tractakid's fourth go 22/02/13

[tractakid]

Immensely happy... 17:38:06... Massive thanks to everyone, write up tomorrow

[Nigel]

Well done! I've updated the top times page. If your sister and friend also want to be named there, please let me have their names.

[Going Underground]

Brilliant result well done

[tractakid]

My Sister is called Rachel (Chilcraft), and our friend is called Ethan Brazell. It was great to go round with them, and it's great to have 2 more names in the 270 club

[RobbieM]

Well done. My 18:41:48 of old seems positively snail-paced these days...

[Nigel]

My Sister is called Rachel (Chilcraft), and our friend is called Ethan Brazell. It was great to go round with them, and it's great to have 2 more names in the 270 club

Thanks - added them to the top times list.

[tubeguru]

Well done. My 18:41:48 of old seems positively snail-paced these days...

Geoff and I went faster than that when there were 275 stations!

[RobbieM]

Well done. My 18:41:48 of old seems positively snail-paced these days...

Geoff and I went faster than that when there were 275 stations!

Show off! Anyway, I bet you can't go around the world in under eleven minutes ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0tUJ0W_18k.

[RobbieM]

Anyhow (at risk of veering off-topic), a very well-done once again to Andrew, Rachel and Ethan. We look forward to reading your write-up of the day.

It does make me want to get out and have another go at the challenge again sometime. Though as my leg’s not in a fit state for running at the moment, I don’t know when I’ll be able to do so. But I love reading about everyone else’s attempts – very entertaining and informative! Keep it up, folks!

[tractakid]

Right, sorry it's late... here's the writeup.

Out on the big one again... here’s how it went...

Well, the mistake at Chalfont was comically bad. (straight back to Chesham...) The whole schedule was now only useful as a 'what might have been' tool. We still used the route, and the benefit of making a mistake at this stage is that you can restart the stopwatch. So, a 06:28 start. Should still get a completion, right? Plenty of time.

First delay was at Watford, held due to problems 15 miles away at Kings Cross. 10 minutes wait.

I loved being armed with a bus countdown app. It is pretty accurate, and saved running and getting stranded between bus stops. We used the info to know that we should wait for a nearby H9 from West Harrow to Rayners Lane. We then knew that, after turning round at Uxbridge, the U1 would be tight... it was perfect. Coming down the central I used the time to try and work out the next WvH train, unsuccessfully. No signal past White City, and no sign on the next departure boards, we took a risk on the Aldgate db to save running it later. It was a risk, also considering the problems at Kings Cross earlier, but despite the first train at Liverpool Street being for Barking, it was a good turn around. Going back down to the central line I caused myself some worry though- Ethan and Rachel got stuck behind people and lost sight of me, so after I had descended the escalator I had to go back up the escalator to find them. On return to the central line platforms, how does the Woodford train look? First train was for Epping, but our answer came from the boards at Mile End, the next one was 2 trains (5 minutes) behind. Result. The one in between was for Hainault so we went as far as Fairlop on it.

My biggest mistake was failing to get the Victoria line connection right. Through absent mindedness I forgot to check the GOBLIN timings in time, which, with hindsight, was much better than risking a Wood Street connection. We ended up, stupidly, stuck on the W12 for the whole connection. You’d have thought I’d remember last time...
Something to look forward to, however, was the company of Iain from Warren Street. He waited for us on the platform, and joined us for the next leg of our journey, until we reached Morden. Great to have some extra company. Iain ended up joining us for the boring trek out to Upminster, witnessing our very efficient change for our c2c train.

Iain left us as we confirmed we got the 93 bus from Morden. This bus just wasn’t quite fast enough. We missed the district we needed to board to connect to our Olympia train. So, plan B was initiated... Get the Overground train from West Brompton, to get the Exhibition service back to Earls. It was cooler than that though, it wasn’t an Overground train we boarded, but the southern destined for Milton Keynes. This provided an opportunity for Rachel to say ‘can we just stay on this train a bit longer...’ No, sorry! A 10 minute wait at Olympia provided a loo break.

