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Nigel wrote:
I e-mailed TfL again yesterday morning, reminding them that they had asked me previously to check a week before about Olympia services during the Beer Festival. Twenty fours hours later, I've still not received a reply. I'm not impressed.

I've finally had an e-mail reply from TfL today (i.e. on the second day of the Beer Festival). Here's what it said:
"Thank you for your follow-up email of 6 August regarding District line services to Kensington (Olympia).
I can confirm that there will not be a special District line service during the Great British Beer Festival. London Overground services do stop at Kensignton Olympia regularly and is the best way to travel to the venue."

What a shambles! Clearly TfL do not want to let anyone know about the Exhibition service, so they can axe it in future on the grounds that nobody uses it. I think formal complaint about this misinformation would be appropriate.

Nigel wrote:

Nigel wrote:
I e-mailed TfL again yesterday morning, reminding them that they had asked me previously to check a week before about Olympia services during the Beer Festival. Twenty fours hours later, I've still not received a reply. I'm not impressed.

I've finally had an e-mail reply from TfL today (i.e. on the second day of the Beer Festival). Here's what it said:
"Thank you for your follow-up email of 6 August regarding District line services to Kensington (Olympia).
I can confirm that there will not be a special District line service during the Great British Beer Festival. London Overground services do stop at Kensington Olympia regularly and is the best way to travel to the venue."

What a shambles! Clearly TfL do not want to let anyone know about the Exhibition service, so they can axe it in future on the grounds that nobody uses it. I think formal complaint about this misinformation would be appropriate.

Judging by the crowds on the Olympia train, I would say that it will always be in this scenario.

I've been watching the situation with interest - this seems to add another layer of ridiculousness on top of it!

I wonder if any of you took any date-stamped photos of the District Line train with "Olympia" displayed on the dot-matrix anywhere - and would be willing to forward this on to TfL's Customer Service department?

All seems a bit of a shambles...

One of our team took pictures - not sure about the time stamp - yesterday.

Btw I think the rest of my team would have been quicker if I hadn't slowed them up, so big thanks to them for waiting and I will get fitter.

The inaugural "Bladder of Steel" award goes to Glen and Rhys for not needing to pee once during the challenge - unless of course anyone can beat that

Nigel wrote: Tangy: ???

Tangy got 17:13:47

The starting manoeuvre for our team failed, but the most wonderful H9 put us on to the same train at Rayners Lane that our backup (and more realistic) route had.

Our day went really well for a large proportion- our route went out the window when we missed a tight connection and then we spend lots of our train time planning- Rhys and his WTTs were invaluable when planning with no signal- especially as he was quick at reading them. It's weird that sometimes you plan a good, short connection and then are disappointed as you have to wait longer having made good time beforehand. This happened with our MHE- planned 5 which was reasonable and then we moaned as we had to wait 8.

Bus connections were all pretty good- no sign of the U1 though haha.

Wood Street was a bit worrying, our team got split up! Glen took the lead and I was close behind- then I got a call from Rhys (Who I thought was with Iain) who didn't know where to go! I went back to look for Rhys, couldn't find him, couldn't get through on the phone and genuinely wasn't sure what to do. With 10 minutes to go I decided to run to Wood Street anyway hoping that Rhys had found another way there- after putting a fair bit of effort in I catch a glimpse of someone I think is Rhys just approaching Wood Street and arrive last to thankfully find the other three there.

The real problem with the day was the slowness of the District- we had several long waits (At HSK, Turnham Green*2, (team wimped out of the run to Chiswick) and Earls Court for Olympia which ran late.)

I will remember this attempt for being thirsty and very desperate for a wee for what felt like forever.

Happy to get a PB, frustrated that it wasn't even quicker.

It is remarkable that four teams with different routes all managed to get within 10 minutes of each other.

greatkingrat wrote:It is remarkable that four teams with different routes all managed to get within 10 minutes of each other.

Absolutely! Takes the sting out of being the slowest completion of the day.

I think if the District hadn't been playing up at the end, 17 hours 10 minutes or even a sub 16 hour time could have been on the tables for are team.

Well done to Hopeful Traveler who probably becomes one of the youngest people to have completed the challenge.

Yep, I did indeed not use the "facilities" once between Chesham and Heathrow Terminal 5.

I second FART being an annual event if KenO exbo still run.

There would appear to be another attempt, a day late, happening today. See Twitter @ian_imrie and @IanMcIntyre74

Does anybody know these two?

A couple of other remarks about our day-

a couple of people recognised what we were doing. One (coming down the Bakerloo) said that he had an attempt a while back- it seemed like a pretty casual attempt as he said he went down to West Croydon on the Overground! Other one was coming up to Earls Court on the district.

Also- a massive thanks to Rhys' dad for giving me a lift to Harrow and Wealdstone, I made the 0050 train very nicely and probably saved an hour of waiting for the 0150!

No - Tractakid pointed me to their twitter feeds earlier today though.

Well done to all the teams on making it such a closely fought and competitive day...

Echo what has been said about making this an annual event and although I was sweat drenched most of the day hopefully we will have similar temperatures again....

Like Andrew we became very dehydrated and had to go several hours without water, eventually having 1 min to quickly grab a bottle each at in the middle of the afternoon and then again not until after 10pm...
I also was struggling on the "dreaded run" due to the need for a comfort break and had to stop half way (we still made the train)

Well as for a day itself a PB was only slightly pleasing as sub 17 hours looked a certainty until very late on and I was still logging in hope of a GWR at 9pm
We had a couple of routes depending on how the start went but due to a late train into Ealing Broadway we were behind both of them fairly early on....... However a brilliant Upminster and back with gut busting runs to make immediate connections and then another external sprint saw us on a route in-between the two that we had

So from late morning onwards the whole route was on "the fly" re-working sections to fit in as best as possible with the "pinch points"

We were on schedule to get a great Ken Oly but Edgware Road seemed to go into meltdown with no trains going South and our driver just strolling down the platform to the cab after we should have departed......

This meant we had to leave the area with Ken Oly left until late in the day having no idea how we would hit it, as is turned out we had to run having just missed the departure from Earls Court and it was indeed rammed with Beer Festival Goers
All of this meant we went through Barons Court 3 times and I wonder if this a full network first?

We did a triple visit to BC too although you may well have done it before us

Iain wrote:One of our team took pictures - not sure about the time stamp - yesterday.

Btw I think the rest of my team would have been quicker if I hadn't slowed them up, so big thanks to them for waiting and I will get fitter.

The inaugural "Bladder of Steel" award goes to Glen and Rhys for not needing to pee once during the challenge - unless of course anyone can beat that

in most of my attempts i actually dont do this need to go toilet

Going Underground wrote:Well done to all the teams on making it such a closely fought and competitive day...

yes many congratulations all took part especially rhys for first completion iain for struglling with numerours injuries and kevin for joining the club