tubechallenge.com

Has Rush Hour tripped anybody up during an FNC. I'm thinking of not being able to get the first train, not even being able to get into the station, long waits at stations etc.

Even what it's like doing your admin when you stop at a station and you're tube carriage is an eight or above on the Geoff scale

i think its about rushing / pushing / forcing your way to the front

I have no idea what "the Geoff scale" is, but again, this all comes as part of the planning....why plan to be on a train that you suspect will be busy in the heart of rush hour?

Geoff did a video on YT where he rated how 'busy' a tube carriage was. A 1 rating was completely empty, whereas a 10 was completely packed.

As for trying to avoid rush hour is that actually possible. Given that you are trying to visit all 270 stations in one operating day at some point you will be on a rush hour train

It's like when Matthew Ahn said on his NY Rapid Transit Challenge video, 'service is infrequent late at night so you must avoid those times'. But his challenge lasted about 21 hours so again he can't 'avoid' it either surely

jrparkin wrote: ↑16 Oct 2020, 10:06 As for trying to avoid rush hour is that actually possible. Given that you are trying to visit all 270 stations in one operating day at some point you will be on a rush hour train

Does one not think there is a world of difference between being on a train in rush hour between (say) Chesham and Chalfont & Latimer vs one between (say) Bank and Liverpool Street?

Yes of course. But my FNC experience is zero because I've never done it before. However given that (when I eventually do it in 12-18 months time) it's likely to take me nineteen hours to do - the majority of which will be on a tube train, I'm expecting to hit a busy spot at some point

Right then, since you ask...

In the one FNC I did I was tripped up by rush hour - twice!

In the morning we arrived at Aldgate on platform 4 on a Circle line train from Tower Hill. We were getting ready to run up the stairs and down the road to Aldgate East, only to find that a Met line train packed with commuters had pulled in on platform 3 about 30 seconds before. Needless to say, we didn't make our planned Upminster train.

By late afternoon we were exactly one hour behind schedule, heading for Mill Hill East. We were were timetabled for a perfect connection on the original plan so I thought that this would be the case an hour later. But at peak times there are more train on the branch and so, ironically, we ended up with a 10 minute wait.

Oh, and once we'd been to MHE and got back to Finchley Central, we came in on platform 3, not 1, and didn't make it over the bridge in time for the High Barnet train that was waiting. Cue a further wait of 8 minutes...

Off the tube, it can be even more of a problem. Attempting a bus link between High Barnet and Southgate/Cockfosters or between Canons Park/Stanmore and Edgware can be a nightmare in rush hour.

I remember getting a 384 at school turning out time, which really added to the time it took.