Subway challenge

May 30, 1940, two days before the merger of the three New York public transport management company IRT , BMT and IND , Railway Engineer Herman Rinke ( born Herman Rinke ) visited all of his stations for the first time in the history of the New York Metro, using only one ticket worth 5 cents. He called this trip a "sentimental gesture." It took him about everything about 25 hours. After that, more than 70 people (according to unofficial data from the MTA Public Relations Department) made similar trips on the New York Metro and visited all of its stations. For 17 years, the Guinness Book of Records held the record of Kevin Foster ( Eng. Kevin Foster ), who set it on October 25, 1989, spending 26 hours and 21 minutes on the entire trip. Foster, who was also going to be the first person in the world to ride a bike on the Great Wall of China , later made another achievement in the New York subway: on the 85th anniversary of the opening of the New York subway, he spent 85 hours in a row on the subway, stopping at each station .

The competition is held in the New York Metro. The participant must visit at least once all the stations (class B or C) or all sections of the tracks connecting the station (class A). A visit to each station is counted if the participant arrives at the station and then leaves. The train must stop at the visited station (that is, it does not count the passage through the station by express ), although it is not necessary to leave the train for the participant. In the total time will be included all forced stops and breaks in the competition. The transition from one subway line to another can be done either on foot or by public transport (the use of personal transport or a taxi is prohibited). A visit to a station closed due to reconstruction or an emergency will be counted when the subway train passes through this station without stopping ^[2] .

All the circumstances of the journey on the subway are recorded in writing. In the “ Witness Book ”, ordinary citizens confirm with their signatures the fact that a participant visited a certain station at a certain time with them (in some cases, the police and station workers may sign the signatures). In the “diary” ( eng. Booking ) all events of the trip are noted: arrival time and departure time from each station, transition from one line to another, all breaks and forced stops, etc. For an experiment to be fair, you must be present next to the participant trips of at least two independent witnesses, one of whom accompanies the participant from the very beginning of the trip (preferably to the very end) ^[2] .

All recorded Guinness records

In the New York subway, there are currently 472 stations, and to set a record in class B chelendzhe, you must visit all these stations. For a record in a class C trolendge, it is necessary to visit 425 stations and interchange nodes served by 25 different routes ^[16] . In total, participants will have to go through 662 miles of underground paths, and only at 80 stations can they physically go to the toilet. All world records, with the exception of one, included visits to 468 stations and were recorded until September 2015 and the extension of the Flushing line . One record was made after the extension of the Flushing line (469 stations), but before the opening of the Second Avenue line in January 2017 ^[14] .

Circumstances of setting some records

From December 28 to December 29, 2006, an attempt to set a record and visit all the stations was undertaken by six people who studied at Regis High School in Manhattan, which the press called the “ Subway Six ” ( Eng. The Subway Six ). Five of them represented all five boroughs of New York, and the sixth was from New Jersey . Bill Amaroza has long been a fan of railway and underground transport and, together with his friends, discussed the possibility of setting such a record. But it was not until June 17, 2006 that everyone finally agreed to take the risk and take part in the competition ^[17] . Preparation for the challenge took six months, but the record was finally fixed by the Guinness Book of Records only five months later, and it took another nine months for the team of participants to receive an official certificate of the record record ^{[18] [19]} .

From August 23 to August 24, 2006, Donald Badachevsky and Matt Green took part in the C class competition. To fix the result, they had to visit each station without having to stop, so they used express trains as far as possible. They did not leave the underground until the end of their challenge and set a new record at 24 hours and 2 minutes, beating the record set in 1998 by Salvatore Babones and Mike Falsetta at 25 hours and 11 minutes. The news was one of the first published by the newspaper Metro New York ^[20] , and then this article appeared in major newspapers, including the New York Times ^[21] . From news agencies about this also told CNN ^[22] and Reuters ^[23] , and then the news of the record in the New York Metro hit the news reports of newspapers Scotland, Argentina, India, South Africa, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. In the morning newspaper, AM New York , it was reported that the time for publication of such a message in the American press was ideally chosen ^[24] . Badachevsky and Green repeatedly asked about feelings during the trip, and both constantly said that they were holding to the end, although they recognized the fact that their test was difficult.

On September 17, 2010, the Guinness Book of Records announced a new record by Matt Ferrisi and Chris Solar, set on January 22 of the same year with an official time of 22 hours 52 minutes 36 seconds ^[9] . The same record was broken from November 18 to November 19, 2013: 22 hours 26 minutes 2 seconds (26 minutes less) ^[12] . The names of the champions were announced on May 30, 2014: they were six British Andy James, Steve Wilson, Martin Hazel, Glen Bryant, Peter Smith and Adam Fisher, who visited all the stations along an unusual route. They told that they found information about the competition in Wikipedia ^[11] . Given that the six Britons had previously set a record in the Tube Challenge competition (he was later beaten), they were the first people in the world to visit all the metro stations in cities on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean ^[25] .

The current record holder is Matthew Ahn. On January 19, 2015, he visited all 468 stations, starting his journey at the Far Rockaway - Mott Avenue station and ending it at the Flushing - Main Street station (both stations are located in the Queens borough) ^[12] . However, the record was invalidated after the extension of the Flushing line, and An repeated his trip on July 23, 2016, choosing the same starting and ending points of his journey. The previous achievement was improved as it passed 469 stations, but the Guinness Book of Records did not immediately record this achievement ^[26] and recognized it only on August 26 ^[14] . To date, not a single record has been recorded for 472 stations.

The previous owners of class C Challenge records began their trip to Borough Queens from Rockaway Park - Beach 116th Street and ended up in the Bronx at Pelem Bay Park .

Record Criteria

According to the Guinness Book of Records, a participant is allowed to leave the metro and then return to it. Matthew Ahn was the first to use this rule and for the first time did not follow the official rules of the Challenge Class B ^[13] . Nevertheless, the question of the legality of the crediting of such a record remains open. At the same time, neither the Amateur Committee nor the Underground Transport Management monitor the attempts to set records and records already set.

• In 2003, in the Discovery Times Channel documentary film, several people took part in the competition ^[27] .
• An attempt to set a record in class B Challenger in 2004 was shown in the short film New Plots ( New Lots ) ^[28] .

• List of New York Metro stations
• The history of the New York Metro

• Rapid Transit Challenge