tractakid's third go 13/08/12

[palkanetoijala31]

just made a tactical brilliant switch from an h&w to overground at queens pk

[palkanetoijala31]

new member fnc club soon to be announced estimated arrival time 23:13

[tractakid]

I have completed, T4 to Chesham, in a time of 18:10:00 exactly. So happy. Huge thanks to Andi for his generosity, encouragement and expertise! No thanks to Chiswick Park or Olympia. Now, I go home and sleep.

[RobbieM]

Well done! Another one joins the FNC ranks! Take the day off tomorrow...

[The Raven]

Well done! Congratulations!

[Going Underground]

Caps off Andrew, its no longer about GWR it's the completion that counts and I bet you feel GREAT!!!!

[Sam]

its no longer about GWR it's the completion that counts

Speak for yourself

Well done though Andrew *no disrespect meant to you*

[Nigel]

Congratulations. I've added your completion to the list of times in the top times section.

[palkanetoijala31]

well im sure Andrew will write his own attempt up in due course i add the following amusing incidents.

Stanmore missing a db told him i go out station and watch bus 142 it comes along shout get out here now (hampered by his ticket all day getting out of barriers) the driver kindly waited for andrew in what seemed like ages to get across road then as departing bus smacks his head going down the stairs .

Snaresbrook running behind him run! bus theres no bus (yes there is) i can see it took him on a nice trip around the whipps cross hospital and all the back street of walthamstow despite me telling him to get off at certain points.

Cockfosters not being fast enough to collect the 307 that i was on got off but driver would not wait 30s.

West harrow to North harrow made him run he knew he had 12mins for it but i pushed him to under 10m for that run!que heavy breathing!

Nice guy who opened the doors on the watford train so we could just run through!

An actual mistake by myself not waiting for the 93 bus passed us half way on road towards morden rd (i would have got at morden rd bus stop myself as i was waiting there!)

realising that the Central line timetable was all buggered up so managed to make an aldgate db to lose some time and pick up a non run later!

not realising that the ken o trians were over 36 mins late info could have be used to go down to richmond and take that out instead!

[tractakid]

Here's my report. I don't usually like to be secretive about routes, but since Andi had a big part in both the route and adaptations, I will respect his request not to share it. (unless he gives me permission)

It was a T4 start and a Chesham finish. The Heathrow loop was quick, and I think the T5 train to central London was also fairly nippy. The first run of the day (to Olympia) went well, Andi really did provide great motivation which got me going quicker than I would have done solo. Who knows if we'd have made the 06:06, it simply wasn't there, and we had one of the longest waits of the day, until the first Olympia train of the day arrived at 06:25. This obviously put us behind, and we had to cope with later connections later on.

The other 2 of the big 3 were done without massive waits, but as Andi said the WvH train was only a short wait because I had time to double back Aldgate.

For the extremities, a remarkable number of buses were caught, some better than others. Wimbo was done on the 93, Andi reckoned the Tram would be better which meant the first 93 went by (as I was hobbling quickly between bus stops) which meant that as the tram was 8 minutes away, the 2nd bus was better than the tram. It was a shame we didn't catch the first 93 by waiting just a little while at the station.

Cockfosters to High Barnet, very frustratingly just missed a 307, I was perhaps 20 seconds too late. Ended up running bus stop to bus stop and eventually caught a 184. Mill Hill East was an 8 minute wait.

I had to do the Harrow run in 12 minutes and succeeded. This was painful. At that point in the day I would rather have been in bed sleeping. Instead, Andi was being a slavedriver and telling me to get a move on!

Brixton DB was very nice

A support person would have been useful at Upminster, telling me to sprint for a train. By the time I worked out which one was first it had left. It would have been tight anyway though.

Watford DB was nice, Andi reckoned I shouldn't have made it. Nice guy opened the doors directly across the platform which was nice. Told him what I was doing.

Chiswick Park was second worst wait of the day (not necessarily longest), as a train that should have been in service wasn't, (passenger incident) and passed the station empty.

Andi getting ahead for Stanmore was great, he managed to get me straight on an Edgware bus! This was when I discovered that my ticket didn't let me through barriers, though it didn't cost me any trains. I had to crawl under the baggage flaps at Northwick Park, a lady in the office looked at me and I desperately shouted and showed that I DID have a ticket, and I was fine. My mate Seb had to do the same crawl-manoevre last attempt.

Epping DB was a little while, so I asked the ticket office lady if she could reprint my ticket. She said no. Sigh.

Central to Vic was done on the bus (!). Andi suggested Wood Street and the bus was perhaps seconds quicker, although my lack of knowledge meant that I could have made the bus time shorter by changing buses. Got stuck behind a lorry reversing into a goods entrance perpendicular to the street.

I was a bit lazy doing the Kenton and Ickenham runs, but I was shattered by that point.

Change at Chalfont for Chesham was tighter than I expected, I panicked when the trains arrived simultaneously, but there was in fact plenty of time.

Richmond could have been better, again a support person there may have been helpful, as I missed an Overground going out which would have been tight if I had have been able to dash straight for it. Then again, I may have missed it anyway.

Also, a remarkable number of trains were going to the destination I wanted! When I wanted a Richmond, H&W, Wimbleware, Uxbridge, Watford, Epping, Cockfosters, Charing Cross branch, they were all there. The exceptions were Aldgate, where an East train came first, WvH when it was a Hainault terminator first, Amersham (a Chesham train first), and the Bank branch which really isn't bad.

Andi was incredibly helpful- I appreciated his strategies, timing and door knowledge, his motivation (especially for Olympia and Harrow), his scouting, and the refills of water bottles


I very much enjoyed doing this again- even though I hate running! It was very satisfying to finally complete and I am proud to be a part of the full network club. Even if the time is below average, it is still good to see my name on the leaderboard. I would love to do more challenging in the future, both the full network and the alternatives, but I think it wise to stop spending quite so much money on train tickets for a while!

[palkanetoijala31]

and i think it proves that 1-9 zone ticket doesnt work well with the ticket machines i had 1-6 zone ticket which perfectly all day.All in all i actually made 1 mistake on that day and that was not waiting for the bus at morden for me it was academic i would have been at morden rd as it went by but i could have caught the tram and had my fastest ever connection between the 2.

As this effort has proved u can be reasonably fast and all my routing strategies came up with his final time exact to what i predicted for him its just a shame we didnt know about the ken o situation as we could have got richmond doen and out of way before heading there.

[geofftech]

trains

[tractakid]

Oh yeah- one other thing, I made full use of the mother of all tickets- visited all 270 Underground stations and then went home via Watford Junction!



I reckon it stopped working due to getting too wet from sweat in my pocket.

[Starkey7]

Tractakid, I'm wondering what would happen if you split your ticket at Harrow and Wealdstone instead. It might be cheaper.

[tractakid]

Zones 1-9 = £19.60
Zones 1-9 + Watford Junction = £20.20

Single from Watford Junction = £14.80
Single from Harrow & Wealdstone = £16.60

Splitting at Watford Junction = £35
Splitting at Harrow & Wealdstone = £36.20

if I understand you correctly?