The Austin Statesman salutes a Texan with a 430-mile round-trip commute, who figures he’ll have commuted a million miles by the time he’s through.“I’ll tell you what. It’s a show out there on the road. That’s why I enjoy it so much,” Jeff Rue told reporter John Kelso.

Part of what Rue enjoys about the “show” are the various animals he’s hit on I-35 over the years — dogs, cats, coyotes, snakes, and an owl that he slammed with his grille.

Another fun show took place when a circus truck was jammed up in traffic in front of him, and the driver let the elephants and emus out for a walk.

“We had been there about an hour, and they decided to take the animals out of the trailers and let them move around,” Rue said.

A systems analyst, Rue seems like he couldn’t be happier about driving 3 1/2 hours each way. Myabe the guy needs his own system analyzed.

AM New York’s regular installment on hardcore commuters profiles a 23-year-old girl who commutes from the Philly suburbs to Tribeca each day, a one-way total of between four and five hours. Poor Kimberly Twist, an editorial assistant or somesuch at Cambridge University Press, takes the subway from Tribeca to Penn Station, New Jersey transit to Trenton, SEPTA to Philly, and a local train to a town called Ambler (”Amble” in the Webster’s Collegiate: “an easy gait, a leisurely walk.”)

Oh yeah, then there’s the 15 minute drive to her folks’ house.

Twist passes the time by eating, reading, doing crosswords, listening to her iPod, and bawling her eyes out about the sorry state of her life. (OK, I made that last part up.)

Her monthly commuting nut is $550–about what a normal 23-year-old might spend on a crummy rental 3 1/2 hours or so closer to work.

On page 1 of today’s Wall Street Journal is perhaps the most shocking bit of commuter-related journalism you’ll ever read. Eric Bellman tells the story of overcrowding on commuter rails in Mumbai, India; so bad is the problem that 3,404 people were killed while commuting last year (13 a weekday!), whether they’re crossing tracks, falling off trains or platforms, or (this one’s by far the worst) “sticking their heads out open windows for air.”

The trains are running at 2 /12 times capacity, as in, 550 people on a 200-max train. The Mumbai railroad even has a name for it: “Super-Dense Crush Load.” (Here we call it “Slippery Rail.”)

The story is told through the eyes of Jagdish Malwankar (no, not the kid voted off Idol last night). Malwankar has had a tough time of it of late; in January, 10 people fell on him while disembarking and he broke his foot. More recently, he was shoved onto the tracks, and two trains passed over him before anyone noticed. Also this year, poor Malwankar witnessed two commuters fall off the roof of the train and get sliced in half.

“Once or twice a month, I see people killed or injured on the tracks,” he said.

[Editor’s Note: Twice I checked to make sure the date atop the paper wasn’t April 1.]

Other highlights: the Mumbai system carries 20,000 passengers a day for each kilometer. To put it in perspective, Tokyo’s packed lines run 15,000, and the Long Island Railroad moves 420. Yes, 20,000 versus 420.

A few times a year, the article says, frustrated commuters riot–”rampaging through stations, lighting trains on fire and throwing rocks at police.” Yes, precisely what happened at New Roc City a few weeks back.

One positive: Jagdish Malwankar’s one-hour ride costs less than 25 cents. But should he upgrade to first-class, with fans and cushions, it’s five times as much.

Our pal Al Saracevic has a very interesting feature on the San Francisco Chronicle blog about his tour of India to see how it’s coping with its new economy. Apparently commuting is quite the bitch, both for locals navigating the horrific traffic and woeful railroads, and for Americans checking up on their outsourced biz.

Regarding the former, Saracevic writes:

“[The Indian Railway] is also the bane of many an Indian’s existence. People regularly wait in line two to three hours to get tickets at major urban train stations. And if the ticket you want isn’t available, you have to start over.”

Mercifully, a tech company is starting to sell train tickets online, though a small minority have internet access.

About traffic, he writes:

Street lanes are merely suggestions in the crowded cities of India. Traffic laws are rumors dismissed.  

About the trek Silicon Valley tech workers frequently make to India, he writes:

“It took me two cabs, three planes, two bus rides, four naps, a well-timed Bloody Mary and a tram ride” to get to Chennai.

Show me a Saracevic story without a strong Bloody Mary, and I’ll pay for your next drink.

The whole story is here.