Massive thanks to Rachel back at Earls Court though, holding the door on our Ealing Broadway train rather than the Wimbledon train I was looking on trying to work out where it was going! I held a door for them too, though, at Sloane Square.

Rhys the hopeful traveller joined us next, after our West Acton run. He rescued me and Ethan from the toilet to ensure we made the train! Saviour already! Lol Thank you for your help and company, your geekiness is outstanding He stayed with us until our first visit to Baker Street.

Harrow and Wealdstone was bad. We waited 10 minutes to turn around. There was no Bakerloo line train waiting, so we assumed we'd be departing on the same one. Turns out we had to wait ages for the next Overground to arrive. It was fairly amusing seeing Rachel disliking the Pendolinos zooming past on the fast platforms, though.
Mine and Rachel’s mum was with Ethans mum in London that day, and they attempted to bring us all hot food at Warren Street. We got there first, however, so we had to wait longer! Our Edgware train was on the platform! Unfortunately I was too busy trying to work out a new meeting point to notice a cross platform train at Golders Green which left first. Oh well. Across to Canons Park, coming down the Jubilee ready for our (still!) hot pasties at Baker Street. Annoyingly missed the first train out of Stanmore because I misread the sign. The mums were waiting on the Jubilee platform, and made the connection with us, just, so got a small taste of what we’d been doing all day. They alighted at Euston Square to go home.

We had a great MHE, my best ever. Only 3 minutes. We had to wait a while for our 307 bus at High Barnet though, which was annoying. It was getting late now, and we were starting to become anxious about making the last Ht4 train... would we have to swap the branches like GirlTube?
Our connection to Edgware Road was good, and this was when Iain was incredibly helpful. He had worked out all the scenarios for us to be able to complete, and after a discussion on the phone, heading towards Hammersmith, we decided to go for the slightly risky option of heading to Richmond first. That was, if we made the Richmond train. The timetable indicated 3 minutes.

Between Hammersmiths, I got over the road first, Rachel and Ethan had to wait a few more seconds while I agonisingly waited near the ticket barriers for them to get over the road. Once they knew where they were heading I dashed down to the platform, our train was there! We all made it, without the need to hold the door. It was close though, and the drama wasn’t over. We had to make a 1 minute turnaround at Richmond. If we did this, we were going to beat my previous time. If not, we had to somehow get over to Heathrow by train/bus (completely unfamiliar to me, but Iain was on hand to help) to finish at North Ealing. It was an amazing feeling when our train pulled in a few seconds early, and we made the cross platform connection with relative ease. There was enough time for a staff member to warn us we were heading back to where we came! I responded “Exactly!... we’re doing the tube challenge!” to which he seemed satisfied, no time to explain anyway!
Back to Turnham to get the last HT4 train, which I think was early, and didn’t hang around at T4 too long. This allowed us to finish in a time of 17:38:06, a little behind Iain and Glen’s best. Iain was surprised at how close it was!

Very happy to have finished, in a much better time than previously. We set the median time (at least until the next completion), and Rachel is now the second fastest female tube challenger, which I think is excellent! Both Rachel and Ethan were excellent throughout the day, they certainly outpaced me on the running sections and I am sure that if they had sufficient knowledge of the network they would be able to get a better time than me, should they want to. I’m not sure Rachel will ever do it again though!

Massive thanks to loads of people that helped... Iain and Rhys for visiting, Iain, Andi and Kev for helping with the route, schedule and doors etc beforehand, Glen for texting door positions to me as we were going round, support on twitter, my wonderful parents for picking up and dropping off, as well as the food, Rachel and Ethan for being fantastic all day, and to all the people that sponsored us, helping Rachel visit Uganda later this year.

And some videos...

Chesham... the first time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC-4dlo2SGo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llYq76u_sGM

Mill Hill East
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOU1Rx4c2gU

Photos are up on Facebook, if anyone that can't access them really wants to see them let me know. 'trains and tube challenging album' on my profile.

[Going Underground]

Good stuff and nice write up Andrew... Again very well done

[geofftech]

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