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Is there any difference in meaning between the following sentences?
I have been standing up in the train a few hours.
I have standing up on the train a few hours.
Not a long time ago, I thought that the second sentence was the only correct, but then I saw in being used in the context in a textbook. If there is no difference, which one is more common. And by the way, do I have to use stand up in the context. Could I just say
I have been standing on/in the train a few hours?
"On the train" is the idiomatic way to refer to being onboard a train.
Remember though that a "train" is the collective term for a series of connected railway carriages or wagons moved by a locomotive. What you are actually in is a train carriage.
So you might say:
I have been standing on the train for hours.
OR
I have been standing in this train carriage for hours.
However, while grammatical, the latter does not necessarily denote that the train is in motion. The idiomatic expression "on the train" denotes travelling by train, so when someone says, for example:
I went to London on the train.
This also means that they travelled by train.
'I have been standing on the train for a few hours' would be the correct way to use this sentence regardless of whether you're speaking out loud or writing it down.
I've never heard anybody say or write the phrase 'I have been standing in the train for a few hours'.
Being 'on the train' is the same as being physically inside the train in native English.
