You want commuter rail, Rubin? Picky picky. But I got your commuter rail. And a plane. And that bus. Plus moving walkways and two trams. Those last ones were unavoidable, if not part of the task. And they're all I used to get home from the Kansas City airport today.

After a failed attempt at this task, today I believe I succeeded. I started on NW flight # 1756 out of Kansas City, which left at 4:51pm Central time. But since there are no specifications on when the 6-hour clock must start and my complete one-way trip necessarily takes longer than six hours, I'm not starting it until.........

7:58pm Eastern time: I walk up jetway off flight 1756 into Detroit's airport, where I have a layover. I've been on the flight since 4:51pm Central/5:51pm Eastern. I need to return to gate A11 for the same plane continuing on to Newark. But I must grab a quick dinner somewhere.

8:44pm ET: I'm boarding flight 1756 again in Detroit to fly the rest of the way to Newark. This leg of the flight is sparsely populated, so I get to switch seats from my assigned 22B up to 13B. Wait, the guy in 13B shows up. Okay, 12B.

By 10:36pm ET I'm walking up the jetway in the Newark airport. Please let me catch the next train so I don't get back any later than I have to.

According to my cell phone, I'm waiting at baggage claim by 10:41pm. Few passengers=speedy baggage delivery. Yea! I'm barely there and off again to the AirTrain to get to the real trains.

11:08pm ET I'm sitting on New Jersey Transit's Northeast Corridor train # 3879 at the Newark airport.

By 11:39pm ET I'm walking on the New Brunswick train station platform to descend to catch a bus.

Awesome luck tonight. At 11:41pm the bus I need pulls up! By midnight the accordion bus drops me off at my stop and neither of us turn into pumpkins. I'm back in my room by 12:09am, a little more than four hours after I walked off my first flight into Detroit's airport.

Actually, if you start using Eastern time for when I was first on my flight in Kansas City (5:51pm ET), I made it through my complete trip and plane-train (by 11:08pm)-bus (by 11:41pm) combo within the six-hour window, thanks to East Coast transit. Whew!