch this week:

A glass of beer or wine at day's end is one of the small comforts that make a big difference in daily life. . . . If we allow our freedoms to be arbitrarily stripped away we will soon become participants in a nightmare of modern urban existence: hollow-eyed robots, herded like cattle into overcrowded, under-ventilated trains for a joyless trip home.

A professional public-relations man, Shea is, by his own admission, an improbable activist. "Normally, I am an opponent and a proponent of nothing," he said last Thursday night, on the 5:46 to Chappaqua. He was joined by David Karat, a sales executive and fellow CARE founder he got to know after their wives and sons became friendly through the local chapter of Mommy and Me. (A third founder, Kevin Pearce, was stuck at a work dinner.) Both men were wearing blue suits, and Shea carried a bouquet of yellow tulips. They located a vacant three-seater, next to the bathroom, squished in, and distributed Amstel Lights and Budweisers, which they had bought on the platform from a uniformed bartender.

"It's the Calvinist schoolmarmish vibe of it all that gets me," Shea began.

Pwssssssssht. He popped the tab on his beer. "When I first moved to New York City, I was broke, and I took the train to go visit someone's dad in Connecticut. There was a guy with a good shirt and a sweater, having a Foster's on his way home. I thought, This isn't bad."

Karat, a native Brit, interjected, "I do think they should ban ...