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A 13-hour tour of the T in just 28 minutes
By adamg on Fri, 07/05/2024 - 10:28am
On Tuesday, Heshan de Silva-Weeramuni set off on a T odyssey to see if he could set a record for fastest time visiting every T stop in one day.
In one sense, he did. In 13 hours, 10 minutes and 10 seconds he got on and off at 146 T stops - and you can watch a speeded up version in just 27 minutes.
True, that's almost double the previous record of about 7 hours, but nobody's tried the feat since the T opened all the new stops on the Green Line Extension. Plus, he added the Silver Line to his journey, despite its lack of things that usually make up a train line, such as tracks. And he got tied up on the Red Line due to the guy who drove his SUV onto the tracks.
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Comments
Thanks for the update, Adam.
I was also wondering if one had to get on and off at every stop, so that was answered (although I suppose a little thought would have told me that.).
I mean
He "got off" the train, then he promptly got back on the same train.
ħat wüd make mee en interlopah:
https://thecleverest.com/t/
Evidently not for him
If you watch the video, he does the Green Lines to start and he never rings the bell or gets on or off at any of the surface stops (I haven't seen him get past Kenmore yet). So I'm not even 100% sure he stopped at all the stations.
Ok, I watched past Kenmore inbound on the D Line and he definitely is standing still on the train at numerous underground stations on the Green Line. So, he didn't feel the need to get on/off (which logistically on the Green Line coulda been a nightmare depending on how many people were waiting especially on the surface stations).
Staying on the train also means not having to argue with the driver that you're "doing a thing" and they should let you back on without paying and/or ringing the bell at ever stop even just to get on and off or even just to say you "stopped" at every station.
New York
Barring some official set of Boston rules (which I have not found, given a short search) there seem to be subsets of the "official" rules for New York that recognize a record based on either just riding through the station or stopping at each station (which would disallow express trains and thus make it more time consuming). I didn't see alighting at each stop as a prerequisite in any of the rules.
Express trains in Boston would seem a moot point until one gets to the Mattapan-Ashmont trolley. There, you might have to specifically ask for a full stop to be made at a couple of stations that drivers sometimes very slowly coast through due to no one waiting at the station, signalling to get off, or a grade crossing.
The only other obstacle could be a requirement to complete it in one fare - OR - without leaving the system. There are still stops in Boston where it is impossible to switch directions without an additional fare being paid, and restroom facilities are certainly rare.
Anyone know of official rules that have been published? And is there a senior record I could tackle? :-)
Nightmare
As a person who takes the T daily because they actually have to, the thought of riding it for thirteen hours sounds like a nightmare to me. To each their own I guess.
forget ħə greenline extenshun; hee mist en entire planet:
https://www.universalhub.com/2024/mbta-planet-xkcd-escape-speed
Efficiencies missed
I think one thing that would have made his experience faster/better would have been to stay on the trains longer and deal with the other lines separately rather than mixing lines so much. He knocks out all/most of the Green Line (plus GLX) first and then gets on an Orange Line train to Oak Grove and back into the city again.
Here's where I think he makes a mistake. He then gets off at State Street to jump on a Blue Line train out to Wonderland. He would have made better time to take the Orange Line train he was on all the way to Forest Hills and thus be done with the Orange Line than switching tracks. There's inherent delay in every train switch you do (because our system doesn't time the trains to arrive simultaneously at any stations), so reduce that delay by staying on a train once you're on it.
The Orange and Blue Line trains go end-to-end (for the most part) and have a single track, so unlike the Green and Red Lines, you don't have to hop off one to wait for another to hit all parts of a split track. So it's not like getting off the Orange to ride the Blue just to come back to the Orange later gets you on a different spur of the Orange Line or anything.
He also started at the end of the E line and went E, B, D, C. I would have started at Copley and went E, D, B, C. And between the Orange and Red, he took a bus from Forest Hills to Mattapan Trolley. I guess that's "allowed" but since walking or even taking the bus from one line to another seems "allowed", just Uber the longer ones (or have a friend ready for you) to save time too.
GGET
Go get 'em, Tiger!
Dude benchmarked the route. Now you know how to beat the record and get your own Guiness glory!
Uber between trains?
Nah. If there were rules, then that sounds like cheating.