-
There
were 75 transfers made over the course of the run
-
We
visited 579 stations, 111 of which were repeats
-
We
traveled on all but one of the 26 subway routes, skipping the Z
train
-
The
approximate distance covered during the run was 292.2 miles of
track
-
Our
average speed was 11.7 miles per hour including all waiting time
-
Total travel time was 18 hours, 8 minutes, 17 seconds
-
Total waiting time was 6 hours, 45 minutes, 46 seconds
-
The
longest we were on any one train was the R for 41 minutes, 59
seconds
-
There
were four segments where we were on a train for less than two
minutes
-
The
longest wait time was 17 minutes, 15 seconds for the L at
Rockaway Pkwy; it was at the end of the line and we actually
spent a total of 1 hour, 9 minutes, 27 seconds in car 8101
including travel and waiting time
We invited several
public officials including the Mayor, all five Borough Presidents
and several MTA officials to serve as witnesses at the beginning
and/or the end of our ride, but unfortunately, none of them were
able to make it.
Though he rides that
train, we didn't run into Mayor Bloomberg on his way to work, and
we didn't run into many of the characters the subway is known
for. We only saw one person selling candy, one preacher and
one panhandler. We didn't even have the opportunity to buy
any batteries or bootleg DVDs if we wanted to, and there we had no
performers to entertain us on the platform or trains.
Bathroom breaks are
a popular topic for questions. It was never really an issue
for us during the ride. We drank only small amounts of
liquids and visited four restrooms in the system at the following
locations:
-
Chambers
St after getting off the C around 7:13pm
-
179
St after getting off the F around 12:59am
-
Roosevelt
Ave after getting off the V around 7:34am
-
Lexington
Ave/60th St after getting off the R around 1:05pm
We started off at
the Rockaway Park station in Queens on Thursday, December 28, 2006 at
3:43:06 PM ET. Here is a photo of the crew waiting to make
their third transfer of the trip at the Rockaway Blvd station, one
hour after the start.
Having six people seemed to be more of a help than a hindrance. There were
many tasks to handle and the division of labor worked out well.
Bill and Jason kept
two synchronized watches for the official time. Stefan
managed the witness log. Michael, Brian and Andrew shared
the responsibility of keeping dual logs with the starting and
ending time of each of the 77 segments of the ride and also noting
down the car number of each train we rode in. Additionally,
we kept an additional log of the exact time we visited each of the
468 stations for the first time.
As you might guess
we did grow a little weary during the ride, but there actually
weren't too many opportunities to catch any rest as we made an
average of 3 transfers every hour and spent a lot of time waiting
on train platforms.
A visit from Tom
Noone around 11:15pm Thursday night with some Big Macs and fries
really hit the spot. Tom also met us around 9:55am Friday
morning with a critical delivery of coffee for three members of
the team.
A turn-around on the
L train in Canarsie around 2:40am allowed for the chance to
freshen up. Members of the team packed a variety of items,
from a change of socks and Advil to specialty chocolates and
mouthwash.
When the idea of
doing the ride was discussed during and after our reunion, Bill
initially just wanted to plan out the optimal route and not
necessarily make the ride. We made the run to test our
hypothesis and show that we could come up with a better route and
set a new Guinness World Record™ in the process. We didn't
do it expecting to get much press coverage aside from the Regis
High School Alumni News, but it was nice to see interest from the
public and the media at the start and finish and throughout the
ride. We also loved the enthusiasm displayed by many Transit
workers when they encountered us along the way.
