Anyway – same start as last time, taking out Ken O early. It worked beautifully, with the Picc speeding along like Usain Bolt, which was a relief as it had been looking very iffy right up until late the day before. I think I switched to an earlier District train at Hammersmith, as it got to West Ken a few minutes earlier. With Glen we’d discussed switching to a District at Acton Town which I think was the train behind the one we wanted, and I did consider this on this run – as I think the Picc train was ahead enough that this was the right District train, so I could take out the District stations and still get to West Ken on time for a ten minute run to Ken O. If it ran okay. I decided not to gamble, and ended up with about 14 minutes for a run that takes considerably less than that. I did vaguely think that if I was a bit faster, I could make the 6:06!
Once again the train was held on the way into Earl’s Court. Twice. So I missed my early connection to switch up to the Central for a Hainault loop train. No problem – the next train would do fine, if it turned up. Which it didn’t. Unless it was seven minutes late. No info via announcement or DMI, just a missing train. So, that was my Loop train missed, which threw out my next section. I decided to kill time doing a few double backs, but in the end I only got one done, as I had not checked enough on the timetable to do a double back to Aldgate, and I decided it was too risky.
Anyway, with a smallish wait for five minutes, I was essentially twenty minutes down and on the next loop train. It was going great, and looked like it made a nice connection to the Vic line…until there was a signal failure. To his credit the driver kept telling us about it while we waited for 10-12 minutes just short of Fairlop, although he had no new information, just that we would be “on our way shortly”. “Shortly” is an annoying word, which means nothing really, and I grew increasingly annoyed each time it was used. There were further holds, and that bumped things up to forty minutes or so down. This started to get nasty, as with some delays around Epping due to a failed train (hey the stats show the network is running better, right?) it meant that I would have about seven minutes to get from Snaresbrook to Wood Street. If I was ******** and knew Professor Brian Cox, I could probably create a wormhole and suddenly emerge on the platform five seconds later, but I’m not so that put me fifteen more minutes down. I contemplated running to Walthamstow Central, but figured that was unlikely to get there any earlier than the next Wood Street train. Then…as I passed the first bus stop, a W12 appeared. The timetable said it took 14 minutes to Walthamstow Central, which would gain me some time back.
If Dr Gregory House was a tube challenger, he’d tell you that timetables lie. They do. In spite of a fast sounding name (the “2” looks a bit like a “Z”), House would probably diagnose a bad case of bradykinesia. To be fair, the first bit was good, and I might have made time if I’d decided to run to Walthamstow from just before where it turned off down to Whipps Cross Hospital. Too much of the route is in narrow, car crowded roads and the bus struggled with them like a six foot ten man in a school with primary kid sized furniture. It ended up taking nearly double the advertised time. I guess I should have researched it better, but that’s a lesson learnt. So – four hours or so into the day, and already an hour down. I contemplated bailing, but decided that a time just over 18 hours, while not great, was still nearly an hour inside my current best, and decided to try a few ideas I’d thought about but never tried. It actually worked well, and in spite of quite a few near misses (it seemed to be the story of the rest of the day), but since I was doing things completely off a planned route I had no idea how I was doing. In no particular order:
- I just missed a 307 from High Barnet – if it had stopped at the stop (it’s not a request so it should surely?) I’d have made it, but in spite of my frantic waving it sailed on past. The next scheduled one wasn’t for ages, but then a 384 arrived. The timetable said 19 minutes to Cockfosters. That sounded better than the 307 that was still a long way away. This is an interesting bus, where the drivers seem to be undertaking their own version of tube challenging, called A-Z challenge, visiting every single street in London on the way. Still – it got there at the advertised time.
- I got a U1 at West Ruislip. All the way to Uxbridge. This worked nicely, as I’d managed to arrive at West Ruislip at a time when I couldn’t make Ickenham in time and then there was a twelve minute gap, meaning that the bus got to Uxbridge first. Nice.
- Running wasn’t going that well. It wasn’t bad, but my legs felt tired from the start (possibly due to a lot of walking the day before).
- I was glad I’d done a full scout at King’s Cross so I could now speedily do the lines from there in any order. This worked a treat, and I judged the train up to High Barnet perfectly so I got a 30 second changed to the MHE train. I guess this could just as easily have gone badly wrong.
- The bus at Canons Park turned up perfectly, and made good time
- Another two signal failures somewhere in there and partial line suspensions. The suspensions didn’t seem to hit me much but the signal failures cost a few minutes here and there
Another narrow miss at Hammersmith, but that only cost a couple of minutes. Down to Wimbledon – no tram, checked for a train even though one wasn’t scheduled (wish I hadn’t now) and then out to the buses. There’s some construction work going on outside or I’d have made a bus to South Wimbledon. Still – two minutes later and another one came along. This again was something new, but it only took a few minutes and so I figured a double back to Morden should actually gain time. I’m still not sure how it didn’t. Anyway, I didn’t lose time, so still on target for an 18 hour finish. All looking good up to Victoria, and so it was still on once I was on the District line. And then…another failed train, a couple ahead of us. Cue a long wait, then trains crawling along (but still good service on the District line apparently). Add to that a strange man sitting behind me who seemed to have bad wind, and every ten seconds or so would let out a stifled burp, sounding like one of those cats that make a low growling sound. That took me to 75 minutes down, and it looked likely to get worse. I bailed at West Ham, although I’d made the decision a couple of stops earlier, I just figured that was the easiest way home.
So – three signal failures, two lines partly suspended, one disappearing train. Not a good day at the office, but to be fair apart from that first few hours I managed to stay on course for a big chunk of the day. I’m looking forward to another try but I’m getting frustrated by being thwarted by things outside of my control.
Then - to add insult to injury, half the departure board at Victoria was covered in "Delayed" messages. Grrrr!
