How much should a support team be allowed to do? - LOCKED

[palkanetoijala31]

Im amazed leave wimbledon get to morden and leave in 6 mins and i thought our 10 mins was good

[sweek]

I think a support team should be able to do whatever the challengers want or need them to do.

I, as an average commuter and passenger, think this is a really bad attitude. There is a big difference between running for trains and holding doors open that you seem to miss. Holding the doors disrupts the service for every single other passenger and can even cause damage to the trains if those posters are to be believed, and I really think these records achieved by doing so shouldn't count.

The trick here is to indeed use the system as it is, and not by modifying the the train departure times by doing something that disrupts and damages the network.

[Root]

I really think these records achieved by doing so shouldn't count.

So you're suggesting we strike the last half dozen World Records from the, er, record? (apologies to any team which did not hold doors) And then what for the future? As I said, there is nothing in the Guinness rules that forbids holding doors, and until there is, any agreement we reached on here would not be binding, and would be completely unenforceable anyway.

In some cases holding the doors could actually benefit the passengers on the train. Let's say you are running for an off-peak Woodford via Hainault train at Stratford, and your support team has to hold the door for ten seconds. In that ten seconds, your team of three scrambles onto the train, along with two extra passengers. Now, those five people have saved twenty minutes each (the time they would otherwise have waited for the next train of the same service), and everyone else on the train has only lost ten seconds. Assuming there are less than 6000 people on the train, and assuming that those ten seconds do not hold up the train behind or cause that train to miss its slot later down the line, then there has been an overall net gain for the passengers collectively.

Having said that, I don't take kindly to other passengers holding the doors of a train I'm already on... it's certainly an interesting subject to think about.

[tubeguru]

Assuming there are less than 6000 people on the train

Is this a new world record you're not telling us about?

[sweek]

As I said, there is nothing in the Guinness rules that forbids holding doors, and until there is, any agreement we reached on here would not be binding, and would be completely unenforceable anyway.

Well it's not so much about the Guinness rule to me as the TfL rules that you need to oblige to while you're on the network, tube challenge or not.

Do you think TfL would even allow you to do this if they knew these things? Ignoring some rules such as getting on while the doors are closing and using one-way bits of the network I can understand, but really holding open doors and potentially damaging trains and services is just wrong.

In some cases holding the doors could actually benefit the passengers on the train. Let's say you are running for an off-peak Woodford via Hainault train at Stratford, and your support team has to hold the door for ten seconds. In that ten seconds, your team of three scrambles onto the train, along with two extra passengers. Now, those five people have saved twenty minutes each (the time they would otherwise have waited for the next train of the same service), and everyone else on the train has only lost ten seconds. Assuming there are less than 6000 people on the train, and assuming that those ten seconds do not hold up the train behind or cause that train to miss its slot later down the line, then there has been an overall net gain for the passengers collectively.

That's not a great assumption here I think and doesn't take into account that very often those small delays do cause for bigger ones further down the line, passengers missing connections and losing minutes further down the network and in the long term even damaging the rolling stock.

[jonny]

I agree with Sweek, there are nothing in the Guinness rules to suggest that they are against door holding (though I suspect they would not condone it as a practise) but that is far from the point...

The TfL rules are there to be obliged by, and you can stretch these rules as far as you and/or your support team are willing to risk. If you get caught by a BTP officer or someone then it will slow you down but that is your risk.

If you believe that holding a door is morally sound (I have no particular view) and you think you'll get away with it as far as TfL are concerned, then go ahead and do it - it is nothing to do with Guinness at all. Records should not be wiped for this reason.

Allowing support teams to collect evidence, however, is very definitely a Guinness matter and I have no idea whether or not they would deem it acceptable.

[Soup Dragon]

In terms of support team collecting train numbers and taking photos I would say that this is essential. It is good to get as many photo's of the whole team during the attempt, especially at the start and finish of the attempt. With train numbers it is very good to have people in place, paticularly at fast cross platform points when often you run straight onto a connecting train without a chance to get the number. As for the witness statements, these should really be collected by those making the attempt otherwise it would be possible for the witness log not to be travelling with the team and the potential to falsify evidence.

[hwolge]

We always use preprinted witness reports with pictures of ourselves. This way the witnesses sign that they've seen the people on the pictures, rather than just some arbitrary names... In this case, I think it's ok to use a support person to collect the statement.

