Train riding competition

[KateM]

Last Saturday me and my family took place in the 14th year of a train riding competition here in the Czech Republic called Křížem krážem. 24 hours window to get not only as many kilometres as possible, but you can also get bonus points for visiting cultural places or secret places or for fulfilling various tasks. As the places and tasks are different each year, the routes the best teams take are very different each year.

 

Our team survived 1189 km in trains and 28 km in bus replacement service, which results into 1054 points. We also did some bonus stuff which added another 250 points. 1304 sounds good but it's still a lot less than what experienced competitors have 🙈 We ended up at the 40th place (out of 72 teams).

 

During the whole journey I was doing a live report on instagram. Most posts feature one of my N-scale trains, Sanriku Railway 36-207. Posts: Großschönau, Liberec (home), Liberec (station), Stará Paka, Chlumec n. C., Prague (first time), Olomouc, Šumperk, Zábřeh, Prague (second time), Plzeň, Most, Ústí n. L., and Děčín + Rumburk.

 

My photos got featured on Facebook (here) and Instagram (here) of the competition. They told me that it's the first time after all these years someone actually took a model train on the journey. Also we apparently broke all-time record of number of different railway companies, using 6 different ones. Where are the times of unitary railway 🙂

 

Even though we did not place well, we were chosen, along few others, to represent players of the competition (and do some photos and talks) on the board of Connecting Europe Express on its journey from Prague to Plzeň this Sunday. 36-207 is looking forward to a new adventure 🙂 

 

Do you also have some similar competition in your country? Or have you ever tried doing a 24-hour marathon on your own?

[bill937ca]

Hard to do here. Via Rail trains run in a long, thin corridor between Windsor and Quebec City.

 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CorridorVia.svg

 

https://www.viarail.ca/en/explore-our-destinations/trains/ontario-and-quebec

 

Public transport networks are so much more dense in Europe than North America.

Edited September 26, 2022 by bill937ca

[Socimi]

Wow!

That's something i would really like to do! Do they accept international teams as well?
I might pair up with some of my friends and try one of the competitions of the next years!

[KateM]

2 minutes ago, Socimi said:

Wow!

That's something i would really like to do! Do they accept international teams as well?
I might pair up with some of my friends and try one of the competitions of the next years!

 

Sure, everyone is welcome 👍 The only problem is that all info and team registration is in Czech. But no problem, Google can help you get a grasp of it and I can definitely help you with exact translations when needed. The more teams are in the better 👍 Feel free to ping me here or on Discord for help with Czech. 

[Kiha66]

What a fun idea!  Here in the US people have a similar, if less formal race to hit all the stations on the New York subway as fast as possible.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subway_Challenge

[KateM]

1 hour ago, Kiha66 said:

What a fun idea!  Here in the US people have a similar, if less formal race to hit all the stations on the New York subway as fast as possible.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subway_Challenge

 

Cool, it has its own Wikipedia page 😮 Must be a lot of fun planning and riding. Does your subway system have a lot of delays so people would need to re-plan in the middle of a run?

[KateM]

It was this time of the year again last weekend and our team was in as well. We took much more hardcore approach this year - started in a night train and ended at one of the secret places that awards bonus points (which means a night spent at a train stop). Both EuroNight train from Prague to Bohumín (Prague - Humenné line) and NightJet train from Bohumín to Břeclav (Berlin - Wroclaw - Wien - Graz line) got two extra B249 cars just for the competitors and the cars were fully packed! There were more than 600 competitors this year, most of them using this pair of night trains to start. The event felt much more social this year as we met other competitors in many other trains and also on all bonus places we visited (last year we met nobody during the whole day). The results of this year are going to be announced on Friday evening and so far it seems we might be getting better place than last year. 

 

Our bilance for this year:

⌚ 41 h total (Friday evening through Sunday noon)
🚆 1911 km / 22:53 (of which 1322 km / 15:09 was on Saturday and thus counts for the competition)
🚍 188 km / 2:10
🚇 17 km / 0:26
🚶‍♀️ 18 km
🏃‍♀️ 1 km

 

[bill937ca]

Is this part of Prague Railway Day?   Railway Day seems to travel across Czechia during September. PID (event sponsor) video.

 

 

This was Railway Day 2020 (Czech language link)

https://pid.cz/prazsky-zeleznicni-den-2020/

 

From this year's Prague Railway Day.   Video by  Simt Guru

 

 

Another Prague Railway Day 2022  video.  Video by Dany vlaky TV.

 

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by bill937ca

[KateM]

It is historically connected to the National Railway Day (previous seasons of the competition were using a special ČD ticket available only on that day) but Křížem Krážem is a separate event. ČD organize several different Local Railway Days throughout the country during summer, and then organize the main event - National Railway Day - in late September. This year the National Railway Day was in Plzeň. Unfortunately we missed our connection to Plzeň in Prague even though we sprinted all the way form platform 7 to platform 1 so we did not have a chance to attend the event.

 

 

[KateM]

Results were announced today, we are 11th out of 102 teams, that's a great achievement! 🎉