Argh:

Dear Mr ~

Thank you for sending us the details of your recent record proposal for 'The quickest travel time for all Metro stations'. We are  afraid to say that we are unable to accept this as a Guinness World Record.Unfortunately it is simply not physically possible for us to list separate records for travelling every metro railway system in the world, since there are literally hundreds. For this reason we are only able to consider such records for London and New York, which are the world's largest metro rail networks. We appreciate that this may be disappointing to you. We are always keen to hear from people who wish to set a Guinness World Record.  If you should need any advice regarding record breaking in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us, quoting the above membership number. Once again thank you for your interest in Guinness World Records.

Yours sincerely, Marco Frigatti
Records Research Services

How stupid. If the world were to consist of Frigatti's I bet we'd all be very disappointed. Updated: Never to be outdone, I quickly sent the follwing reply:

Hello Mr. Frigatti

I thank you for your relatively rapid reply to my claim. I understand how your policy is in terms of getting the most remarkable and interesting claims, as there are 'literally hundreds' of similar possiblities it would be impossible to verify and publish all of them. However I do want to point out that the Paris Metro network is truly extensive, second only to that of the New York subway in number, with 368 stations. London, on the other hand, has far fewer stations, with 270. Just because the challenge of visiting all the subway stations may not take as long to complete as in London or New York does not necessarily mean it would be easier or by any means less significant to do so. Indeed this challenge is not a question of how significant the Metro network is, but rather the challege of being able to visit all the stations in the least amount of time. Wouldn't more stations qualify it as apt for such a challenge?

It is claimed that 'we are only able to consider such records for London and New York, which are the world's largest metro rail networks'. Please note that this is only in length, and not in number of stations, nor in many other aspects that are largely ignored.

I strongly urge a serious reconsideration of such a claim, for it would do injustice to the Paris subway system, which clearly deserves to be among the 'world's largest metro rail networks'.

Consider that:
The Paris Metro carried an average of 1.2 billion passengers in 2003, largely surpassing the 886 million carried by the London Tube, not distant from the 1.3 billion carried by New York subway;
Paris opened its first functional Metro train service on July 19, 1900, while New York did so only on October 27, 1904;
Paris, as iterated earlier, is only second to New York in terms of the largest amount of stations in its underground network.


Yours truly, Rio ~

Written on Thursday, July 22 at 7:00 PM