[joy54]

Sweek if you want people to abide by TfL rules then as previously stated running is also banned on the network so do you wish all Tube Challengers to walk between connections. These rules are unenforcable and the majority of records gained have been done using a set of rules where holding doors is allowed. There has never been any complaint against Tube Challengers holding doors and delaying passengers and it has never been a problem for TfL, if it was they would not comply with Guinness's request for impartial information from them.

Were not talking massive delays here its seconds rather than minutes and even with knock on delays further down the line its hardly going to be big delays for people.

Also for the case of collection I agree with Anthony, the record is to get around all the London Underground stations in the fastest time not to collect the most amount of data while going round. The data is just to allow Guinness to ensure the record attempt has been made rather than falsified so gathering train numbers for teams and taking pictures of them at stations is not an issue.

[Soup Dragon]

Well whatever happens come Tube Olympics (July 24th) it will be every man for himself!
It seems unlikely that anyone will have much in the way of support team so holding of doors will not be an issue. It will be Tube Challenger vs The Network and everyone will have the same service to contend with. Hopefully we will have at least three teams competing that day, possibly more, so it will be interesting to see what early runs or buses the various teams opt for. Fingers crossed that we don't run into any unexploded WWII bombs or tresspassers at Embankment!

[jonny]

Sweek if you want people to abide by TfL rules then as previously stated running is also banned on the network so do you wish all Tube Challengers to walk between connections. These rules are unenforcable and the majority of records gained have been done using a set of rules where holding doors is allowed.

That comment further enforces my point. You can do what you think you'll get away with. If you think that you'll get away with running then that's up to you and Guinness won't object. Similarly, if you think you can get away with holding doors then that is fully up to you.

EDIT: I know the original quote was aimed at Sweek rather than me but who cares?

[joy54]

I don't even think its what you can get away with as I could of easily got away with holding doors at Amersham on all my attempts but I did feel that was against the spirit of the challenge and was frowned upon, as otherwise it would just be as we get closer and closer to a perfect time the record would depend of who could hold the doors longest at the start and that would start causing delays in my opinion as that would have to be minutes to be significant.

[hwolge]

I think that with unlimited door holding you could easily get away with holding a door for up to half a minute per change. Statistically, this would result in perhaps 5-6 trains caught, instead of missed, saving 5-6 minutes each. This is around 30 minutes in total! So, I don't think holding the start door would be that significant...

If serious door holding becomes a trend, I'm pretty sure TFL will stop all tube challenging, one way or the other. If nothing else, simply by not supporting Guinness in their verification process.

All this has to do with support teams only. A team member holding the door for another team member will never amount to any serious door holding.

Personally, I think this type of door holding is outright cheating, because the support team significantly helps with the core activity at hand. I'm sure Guinness would ban this if they became aware of the issue. It's so blatantly clear that the record is about travelling the system "as is" - as joy54 points out, regarding the holding doors at Amersham. The argument that it's not verifyable is not very valid. What chance do Guinness really have to check that you don't use private transportation (as long as you don't overdo it, it can really never be detected)? Or that all team members are along at all times? The hourly witness reports are clearly not enogh to verify this. Thus, I'm convinced people would abide, if Guinness stated this was not allowed.

As a parallell, assume you want to set a record in dragging a train engine with your teeth. Would it be acceptable to have a support team pushing the train? After all they are not pulling in the same string with their teeth, they are "just slightly" affecting the object to be mastered, or??? On the other hand, having a support team sprinkling water on the contestant (if that is helpful) or taking pictures of the event or helping in getting witnesses to sign is just as obviously allowed, because it does not affect the core activity.

[Going Underground]

All this has to do with support teams only. A team member holding the door for another team member will never amount to any serious door holding.


I believe that Andi held the door for 2 minutes at Morden recently to allow his other team members to catch up....... I have never in the capacity of support team or when attempting a GWR asked my support team to hold a door this long...... I think even 30 seconds is stretching this to the limit....

I repeat again as in many previous posts...... TfL are not even aware of us we are simply a spit in the ocean using a transport system that has upto 3 million users daily.....
Can you imagine the disruption caused to services by normal commuters / drunks etc.....

I really don't think a handful of people going out every few weeks is anything to get concerned about........

[Going Underground]

As an aside, I think this thread is a little dangerous to remain on public show, because we should present a responsible attitude to travelling on the network, and I fear at times it falls some way short of this. Anyone in any position could read this, react badly - and then all this hypothetical debate could end up shooting us in the foot.

Have to agree with you on that score Matt.....