2:58.25!

Attention faithful blog readers: There is a new record for travel through the 60th Street tunnel between Lexington Avenue-60th Street and Queensboro Plaza. The time is 2 minutes, 58¼ seconds. The record was attained on Wednesday, 09 May 2007, at about 17:04. Lead motor of involved train is 8732, an R160B type car built by Kawasaki in 2006. Top speed during this run was about 58 miles per hour. This new record beats the previous one by about nine seconds.

I like fast trains. I love it when the express train I'm on zips past the local train I'm not on. The problem is that there aren't too many places for trains to go fast in the subway system. However, the East River tunnels make for some speedy spots. Ever since my MiniDisc days, I played “Bodyrock” by Moby as the train made its trek through the tunnel. After the train stopped at Queensboro Plaza, I would check the time, and give a letter grade for the trip. If it was below 3:10, I'd give an A+, 3:10 to 3:20, an A, 3:20 to 3:25, a B, etc. If the song finishes before the train stops at Queensboro Plaza, the ride gets and F, and since I got my first iPod, I made my own playlist which includes Strong Bad saying, “Not good enough, F--” (from for kids), and a recording of Anne Robinson saying, “You are the weakest link…Goodbye!” (from The Weakest Link). After that, I play a song from The Murmurs. More recently, I've been alternating between that song and You’re Pitiful by “Weird Al” Yankovic. When the trip goes well (i.e. “Bodyrock” is still playing while I'm standing on the platform at Queensboro Plaza, I'll play “I Like That” by Houston or “I Like It” by Narcotic Thrust, or both. Take a look at my recently played songs on Last.fm (under "What I've Been Listening To"). If you see Bodyrock followed by any of the songs I've mentioned, then you'll know I've been through the Sixty.

This doesn't mean I don't like slow. I like slow when it's okay to go slow, or unsafe to go too fast. But when your train tops out at 45 MPH in a tunnel designed for trains to go 70, then the trip leaves much to be desired. There's a reason for speed limits, but they don't need to be artificially low. I support putting the rapid in “rapid transit,” so I'll continue to do this.