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Having a rail of a time! Train enthusiast sets record for travelling over 700km in 24 hours on a one day ticket

Setting off on his odyssey at 9.37am on Tuesday morning at the train station in Będzin, Piotr Goszczycki finished 24hours later with five minutes to spare in Katowice having travelled a staggering 740.8 kilometres.
Piotr Goszczycki

A public transport enthusiast has set a record for the longest distance travelled using a one-day travel ticket in the Katowice area.

Piotr Goszczycki clocked just over 740 km on the daily ticket, proving his motto “if you don’t take risks, you don’t get to drink champagne”.

Setting off on his odyssey promptly at 9.37am on Tuesday morning at the train station in Będzin, he finished twenty-four hours later with five minutes to spare in Katowice having travelled a staggering 740.8 kilometres.

His journey took him through many of the region’s cities, including Będzin, Sosnowiec, Gliwice, Tychy, Zabrze, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Ząbkowice Śląskie, Katowice and Tarnowskie Góry.

Goszczycki planned his journey carefully to squeeze as many kilometres as possible into the 24-hour period.

His journey took him through many of the region’s cities, including Będzin, Sosnowiec, Gliwice, Tychy, Zabrze, Dąbrowa Górnicza, Ząbkowice Śląskie, Katowice and Tarnowskie Góry.Piotr Goszczycki 

Inevitably, though, there were hiccups, with delays and late running trains.

He said: “I had to be flexible. If there was a delay, I had to decide quickly whether to take a different bus or tram.

“The conductors were great and gave lots of help and information.”

Goszczycki managed to get some sleep during his challenge, which for him underlines the advantages of public transport.

Goszczycki planned his journey carefully to squeeze as many kilometres as possible into the 24-hour period.Piotr Goszczycki 

“When you ride a bus or tram at 5 or 6 in the morning, you often see workers snoozing for 5 minutes then waking up just before their stop.

You can’t do that in a car,” he said.

“You can also read or even work on a laptop,” he added.

As a zealot for public transport, Goszczycki believes more than ever that mass transit is the future.

Goszczycki said he had to be flexible and if there was a delay he “had to decide quickly whether to take a different bus or tram.”Piotr Goszczycki 

“Cars in cities are just not sustainable now, what with the cost of petrol and insurance,” he said.

Łukasz Folda from the GZM Metropolis said that Goszczycki ’s record is brand new, as no attempt like this has ever been made in the Upper Silesia conurbation.

“There have been some Top Gear style challenges, like races to see what form of transport – car, bus, tram or train – is quickest to get from one side of the region to the other, but nothing like this,” he said.

Łukasz Folda from the GZM Metropolis said that Goszczycki’s record is brand new, as no attempt like this has ever been made in the Upper Silesia conurbation.Koleje Śląskie

This is not Goszczycki’s first public transport record. In 2018, he travelled over 626 kilometres within Warsaw on a PLN 15 one-day ticket, and last year using a Mazowieckie railway day ticket he managed to clock over 1350 km.

He also holds the record for the number of kilometres travelled by PKP Intercity trains on a single weekend ticket by covering over four thousand kilometres.

When not breaking transport records, Goszczycki is an author and has published several books that combine his passions of trains and literature.

These and other railway-related books that he has published can be found at his website literacka.pkp-jazda.pl

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