Four Salford University students spent their Monday afternoon taking on the Metrolink challenge this week.
Daniel Gibson, Ben Houghton, Ollie Thorpe and Alistair Hancock spent 5 hours on the Metrolink reaching 82 out of 93 stops.
The lads say they were on course to finish the challenge 20 minutes earlier than the previous fastest time but they were stopped in their tracks when the last leg of the tour which was the Piccadilly to Ashton line was cancelled.
The challenge was part of the broadcast journalists tea time show called the Monday Mix for their uni radio station.
The lads were hoping to reach all 93 stops of the Metrolink system in record time and believe they may have been at the top of the leader board had they finished the challenge.
"There was a reported time, but we don’t know who got it. Radio Manchester said it was 5 hours 28 mins." Said Ben Houghton
"We never actually completed the whole line because there was an issue, but we were on track to finish 20 minutes early."
"It was a challenge for our show, we like to push the boundaries for student radio,
"We don’t just want to go to the studio every week and sit there, we wanted to be creative and start something new and create a good piece of radio."
The boys spent last week Thursday meticulously planning their journey using Google maps to work out which routes would get them to their destination the quickest way.
For the students it was the first time they had seen many of the places they had visited whilst on their journey.
"I’ve lived in Manchester my whole life but you don’t go to a lot of places, and you don’t realise how far the Met can actually take you," said Daniel Gibson.
"Rochdale is so far away from where I’d usually go, it was nice to explore different places I’d never been to.
The price was the best thing for me, for £4.90 you can go across all of Manchester, it’s good money for value really."
The boys were well prepared with packed lunches and charged phones but minus an impromptu toilet break to the Morrisons on the Eccles Interchange they say they had a fairly stress free trip.
The only issue that arose were the looks they received from fellow commuters as they frantically rushed from platform to platform.
"We did get a few weird looks from people." Said Ollie Thorpe.
"We were talking a lot about tram times and kept mentioning numbers,
"The odd time I caught somebody giving us a look, thinking ‘what are these guys on about.
"They’re memories that we’ll take away from Uni and we’ll have forever, we’ll still talk about it in 20 years and say ‘wow we were mad’."
The boys think the Metrolink goes far enough, but aren’t against any opportunity for the system to be extended to other parts of greater Manchester
Ollie Sad: "It won’t be the fastest way to get from Wigan to Manchester, or Stockport to Manchester, but you can get to more places that a train can’t, and I think that’s where the benefit is."
