Time for end of line transfers

[Nigel]

I've again been digging into the log books of my four full network completions. I don't think I'm disclosing any great secrets by revealing that most full network challenges involve transferring between the ends of lines listed below. These can be done in a variety of ways, possibly involving some combination of: doubling back via another station on the line, running, bus, tram or National Rail.

Below I've listed, in alphabetical order, the four most common transfers and the time taken (rounded to the nearest minute) on each of my four completions, from the time of leaving the train at the end of one line to departing on a train from the end of the next line. Of course, on each of my four completions I've not necessarily done these transfers in the same order or even in the same direction. As the numbers shown include any time waiting for the train to leave, they involve an element of luck, and will also be affected by the time of day (and hence service frequency) - so just missing a train can have a considerable impact on the time.

Cockfosters - High Barnet: 30, 21, 27, 27.

Edgware - Stanmore: 18,15,19,14.

Morden - Wimbledon: 22, 12, 19, 16.

Uxbridge - West Ruislip: 21, 28, 16, 13.

Total time for the above four: 91, 76, 81, 70.

Interestingly, if you rank the total times taken for these four transfers they come out in the same order as the times taken for the whole completion. My most recent completion two weeks ago (shown as the fourth entry in each list) set two PBs (Edgware - Stanmore and Uxbridge - West Ruislip) for end of line transfers, but had I matched my PBs for the other two, another 10 minutes would have been saved. The least variable for me has been Edgware - Stanmore (just 5 minutes between fastest and slowest), whereas the most variable has been Uxbridge - West Ruislip (15 minutes gap between fastest and slowest).

I'm not sure if you can read much more into this analysis, but it does give some indication of where time may be saved in future.