Archive > The Amazing Race 18 Spoilers and Speculation
AR18 Transportation Primary Options
apskip:
I am operating 12 hours behind Neobie, but I concur with the basic train options Salzburg to Feldkirch. I might point out that leaving their cars is not preordained, as autos on that route would be slightly faster at that time of day through rural Austria. It is unclear when the teams give up those vehicles, although just after or just before Feldkirch is as viable as in Salzburg.
apskip:
So, here are the complete flight options for Varanasi to Vienna on Dec. 5/6:
1. Conservative Route (Jet/Cord) - for Varanasi to Delhi, choice of:
IT336 1355 1517
9W724 (shown in a shot during this episode)1526 1650
AI405 1550 1715
SG119 1645 1820
connecting with OS34 DEL VIE (12/6) 0231+1 0539+1
2. Potentially Safe Route if Seats Available on IC195 VNS BOM (sole flight) 1345 1545 and OS35 0115+1 0504+1
3. Probable Safe Route with any above flight VNS DEL plus OS35 - need connector from DEL to BOM. There are 16 flights leaving Delhi after 4pm and arriving Mumbai before midnight, so the chances are high that some seats were available.
apskip:
I will have more on the precise rail schedules later, but for now a key point is that any of the first 5 teams knew that they had at least one hour head start on Jet and Cord. The train arrivals in Zermatt from Visp were:
dep. Visp 1625 arr. Zermatt 1734 probably the train that Zev/Justin and Kisha/Jen were on
dep. Visp 1710 arr. Zermatt 1814 probably the train that Flight Time/Big Easy, Kent/Vyxsin and Gary/Mallory were on
dep. Visp 1810 arr. Zermatt 1914 probably the train that Jet/Cord were on
So the teams in the middle group knew, if they bothered to research train schedules (which any on-the-ball team would do) that Jet/Cord had to be one hour behind when they did not show up in Sargans for the same originating train. That gave all of the teams except Flight Time/big Easy the luxury of not having to use the U-turn and have the historical issues associated with its use.
apskip:
The rail schedule from Salzburg to Feldkirch indicates all teams on the 602am train arriving 949am. With the time to get a safety briefing for their mopeds and about a 1 hour (13 mph for 22km) quickest trip, the fastest teams would be getting to the Castle by about 11am and going down to the bus stop. The buses run about every half hour and given the bus schedule they could not make a 1139am train from Sargans.
I have now analyzed the Swiss rail timetables to determine what logically happened on schedules for the teams. There are 3 groups:
1. Zev/Justin and Kisha/Jen
depart Sargans 1239 arrive Zurich 1348
depart Zurich 1402 arrive Visp 1602
depart Visp 1625 arrive Zermatt 1734
2. Kent/Vyxsin, Gary/Mallory, Flight Time/Big Easy
depart Sargans 1328 arrive Zurich 1428
depart Zurich 1432 arrive Bern 1528
depart Bern 1534 arrive Visp 1631
depart Visp 1710 arrive Zermatt 1814
3. Jet/Cord
depart Sargans 1439 arrive Zurich 1548 (note- consistent with the need to do 44 km round-trip moped more than group 1)
depart Zurich 1602 arrive Visp 1802
depart Visp 1810 arrive Zermatt 1914
Therefore, Flight Time/Big Easy started in Zermatt with a one hour lead on Jet/Cord.
apskip:
I have been searching for an appropriate timetable for the Gornergrat Bahn back into Zermatt with one scheduled time at 1108am. The only match is logically in the timetable for 12-12-10 to 12-18-10:
http://www.gornergratbahn.ch/en/timetable_tickets/timetables/december/Pages/default.aspx
That misses the actual period by a few days, but is the only available schedule I can find that has any 1108. That schedule has downward trains from Gornergrat every 24 minutes and it takes 19 minutes from Rifflealp to Zermatt. The relevant train which the first 4 teams caught was 1108 arriving Zermatt 1127. Zev and Justin could have caught either the 1132 dep. Riffelalp and 1151 arr. Zermatt or the 1156 dep. Riffelalp and 1215 arrive Zermatt. They needed to either make up 24 minutes or 48 minutes.
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