Paris Metro
There used to be a website at www.metrochallenge.tk
where someone had detailed an attempt that took them just over 13 hours
- this website does not appear to be 'up' at the moment though.
But better than that time is an account at http://l-homme.net/runderground/
where it's been done in 9 hours, 53 minutes and 2 seconds, on the 6th
May 2005. A very good time indeed.
The New York Subway
A website I found about some people who did the whole of
the New
York subway system.
 Calgary
Light Rail Transit (July 2005)
Scott Blair from Calgary, Canada - his cousin Colin and
friend Blair did the Calgary
CRT. It's technically a light rail rather than an underground/metro
system. But they still wanted to do all of it and see how fast it could
be done in.
Scott writes:
With only 36 stations, two lines and just
change of trains required, I knew that this wasn't going to be very
difficult, and as a result I did almost no planning in terms of the
route we would take. The starting point was chosen rather arbitrarily,
but I thought it would be best to end up in the northeast part of the
city where Colin lives, and I would get back home from there. This would
turn out to cause us a significant problem later on.
 We
got a ride to the southern most station Bridlewood/Somerset, and ran
onto the platform and bought our tickets. The train was waiting there,
and it set out a minute after we boarded at 11:07AM. The first five
stations went really smoothly, and we averaged about 3 minutes between
stops. It was then I first realized the whole thing would take a lot
less time than the 3 hours I had predicted.
We had our first delay at the sixth station (Southland) when the train
sat for about 90 seconds longer than usual as it waited for passengers
from a connecting bus to get on. This would end up being the only delay
for the entire run that was not our own fault.
In under 30 minutes we entered the downtown core, and had to contend
with full trains, and some inquisitive people. I guess you don't usually
see people on the train writing down times at every stop and taking
photos of all the station names.
We got to the northwest end of the line at 12:01, which meant we had
been through 22 stations in under an hour! We then had to back-track
down the northwest leg to downtown and switch lines to the one that
heads to the northeast part of the city. We ran the two blocks back
the the 10th Street station, but we didn't really have to, as it is
the terminus for that line and the train waited a few minutes before
going back. As this was the only connection we had to make we decided
to run it to make it seem more exciting.
 We
went back through downtown again, but stopped at different stations,
as the east-bound trains use separate stations from the west-bound trains.
Just as we pulled into the City Hall station Blair noticed a big flaw
in our route. The 3rd Street S.E. station can only be reached by travelling
west on a train from Whitehorn, but we were planning on riding the train
directly up north to the end of that line, and would miss the station
completely if we carried on. The other guys asked if we should get off
at City Hall to try and catch the problem station, but just as we went
for the doors to get off, the train pulled out, and we were stuck.
The other people on the train must have thought we were idiots as we
moaned and complained about the big screw-up. We rode up one leg to
the Bridgeland station, and got off and went back towards the city centre
to pick up the 3rd Street station. We got off there, and walked back
to the City Hall station to carry on back up to Whitehorn. From there
it was a simple ride up to the end of the line where the train stopped
at 1:04:04PM, giving us a total time to complete the system of 1hr 57min
4sec.
We lost 20 minutes by having to back-track the one leg, so if we had
started at the Whitehorn station and finished at Bridlewood/Somerset,
the whole thing could probably be done in under 100min. This also means
that it could be done on one ticket for $2.00 if you cheated a bit.
One ticket entitles you to any one-way journey within a 90 minute period.
If we risked being slightly over time we could do it at half the cost
(we ended up having to buy a second ticket at Bridgeland). Of course,
if one wanted to risk it, you can ride the thing for free, because the
LRT uses an honour system, and they only sporadically check for tickets
as you exit the platform, or occasionally on the train. You could ride
about 30-40 times for every time they actually ask for proof of purchase,
but as law-abiding citizens we wouldn't do that.
Obviously because of the one major mistake, I am planning on making
another attempt sometime soon. It is so easy compared to most other
cities' train systems, it is no burden to try again. If it is done smoothly,
and at the right time of day, it may be possible to complete all 36
stations in 95 minutes. I will have to find out.
 Hamburg,
Germany
A chap called Gunnar Thöle got in touch with me, as
he's done 'The Challenge' for his hometown of Hamburg, Germany. You can
read the complete story at his own webpage at: http://gabistapler.de/bahn/hvv
but it is all in German!
Gunnar is a 26 years old engineering student from Hamburg,
Germany who found out about the London Underground 'tube challenge' a
few years ago on the internet.
 Quick
on the uptake, he transferred the tube quest to Hamburg (adapting the
rules slightly in the process). The current record - made on Friday January
the 30th 2004, was quite a cold day with heavy snowfall, and he made a
time of 20 hours and 17 minutes for all
of the 206 stations on the current 'USAR' map (starting
in Neugraben at 04:30 and finishing in Wedel at 00:47 the next night).
Click on the small version of the map here for a full sized version!
This first attempt was just a proof-of-concept, so there's
still much room for improvement. He did it all by himself because all
of his friends thought he went nuts, instead of supporting him!
206 stations only, you might ask, in such a long time? Well,
the biggest difficulty with Hamburg is that there are a few stretches
of overground railway on the official map (so they have to be visited),
some of them only having an every-two-hour service or worse.
I talk to Gunnar some more, and we swap experiences of each
others transport systems. Gunnar writes:
My limited experience of the London transport
system was that it's generally OK, it transfered me from place to place
just fine, and i haven't only been to the tourist places. I am a regular
reader of the uk.transport.london usenet newsgroup (so that i don't
forget my english skills) and from what i have read there the Hamburg
system is much more reliable, yes.
I don't want to make you envy me, but I've
never been on a failed train (but sometimes they do fail) for the 2
and a half years i'm living in Hamburg, i get a seat 99% of all trips
made, I am seldom late, i've never been on a train that was turned short
(but i know this has happened), there is a full timetable (i mean, exact
arrival and departure times) for every train and bus which is kept to
most of the time, there are no barriers, trains have a decent size height-wise,
trains run after snowfall, and I pay approx. 200 British pound for a
full year of travel round the entire system with buses, trains, night
buses and ferrys.
But not everything is perfect. Last October,
rubbish left in a tunnel ignited and started a fire, in the process
shorting all the power, signalling and telephone and data cables running
in the tunnel, destroying one power substation and contaminating approx.
4 km of tunnel and three stations with toxic fumes and corrosive residue
on every surface.
The tunnel reaching from just before Harburg
to just after Heimfeld stations (this is on the most heavily used line
outside the city centre) was closed for ten days while the cleaners
cleaned every surface and the engineers bridged the power supply and
overhauled the station lighting.
Then train service restarted
(every ten minutes instead of the normal 5 minute service), without
signalling, without passenger info displays, without station clocks,
but this is not really necessary. Full service was reinstated at the
end of November. (Comparing this to the central line crash which surely
did less damage and was easier to repair)
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