Big Apple Bound: Is Getting There Half the Fun?

The Acela doesn't actually travel any faster than other passenger trains -- 125 mph is the speed limit for all trains between Washington and New York. But the Acela can maintain higher speeds on the curves than the older rigs.

When I told the train crew I was competing in this race, they started plying me with advice, shortcuts to the subway, even which escalators at Penn Station were the least crowded. They wanted me to win.

At 9:20, the Acela nosed into the slip at Penn Station. Outside, the taxi line was horrendous. But Train Man had an ace to play; while strolling through the Acela, he had happened upon an executive of a certain capital city newspaper, a train partisan who had a car waiting in New York.

Train Man hitched a ride and scooted uptown. Half a block from the finish line, he bailed out and ran the last leg.

Up the elevator and down the hall, I burst into the Post bureau looking at my watch and yelling, "9:36! 9:36!"

But Air Man had already been there for 39 minutes. Elapsed time: 3 hours 21 minutes.

Car Man, meanwhile, had taken advantage of his head start. While the others made their way across Washington to reach their modes of transportation, Car Man zoomed through the dark, up 16th Street NW, past a drug dealer doing business in the open at Harvard Street. Twelve minutes and nine red lights to the District line, 17 minutes to the Beltway, which was blessedly empty at 6:31.

Fighting annoying drizzle, then heavy rain, he moved through Baltimore and its suburbs traffic-free. He passed two troopers in Maryland, but they seemed not to mind his liberal interpretation of the speed limit.

The E-ZPass did him no good at the long lines at Maryland's two tolls; the Free State insists on its own incompatible transponder system. But Delaware cooperates with states to the north, and the pass saved probably five to seven minutes there.

Ach! Car Man reports. I knew I would hit someone's morning rush, and it turns out to be Delaware's. (Isn't it too small a state to have a rush hour?) Standstill traffic hits at 7:47, and I creep all the way to the bridge to New Jersey -- a 10-minute setback.

Despite the weather, Car Man made fine time, scooting through E-ZPass lanes on the New Jersey Turnpike at 45 mph, past dozens of waiting cars, arriving at the Holland Tunnel (the radio reported massive backups at the Lincoln, far less of a wait at the Holland) at 9:29.

Manhattan traffic was light, and Car Man arrived at a garage one block from the finish line at 9:57. He ditched the car, ran the last block and entered the bureau at 10:03 -- 27 minutes behind Train Man. Elapsed time: 3 hours 48 minutes.