Melbourne-based train nerd and YouTuber The Train Man set himself the ambitious challenge of racing the Metro train between Willison and Riversdale stations on the Alamein line. Did he win? We won’t spoil it, but the ending was extremely close.
The 16-year-old Train Man chose those stations because they’re the closest two in the whole Melbourne network, making them an ideal start for recreating the challenge which has been done all over the world – think London, Singapore, Cologne, and beyond.
“Racing trains has been done all over the world, and I want to give it a crack,” he said.
“This is Man vs. Train, the Melbourne edition.”
In The Train Man’s own words, the route “starts with a big hill and ends with a flat sprint”, which makes it challenging enough to be entertaining but still feasible to actually complete.
According to Google Maps, that route should take around eight minutes on foot, compared to just one minute on the actual train itself.
Judging from the video, The Train Man appears to have cut down that running time to one and a half minutes, juuuust managing to catch the train at the last moment (pun intended).
The footage – which was recorded by GoPros strapped to the runner himself and a cyclist who was following him, as well as by people standing around with their phones – is unfortunately not one continuous shot.
That means we can’t be 100% certain that he really did outrun the Melbourne’s public transport. However, nothing about the footage looks staged, either, so we’re still on Team Train Man… for now.
Apparently there’s a second video coming in the near future, so clearly this first attempt was just a warm-up for some more challenging runs.
Now come to Sydney and do it between Newtown and Macdonaldtown. I dare ya.
