A few months ago, I was reading about the NYC subway system when I came across the Subway Challenge, which entails visiting all 472 stations in the shortest possible amount of time without leaving the system. The current record for this challenge is just under 21.5 hours.

Similar documented feats have been accomplished in other cities, including Chicago, Washington D.C., and London; however, I cannot find evidence of this occurring in Portland, Oregon. At this time, the TriMet rail system (MAX+WES) in Portland includes 101 stations. I would like to visit all 101 of these stations, on a single $5 all-day pass, in the shortest amount of time.



Here is my proposed route, which contains 14 segments and should take 7 hours and 25 minutes:



I plan on taking a picture at each station to document my attempt.

If anybody has suggestions, I would very much like to hear them. Complete MAX and WES schedules can be found on the TriMet website.
I don't have any particular suggestions on the order in which you're visiting the stations, but I wish you the best of luck and hope you'll keep us updated on the project. I assume you just need to be on the train stopping at the stations, not get off at each stop, as with the NYC version?
KermMartian wrote:
I don't have any particular suggestions on the order in which you're visiting the stations, but I wish you the best of luck and hope you'll keep us updated on the project.

Thank you. I will definitely post updates before and after the attempt.

KermMartian wrote:
I assume you just need to be on the train stopping at the stations, not get off at each stop, as with the NYC version?

I assume you are referring to the Class B variation, which requires the rider to stop at each station. The Guinness World Records rules state that "It is necessary for a train to stop at the station for the visit to count, although the challenger does not need to leave the train at that station." In my case, this is not a concern since there are no skip-stop MAX trains, and TriMet always stops the train at closed stations (if any) to stay on schedule.
This is cool as heck.
UPDATE: I have been able to assemble a team of two other people and myself. We plan on completing the traversal in about two weeks after Fleet Week and most of the Rose Festival events have ended, due to the delays that these events create (due to bridge lifts, parades, etc.).
It would be an interesting project to make a pathfinding algorithm (on a calculator, of course!) for finding the fastest route for such a challenge, given a subway system, schedules and travel times.
UPDATE (6/15/2017): I plan on completing my traversal tomorrow. Unfortunately, I will be doing it by myself since the other people dropped out at the last minute. I have decided not to include the WES "commuter train," which reduced the trip length by about an hour. On top of that, I was able to further reduce the predicted traversal time by around twenty minutes.

I'll let you guys know how it goes.

P.S. Keep an eye out for the upcoming contest announcement.
How did it go??
allynfolksjr wrote:
How did it go??


It actually went better than I had expected. There were no service disruptions or delays, and I was able to finish the trip in only 5 hours and 58 minutes.

I checked off each MAX station on the map shown below as I arrived. I was also able to photograph most of the station signs, albeit rather poorly. Towards the end my phone battery was running low, so I only captured some of the intermediate stations.



Here's a link to the unedited Google Photos album, if anyone's interested in looking at blurry, glare-filled pictures of signs and light rail vehicles: https://goo.gl/photos/GcaW7rY6ziT22ypr7
  
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