Why Does the Scenery Appear to Move When We Are Riding in a Train?
When you sit in a moving train looking out of the window it appears as though the fields, the telegraph poles and everything else outside were moving, instead of you. This is because our only ideas of motion are arrived at by comparison, and the fact that neither you nor the seats of the car or any other part of the inside of the car is changing its position, leads you to the delusion that the things outside the car are moving and not you. If you were to pull down all the curtains and the train were making no noise at all, you would not think that anything was moving. It would appear as though you were motionless just as everything in the car appears so. When you turn then to the window, and lift the curtain you carry in the back of your mind the idea of being at rest and that is what makes it appear as though the fields and everything outside were moving in an opposite direction.
This is particularly noticeable when you are in a train in a station with another train on the next track. There is a sense of motion if one of the trains only is moving and you feel that it is the other train, because you are surrounded by objects in the car which are at rest, and when you look out at the other train with this half consciousness of rest in your mind, it appears as though the other train were moving when as a matter of fact it is your train. If the delusion happens to be turned the other way, it will appear as though you are moving and the other is still. It depends upon what cause the impression starts with.