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 dense in Europe than North America.

[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?