18 hours 35 minutes...

[Nutteronabus]

Good god!


Well done to you, there!

[geofftech]

Quite clearly then something like 18 hours and 10 or 15 minutes is possible on a 'perfect' day. We had our issues with Mill Hill East - you had your issues with Epping/Woodford (doesn't everyone), and yet you got the time as good as ours, -5 seconds! But someone, sometime, out there, surely .. one day will get a good day when it all works and shave 20/25/30 minutes off of that time.

Not dissing your time ... although I'm sure Guinness will be very careful to check your stop watches and official clock-watching people!

[CrunchySaviour]

Blimey!

Congratulations!

Still, to me, beating this record is is not so daunting a task as beating a completely smashed G&N record would have been....

... and 5 seconds is the difference between the moment the doors close and the moment the train moves anyway...

but that isn't the point. Such a fast time clearly deserves maximum respect. Awesome.

[tpfkar]

Many many congratulations again. That last 2 minutes into Upminster was agonising.

Thanks also for going public - you should have seen me and Ollie trying to keep quiet about it at the meetup this afternoon!

And like Crunchy Saviour said, at least the record isn't much more daunting now!

Could you PM me/give an address to send a witness statement to?

[moley]

Just think, if your first train left 1 minute later, you would still have made your first connection (I'm guessing) but broken it by an even bigger margin.

Now that begs the question regarding holding the doors on the first train........

[Sam]

Thanks for all the messages of congratulations! I'm walking like a 70 year old, but it was worth it! Also, the lack of sleep the night before didn't help!

Actually, we missed our first connection of the day, but managed to make up time during the day mainly due to a stunning connection regarding Mill Hill East.

Getting to Epping really was the low point of our day and was the point at which Steve decided we had no hope in hell of beating the record, but I kept faith (just )!

Anyway, I think it is definitely possible to knock at least half an hour of the record, if not more!

Ric, did you not leave a stop watch statement with Ollie?

[TheFatBuoy]

My belated congrats to Sam + Steve - well done guys!

Not much opportunity left to do the challenge in its existing form really - Shoreditch closes next Friday - a while until T4's open again - Regent's Park closing soon (map says from June 2006 - is that as of today?) making the Great Portland Street to Regents Park on-foot connection impossible.

Until then, there's no real benchmark to work against, because various closures mean that things will constantly be changing. Still worth having a crack at, though, and again - well done to Sam + Steve! I fully intend to snatch the record from you at some point

[tubeguru]

Well, Geoff and I can't be disappointed - we held it for just over two years.

But I'l be back

[dr_chris]

Dear Monkeys,

My many congratulations to you, even though I assert that you are both bastards and would've failed miserably had I not provided you with lunch and my highly amusing company!

I maintain that our route is definitely not perfect, and we can probably trim a few corners off here and there and do a smashing bit of work at a later date - besides, after doing three of the sods with you and helping you out for this one, I want my own little certificate!

I wish now i'd been with you - when you consider I spent 3 quite boring hours on my arse in a lecture theatre listening to hustings after I left you...

Incidentally I never mentioned the driver on the Northern Line to you as I was going home - changed at London Bridge, went down to the southbound NL platform, train came in (platform was rather packed) and as it set off a voice came over the PA...

'Once again, ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have LEMMINGS on this train who don't quite understand what 'mind the doors' means. Let me reiterate. When I say mind the doors, this means that the train is about to leave. We expect people trying to get onto the train to get on, as well as people trying to get off to get off. Then you can all get out of the way of the doors, I can close them and get moving, and this allows us to run what we call a SERVICE. When selfish morons decide to stand in the way of the closing doors, it delays this train meaning it takes you all longer to get home, and the train behind me meaning that all of them get delayed and get annoyed too. We would be able to run a much smoother service if it weren't for selfish idiots blocking the doors at rush hour. We are now arriving in Borough, let's see if you can remember everything I just told you.'

Most enjoyable - have a pleasant day!

Love

Chris (God)

[Sam]

Thanks Chris, I still blame you for all the trouble we had at Woodford/Epping, and I always will do
I also blame you for our previous failed attempts, because without you, it worked (messing )

As for that announcement, that is quality, wish more train drivers were that happy!

[spoogie37]

Congratulations to Steve and Sam! My theoretical time is 18:03 so in theory ... but bus and back to Shoreditch would screw that up.

My best train announcement was on a Thames Train (now First Great Western) coming into Basingstoke. The content was simple enough "We are now approaching Basingstoke where this train terminates" - but the way he said it implied that what he wanted to say next was "and now I am going to slash my wrists"

[geofftech]

moley - er, surely you mean a minute LATER! if it had left a minute earlier, it would have added to the time, and they would have missed out on the records time by 55 seconds!

[moley]

That's what I said!

[tubeguru]

He did you know.

[TheFatBuoy]

Yeah. What they said. I scrolled up and had a look, scrolled back down. Then back up to check it hadn't been edited. Then thought about posting. Then didn't.