For a long time, I have been very interested in counting the number of miles – kilometres – all that, for all rail journeys I’ve made. However, so far, these were for the national, territorial, or regional train systems I’ve travelled in.
Although I’ve been a very active user of metro systems and trams – Beijing has the largest subway system in northern China, and one of the biggest in the world, and Zürich has a genuinely expansive tram network – I’ve never really incorporated mileage done on the systems as part of my “trains mileage”, until lately. The rationale appeared simple: it didn’t make sense to keep track of your metro and tram travels, because they will just be used for the short sprint around town, and not to get you from Portugal to Singapore (or at least so in the future)…
Inertia to count metro and tram miles as part of train miles was slowly building, and I felt the time was right to slowly incorporate them in after many first journeys on very new metro systems around China; but they’re now part of a new set of record I’m keeping – instead of spending months or even years trying to re-calculate existing journeys. Of course, I will continue to subsequently calculate previous venue, but I’m slowly “getting up there” – and so will probably be missing out on a few journeys done at a much younger age.
The new set of rail records – which I’m calling New Train Records (NTR), surprise! – will be far more accurate than any other I’ve done before. They will incorporate national rail, metros, trams, as well as just about any other form of rail-based travel the world over – regardless if it’s just a hop across the street, or across an entire continent.
I’m starting this from an almost empty Platform 8 at Beijing Railway Station (no I’m not, I’m dictating this into my recording microphone subsequently at home!), and it’s actually quite fitting as I reset an incredibly existing lifetime global record of over half a million kilometres (this lifetime global record will continue to be kept and updated as needed). Apart from me and three other members of platform staff, it’s pretty much a case of zero on the platform – as I board the train with zero miles done and just one station visited in the NTR. ( China’s extreme Zero Covid lockdowns have absolutely decimated domestic travel – and made international travel all but impossible). Hopefully, one of these days, Corona will revert to being merely the name of a beer – and we can genuinely celebrate when I have completed my millionth – both lifetime global, and NTR.